SIP thread -- (Sub-Irrigated Planter)
- Thread starter Humanrob
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paraordnance
Well-Known Member
I have a question to the experts in regards to SIP and water roots growing in the water holding reservoir.
Organic, no-till soil, no nutes, nothing just plain not ph water, as is from tap (around 8 ph). I add about 2.5 gal of water once per week and that is all they get. 45 days in veg so far.
I use 10 gal smart fabric pots which sit on top of Rubbermaid tote filled with perforated drain pipe snaked at the bottom of the tote and perlite on top. The corrugated plastic pipe (same one used for drainage around foundations) is there to increase volume of the water available and reduce amount of perlite needed. So far it worked stellar as my plants exploded with healthy growth and no deficiencies showing.
I just looked inside of the corrugated pipe and one of the reservoirs has a chunk of roots growing there. They look white and healthy but for how long? I'm just about to flip the switch as 2 plants almost completely filled 2x4 tent with beautifully smelling og kush from Doc.
I know in dwc you have to periodically empty and clean reservoir in order to avoid root rot. I can't move plants as they under scrog net. Harvest is about 70 days from now. Will my roots stay healthy there inside of the pipe or should I reach inside with my hand and pull them out?
Organic, no-till soil, no nutes, nothing just plain not ph water, as is from tap (around 8 ph). I add about 2.5 gal of water once per week and that is all they get. 45 days in veg so far.
I use 10 gal smart fabric pots which sit on top of Rubbermaid tote filled with perforated drain pipe snaked at the bottom of the tote and perlite on top. The corrugated plastic pipe (same one used for drainage around foundations) is there to increase volume of the water available and reduce amount of perlite needed. So far it worked stellar as my plants exploded with healthy growth and no deficiencies showing.
I just looked inside of the corrugated pipe and one of the reservoirs has a chunk of roots growing there. They look white and healthy but for how long? I'm just about to flip the switch as 2 plants almost completely filled 2x4 tent with beautifully smelling og kush from Doc.
I know in dwc you have to periodically empty and clean reservoir in order to avoid root rot. I can't move plants as they under scrog net. Harvest is about 70 days from now. Will my roots stay healthy there inside of the pipe or should I reach inside with my hand and pull them out?
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
I feel like you did a decent job of describing your system... and yet I can't seem to picture it. Do you have any pictures of it that you can post?
It sounds like you have a rubbermaid bin for the res, and a fabric pot sitting on top of it... so I'm guessing you have a wick connecting the two? If that's the case, I don't understand why you snaked a pipe in the res? There is another design (briefly) where people put drain pipe in the bottom of a tote to trap water, then put down some weed barrier or other fabric, and then put soil on top of that -- but that all happens in the tote without the fabric pot (which you've mentioned). So... like I said, I can't make any suggestions because I can't picture what you're working with.
It sounds like you have a rubbermaid bin for the res, and a fabric pot sitting on top of it... so I'm guessing you have a wick connecting the two? If that's the case, I don't understand why you snaked a pipe in the res? There is another design (briefly) where people put drain pipe in the bottom of a tote to trap water, then put down some weed barrier or other fabric, and then put soil on top of that -- but that all happens in the tote without the fabric pot (which you've mentioned). So... like I said, I can't make any suggestions because I can't picture what you're working with.
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paraordnance
Well-Known Member
Not at home right now to snap picture but you got it right. The Rubbermaid Roughneck (10 gal) plastic tote is only 8" high as I'm limited to 5 feet from floor to ceiling. At the bottom of that tote I zigzagged 4" corrugated plastic drainage pipe and filled with perlite to the top of the bin. The pipe is completely under perlite, only two opposite ends of a pipe are sticking out so I can easily add water with funnel. Perlite does all the wicking to my fabric pots sitting on top. There is a weed blocker between pots and perlite.
One of the pipes wrapped in sock (look up Mole-pipe brand in google images) and the roots can't get inside because of the sock. The second plant grows in identical set up but no sock over the Mole-pipe and roots sneaked inside. They just sitting in plain water. Water is not stagnant as I top it up once a week.
But I'm worried they can start to rot in there in next 2 months. I can reach and rip the roots out but that will certainly hurt the plant as I will lose may be 10% of root mass (the rest of roots inside the fabric pots are in the soil)
I guess to clear it up, my roots grew somehow through fabric pot (Geo pot brand), through perlite, and ended up where I did not expected them - corrugated pipe at the very bottom of my set up
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paraordnance
Well-Known Member
I will take pictures once I get home
Photon Flinger
Well-Known Member
Just let it dry out if you are worried, then water next when they are drooping as it should be a while.
When it is dry, the roots will grow out searching for water and prevent the rot. Since you are going into flower, you should only have to do it 2-3 times to avoid any issues.
Also, if you uses mykos and other benes, they will keep rot at bay. The stuff is like yogurt for us.
When it is dry, the roots will grow out searching for water and prevent the rot. Since you are going into flower, you should only have to do it 2-3 times to avoid any issues.
Also, if you uses mykos and other benes, they will keep rot at bay. The stuff is like yogurt for us.
paraordnance
Well-Known Member
Is this considered normal practice to dry up sip? Will it start wicking again as soon as I add water? And yes, I used mykos when transplanted so perhaps I should not worry much at all?
