Never worry about watering again

TreeFiddy350

TreeFiddy350

Well-Known Member
So I have come to realization that I SUCK at watering. Either I over water or under water.
I was wondering if hydro would be a good way to go.
I was doing research and I came across irrigation systems, which led me to thinking about going hydroponics.
I know it is probably harder to judge how much water is needed for my plants due to them being in a large smart pot for their age.

Current set up:
4x plants in 5 Gal smart pots (I know I went to big. Def learned)
Soil- FFOF, Happy frog, and light warrior.
7.5 weeks old. Monday will be 8 weeks old.
1000w mh/ hps once I flip to flower.

Do you think it would be easier to water in smart pots? Say 3gal pots?

Do you think I should try another grow before I switch to something?

I feel like watering is the hardest part for me and figure that if I have something that gives it the right amount of water, my plants will be more amazing than they are.

Suggestions and advice please
 
onegreenthumb

onegreenthumb

Well-Known Member
I feel your pain I switch to hydro years ago ...the important thing is you find what works for you...it is very stressful for me when my plants are not healthy and reaching for the lights....if soil is not working for you I would say give hydro a try....the set up I go with can not overwater plants...hell you could circulate it all day if needed....I love big pots I use 30 gallon the growth is crazy fast..... and it is no secrete more healthy roots=more and better flowers
 
onegreenthumb

onegreenthumb

Well-Known Member
TreeFiddy350 said:
So I have come to realization that I SUCK at watering. Either I over water or under water.
I was wondering if hydro would be a good way to go.
I was doing research and I came across irrigation systems, which led me to thinking about going hydroponics.
I know it is probably harder to judge how much water is needed for my plants due to them being in a large smart pot for their age.

Current set up:
4x plants in 5 Gal smart pots (I know I went to big. Def learned)
Soil- FFOF, Happy frog, and light warrior.
7.5 weeks old. Monday will be 8 weeks old.
1000w mh/ hps once I flip to flower.

Do you think it would be easier to water in smart pots? Say 3gal pots?

Do you think I should try another grow before I switch to something?

I feel like watering is the hardest part for me and figure that if I have something that gives it the right amount of water, my plants will be more amazing than they are.

Suggestions and advice please
Click to expand...
I feel your pain I switch to hydro years ago ...the important thing is you find what works for you...it is very stressful for me when my plants are not healthy and reaching for the lights....if soil is not working for you I would say give hydro a try....the set up I go with can not overwater plants...hell you could circulate it all day if needed....I love big pots I use 30 gallon the growth is crazy fast..... and it is no secrete more healthy roots=more and better flowers
 
nurrgle

nurrgle

Well-Known Member
Dude, you could throw a killer sprayer system in there for less then $100. I pulled my Bluemats because I got sick of fucking with them in multiple rooms. Just a pain in the ass for real. I have two pressurized systems sitting in a storage shed.

I went back to a simple sprayer system and my plants are loving it. I am switching back from 7’s to 5’s because of the bluemats but my schedule is .75 ltrs three times a day.

One feeding when they are little then I add another and once I am in full flower and stacking I add the third.
 
TreeFiddy350

TreeFiddy350

Well-Known Member
This is my first grow at ANYTHING, but I lovvvveeee me some weed lol
Right now I have 4 plants in a 4x4 grow tent.
I plan on expanding to 2 grow tents. 1 veg and 1 flower. Gotta save up some money for equipment.
I would like to harvest every 2 months. Give or take.
Which do you think would be more beneficial for somebody who hasn’t gotten the watering down for the last 7-8 weeks?
 
Lucky Luke

Lucky Luke

Well-Known Member
TreeFiddy350 said:
This is my first grow at ANYTHING, but I lovvvveeee me some weed lol
Right now I have 4 plants in a 4x4 grow tent.
I plan on expanding to 2 grow tents. 1 veg and 1 flower. Gotta save up some money for equipment.
I would like to harvest every 2 months. Give or take.
Which do you think would be more beneficial for somebody who hasn’t gotten the watering down for the last 7-8 weeks?
Click to expand...
A moisture meter probe.
 
pulpoinspace

pulpoinspace

Well-Known Member
TreeFiddy350 said:
So I have come to realization that I SUCK at watering. Either I over water or under water.
I was wondering if hydro would be a good way to go.
I was doing research and I came across irrigation systems, which led me to thinking about going hydroponics.
I know it is probably harder to judge how much water is needed for my plants due to them being in a large smart pot for their age.

Current set up:
4x plants in 5 Gal smart pots (I know I went to big. Def learned)
Soil- FFOF, Happy frog, and light warrior.
7.5 weeks old. Monday will be 8 weeks old.
1000w mh/ hps once I flip to flower.

Do you think it would be easier to water in smart pots? Say 3gal pots?

