Hyroot's Garden

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GroErr

GroErr

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Humanrob said:
This is interesting, and I look forward to hearing the results. Its my understanding that the roots making their way down the wick and into the res (becoming "water roots") is what makes this system so powerful, a true hydro/soil hybrid. By closing that off, you will only be getting the other benefit of SIPs, the self-watering aspect. Maybe that's all you're after, I was after more.
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Yeah my goal from the time I saw them was to use them for self-watering only. I like growing and the hands-on watering but I'd like a simple/quick system to setup when I'm going away for more than 2-3 days. I've used and have drip systems available but they're a pain in the ass for temp setups.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

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Evil-Mobo said:
As my plants grew bigger in the SIP's I am adding about a gallon a day in total using the 5 gal setups. Kinda defeats the purpose of the system when you need to do this lol. I know I could water every other day but when my sight tube is empty it would make me nervous and I wouldn't want the plant to dry out so I'd add water.

So what's the intermediary setup between the 5 gal and 18 gal I guess this would be the sweet spot huh......?
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This is an interesting issue with res size and shape. The wick needs to go pretty much to the bottom of the res, so when you do something like use a 5 gallon (paint) bucket and put a 10 gallon cloth pot on it, you need to make a really long wick. And for indoor growing, you need tall ceiling height. Since I'm in a tent, I'm going to try a 10gallon wide flat rubbermaid (same footprint and lid size as the 18 gallon, just shorter) and put a 5 gallon cloth pot over it. Because its so shallow, I can probably use a hydro(?) basket for the wick. Here's a pick of one, its not built, I just placed the pot there.
next_sip-5over10.jpg
Lots of advantages to this design, like not having to put the fill tube through the soil, and having space to put a window of sorts on the lid so that you can see into the res. With this design I'll have the capacity for about twice the water, and about half the soil of my current set up. I'm OK with that.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

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hyroot said:
I want either a 3 gal resi like the earth boxes or a 5 gal resi like my 18 gals. My 5 gal builds only hold 1 1/2 gals. I'm watering every other day. It's rather tedious. My 18 gals get watered twice a week.
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My 14 gallon inside an 18 gallon holds about five gallons of water, and I end out adding about 3 gallons every 4 days (I finish week 5 of flower tomorrow, recently it went from every 5 days to every 4). My upper bins are not filled to the top with soil, I would guess there's about 10 gallons of soil in them. It will be interesting to reverse that, and go to 10 gallons of water and 5 gallons of soil. As @Evil-Mobo was saying, somewhere in there is a sweet spot ratio.
 
JorgeGonzales

JorgeGonzales

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This may have been mentioned already, but a lot of outdoor growers use one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Kerick-Valve-MA052-Float-Adjustable/dp/B0077RAP1I

Sometimes with one big reservoir, and a bucket/netpot combo sitting on top of it. Like multiple octopots on one res, whose level is kept constant by a float.

This is also clever:


Just stick bucket/netpot in the hole, and keep the level constant with a float.
 
Tim Fox

Tim Fox

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hyroot said:
I want either a 3 gal resi like the earth boxes or a 5 gal resi like my 18 gals. My 5 gal builds only hold 1 1/2 gals. I'm watering every other day. It's rather tedious. My 18 gals get watered twice a week.
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you just made my day,,,, right now my earthbox is outside with tomato plants in them,, lol,,,
the earthbox is really short at only 11 inches, and 3 gallon res, fits in my box perfect,, enjoying watching everyone else using sips ,,
 
hyroot

hyroot

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So the person I learned about sips from, the sips with air stones he's been adding compost tea's to the resi's. His outdoor sips don't have air stones and he's been adding labs to the sips without airstones.
You don't want to aerate labs at all. All very successful. He's now running 5 gal fabric pots on top of 5 gal buckets.
 
hyroot

hyroot

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Tim Fox said:
you just made my day,,,, right now my earthbox is outside with tomato plants in them,, lol,,,
the earthbox is really short at only 11 inches, and 3 gallon res, fits in my box perfect,, enjoying watching everyone else using sips ,,
Click to expand...

I'd rock all earth boxes if they didn't cost $33 each plus shipping. The only place local that sells them, had them for $59. I literally laughed in their face when they told me that price.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

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hyroot said:
So the person I learned about sips from, the sips with air stones he's been adding compost tea's to the resi's. His outdoor sips don't have air stones and he's been adding labs to the sips without airstones.
You don't want to aerate labs at all. All very successful. He's now running 5 gal fabric pots on top of 5 gal buckets.
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What are "labs"? I tried to do some searches, but all kinds of stuff from labrador retrievers to laboratories came up...

I've got Pond Zyme for my outdoor SIPs so far, and probably some Mosquito Bits. Still researching that aspect.
 
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Tim Fox

Tim Fox

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hyroot said:
I'd rock all earth boxes if they didn't cost $33 each plus shipping. The only place local that sells them, had them for $59. I literally laughed in their face when they told me that price.
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i completly agree with you, I searched and searched for some containers at home depot ect that were as short and I could stack to make my own sip,, but i kept coming back to the earthbox due to its size,, plus i just have the one grow box, so it was a one time purchase for my grow box, and its just right, sometimes money that is well spent is worth it, in this case i was happy,, i guess,, besides my wife kept harping on me to buy something for my easter gift,,
i do really like these fabric set ups, how tall do they end up?,,, i am guessing 17 inches maybe?,, the earth box is 11, i have about 4 foot of useable space in my grow box after fans and lights , everytime i can save 6 inches i try too,
 
JorgeGonzales

JorgeGonzales

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hyroot said:
I'd rock all earth boxes if they didn't cost $33 each plus shipping. The only place local that sells them, had them for $59. I literally laughed in their face when they told me that price.
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I wonder about Earthboxes vs fabric/air pruned sips. I made a couple outdoor veggie buckets with holes in them for air pruning, I should have done a side by side without the holes.

Transplanted this guy last night, very late in the season but my garden peppers got eaten by slugs or something, so hopefully the growth rate in the sip makes up for it :)

image.jpg
 
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