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Thanks for clarifying. That setup sounds like there is no "air gap" between the water and the soil, so its more in line with "hempy bucket" growing. If that's the case I'm not familiar with those, but others might have some suggestions.
Photon Flinger
Well-Known Member
Mine do. Especially if you got a mykos colony. If you do have a good colony, yeah don't worry.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
I go back and forth on scrogs (and SIPs for that matter). I used one for my very first grow several years ago, after reading about techniques to increase yield and being fixated on maximizing output. I'm at the point now where it's not difficult to grow enough to meet our needs, and I'm looking for simpler ways to grow. The bottom line is that I'm headed in a similar direction, at least in my 3x3 tent. The scrog I have going in there now is the first and last I'll do in that tent. The access is just too limited.
In the 2x4 the reach to the back is significantly easier, and the tent is taller. I will probably continue to use a net in that tent to spread out and support the branches -- but I probably won't do any more intense scrog training where I'm flattening out the plant. The 2x4 is a good platform to grow two good sized plants side by side, so I can veg a little longer there. Once plants reach a certain size, branch support seems to become necessary. The 3x3 works well for 4 smaller plants, or even 9 small plants -- but to do that I need to be able to remove them to access the ones in the back, so scrogs/nets don't work for that at all.
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I can see how a rectangular space like a 2x4 is optimum for SCROG. Like you said you can reach back and do plant maintenance easily and have all the plants side by side. I agree it seems like four smaller plants with the ability to move them and remove them from a 3x3 area is optimum. I noticed with my SCROG is I had lots of smaller bud tops, but below the tops the colas didn't bulk out very well because they were a bit crowded and didn't have optimum light. I think I would much rather have less colas but have the entire cola fully develop. Plus, similar to you, I don't need to maximize my harvest but I'm much more concerned with flower quality. I was concerned the plants would stretch too much for the height of my space, but I think having a short veg. would remedy this a bit and I did seem to have vertical space for additional stretch. The great thing about the Autopot is I can remove it from the reservoir tray, so I think this will encourage me to go with four pots in the 3x3.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
I have lost track of how many grows I've done, but from my experience I've never gotten really big colas with SIPs... but I've never grown in SIPs without a SCROG, and plants in SIPs grow so fast that I've had to cut the veg times shorter pretty much every time because the screen fills too quickly. I think this contributes to the smaller buds, because every time I've gotten larger buds, I've vegged for a longer time.
I've also never grown the same strain twice, and never grown in the exact same pot size, under the same lights, vegging for the same amount of time -- for more than one run. Which all destroys having any real points of comparison. It's more like I'm slowly amassing an accumulation of individual reference points that are starting to morph into a kind of intuition about what works and what doesn't. Which so far is sometimes accurate, and sometimes isn't, but I think it's getting a little better with each grow...
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
Nice. Yeah, that's about the size I'm getting. I'm looking forward to seeing how the quality is. If it turns out tasty then I'll be happy.
frankslan
Well-Known Member
shit I cracked my sip containers trying to clean up from a foliar spray... I got too aggressive trying to get the towel under the pots. Also possible that the container just didnt hold up but I thought it was just from the sprays dripping and getting under the pots hard to say for sure.
So The soil should be pretty moist how long do you think I can go without watering Im in 50 gal totes. My plan is to let them get dry give them like 4 days or so then just give them like a gal hopefully they suck it up really fast and not too much drips out.
I only have a few more weeks to go on these plants. Im in a 4 by 4 full scrog I think they were drinking about a gal a day at least but Im sure the soil will stay moist a lot longer than that. Thats at peak saturation.
Of course I can water from the top but I have the tops completely sealed off and sticky foot layed down on top of it. I could pull the fill tube up and then jam it right into the middle of the soil or something. or just poke my sprayer in there and let it rip for a while.
I can see some of the cracks but I bet there's more than the ones I can see.
So The soil should be pretty moist how long do you think I can go without watering Im in 50 gal totes. My plan is to let them get dry give them like 4 days or so then just give them like a gal hopefully they suck it up really fast and not too much drips out.
I only have a few more weeks to go on these plants. Im in a 4 by 4 full scrog I think they were drinking about a gal a day at least but Im sure the soil will stay moist a lot longer than that. Thats at peak saturation.
Of course I can water from the top but I have the tops completely sealed off and sticky foot layed down on top of it. I could pull the fill tube up and then jam it right into the middle of the soil or something. or just poke my sprayer in there and let it rip for a while.
I can see some of the cracks but I bet there's more than the ones I can see.
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
Here is a look at the root balls from the modified Autopot SIP about a week after the chop. It's interesting to see the roots really didn't grow down into the reservoir past the air gap or really through the wick. But, the root mass in the soil is pretty robust throughout the entire pot. Before the modifications the roots all grew in a mass at the bottom of the pot.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
If the water wasn't aerated I'd expect to see these results. Aerated water gets more roots in it.
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
Hmm, weird. I used a couple airstones in my large remote reservoir. Although there weren't any airstones at the bottom of the pot. Not sure if it means much but figured I'd share the observation.