SIP appreciation thread

New England SIP here as well man, love them. Have been planning to make the switch to Swicks again so I can use these 20 gal pots.

Haggard

 

One less thing to worry about. Auto watering is the shit...

 

I used to run an SIP system and loved it. Now using Blumats which are great too. SIP's were great. It was the easiest crops Ive had.

 

The Blumat moisture meter is a game changer too. I can water before it gets dry still not over water. Love that thing

 

smartpots on a wick tray is by far the easiest to set up and maintain, imo. my only recommendation would be to not use perlite as the wicking media. not that it wont work but its so light every time you will move a pot perlite will start flying everywhere. i just didn't appreciate the mess and switched to lava rocks which stay in the tray even when you move things about.

 

When I was hanging around Grasscity back in 2011, the SIP's were all the rage. Gorrilla45 was growing HUGE monsters with them. It was a fad for a while. I'm actually surprised to not see them used as much around here anymore. I guess the Blumats are the in-thing now.

 

The whole bottom of my 3x3 tent is lava rock sip.


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I'm still running my same setup from back then. The only adaptation I did was the blumats when I got my new flower area. I plumbed the new area with a couple stock tanks. Now they SIP in veg, get hooked up to blumats and res drained in flower.

 

I found a layer of landscaping material between your pot and perlite really cuts down on the mess and algae growth.


I wonder if G is still using SIPs, I gotta and ask because he got monsters out of 5gals.

Haggard

 

IDK if blumats and SIP's are the same principal - ??? I too recall those huge G-monsters. The grow-bro had it dialed in that's for sure. If one can do without rotating their containers I think the blumats are great for a 7.5g and up IMO. I like to rotate mine so the blumats weren't easily manipulated. I'm going to try them again this flowering cycle and the heck with rotating. I think an evenly moist soil is much more desirable than rotating containers.

 

id say blumats and sips are similar in principal as they both regulate the soil hydration to a constant level via capillary action, only one does it from the top (blumat) and the other from the bottom (sip)

 

Fellow SIP'er here! My SIP method uses a tote (~13gal) as a water resevior. Inside that sits a 5gal pot filled to the brim with perlite, with holes drilled all around to let water in. My smart pot sits on top of the perlite bed. I only water once a week, and the plants couldn't be happier. Couldn't imagine growing any other way!

 

Can any capillary mat be used to deliver nutrients though the mat through smart pots? I want to use them till harvest with my advanced nutrients brand. I also want to try using net pots with coco and hydroton, (the type used in dwc).

 

Yes but I believe SIP trays may also offer another added benefit; oxygenating the water as it's pulled through the wicking substrate.

I couldn't continue my last implementation of giant SWICK trays due to the massive increase in humidity but I did recently revamp my garden to these sealed SIP trays before I left for a couple weeks. Seems to be about 3-4 days between watering, which now takes 5 minutes instead of an hour or more. More time to spend managing the plants instead of doing basic soil maintenance, which is always a plus.



75 gallon tubs on 3/4" plywood with 2" castor wheels...I would recommend 3" or more if you have the height, to make it easier to move while in use. I'd also advise to use enough geotextile fabric to cover the sides as well as the ends and bottom (separating the soil from the wicking material) so that you can use velcro straps instead of a trellis net/screen if you want and to somewhat emulate a smart pot inside a SIP tray.

Still have to put the screens in place, find some slip caps for the PVC fill tubes and get my mulch built back up but it's a decent point to start from.

 

So you basically put a layer of wicking media down, then draped the cloth inside the tub? And ran the pvc pipe down thru them?

Solo

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Can anyone tell me how waterpulse vortex mats are better than the usual cheap capillary mats anyone can use with something like blumat surface? I have a terraponic be and a blumat surface I have many net pots (the kind used in DWC) and fabric pots (smart pots), I figure if I get capillary mat then all I need is nutrients which I have and I should be all set right?

 

never heard of that but it looks like it uses its own water delivery system (what they call "vortex injection") and is probably why they would cost more, i dont think it will work with your surface blumat.
if you already have the surface blumats i would try with the cheap mats.

as for nutrients, thats another topic but if you use a good soil you can go with water only, no need for bottled nutes.