Do you think I should try another grow before I switch to something?

I feel like watering is the hardest part for me and figure that if I have something that gives it the right amount of water, my plants will be more amazing than they are.

Suggestions and advice please
Click to expand...
stop overthinking it!

5 gal smart pots are perfect

fill up a pot of your DRY potting mix and get a feel for the weight. water your plants when they weigh that amount.

everybody overwaters the first time. try another grow!
 
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TurboTokes

TurboTokes

Well-Known Member
smart pots are the best thing to indoor growing, you will be amazed at the root ball when you empty it for the next run, its ridiculous how dense they are compared to hard sided pots.

As far as wattering goes, I like to sometimes not look at the plants for a week, so I run alot of perlite for drainage and have an automated dripper system, no real chance of ever overwaterring with alot of drainage. The key to being able to walk away with a dripper setup in my opinion is having somewhere for the runoff to go, I built a tray with a drain in it so any runoff runs out of the tent and into the sump pump hole (or a bucket would work if your not in the basement) just so the plants arent sitting in there run off.

I set the water feed timer to turn the pump on based on how much medium I have in the pots, 2 minutes of running every 3 days usually gets me a little run off in 3 gallon smart pots, and when 4+ week into flower I like to feed every 2 days so I adjust the timers and walk away

Im currently switching to cheap bagged soil to try out an even simpler setup, Id like to not even add nutes to my resevoir, I collect rain water, and Id like to pump plain pure rain water to the plants instead of mixing my nutes and ph'ing the res, by runing soil I wont have to ph the water as rainwater is already perfectly fine, and I would like to try different granule (shake/dry) fertilizers and just see how the plants do. The one plant im doing this run in comparison to the soilness mediu, I usually do is side by side exactly the same size, zero difference, so I think Im going to try soil for simplicity
 
Kushash

Kushash

Well-Known Member
1st time MJ growers with a green thumb often do fine on their 1st grow in soil.
If you have no watering experience with other plants it will take time to figure it out.
A simple way to try out hydro if you want to go that direction would be to try coco coir IMO.
 
JohnDee

JohnDee

Well-Known Member
Hi TF,
I switched to hydro after similar issues. If you have a fairly large op, the whole idea of wading through plants to pick them up to gauge their weight...just doesn't work well. I had too many strains also...each with it's own need.

But once I switched to hydro (E&F)... things became more fun and easier for me. Monitoring a res was much easier then watering soil plants for me...and certainly easier physically.

But I've seen noobs switch to DWC which is potentially great but too twitchy...so if you do go hydro, don't be tempted by that. So that's my opinion...
JD
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
I personally jumped all in and spent thousands before my first grow and went right into a large 10x10 tent and 90 gallon RDWC system. I spent nearly a year doing research, planning, and shopping before I could start anything, so I was fairly well prepared.
Im 4 weeks through flower and wouldnt have done it any different other than maybe trimming a bit more when they were younger.
Your end result comes from what you put into it. I spent a lot of time planning and getting everything set up and still had to make major changes several weeks into veg. Now that its all dialed in though, all I do is fill a holding tank with nutrient solution and watch my plants grow.

This pic is from around half way through veg.
 
Xs121

Xs121

Well-Known Member
How to water by hand regardless of medium.

First...terminology

Saturation point - a condition in which all easily drained voids (pores) between medium particles are temporarily or permanently filled with water.
Field Capacity - is the amount of medium moisture or water content held in the medium after excess water has drained away and the rate of downward movement has decreased.

Having defined those terminology.

Water your medium thoroughly until you have a good runoff or the top flooded or anything to indicate that the medium cant hold anymore water/solute. At this stage you have reached what is known as Saturation Point. This is the easy part. Surprisingly though, I've known new growers who are afraid to water, who would just hardly moisten the medium..... I say, flood the darn thing.

The hard part...how to get to Field Capacity? (it's not really hard when you get the hang of it)

Obviously, if you have flooded your container, you let it drain (for fabric pots, water would just drain as you put it in). Let it drain some more...until....there's no moisture/water underneath your container/pot....depending on your medium and size of container, this could take a few days.

If you are seeing moisture/water underneath/around the container, you haven't reach Field Capacity yet, there's still plenty of water inside your pot even if the top is showing dry.

When everything is dry underneath/around the container, you are now at the point of Field Capacity...perfect amount of moisture.

Depending on how long would this take, add an extra day...…...this is now your dry point and you can flood the darn thing again.

It's not that hard once you figure out how long would it take to get to field capacity. As your plant go through the different phases, just keep an eye if there's any changes on the number of days to reach field capacity.

This flooding and drying is now your schedule for wet and dry cycle.

Hope this help.
 
JohnDee

JohnDee

Well-Known Member
fragileassassin said:
I personally jumped all in and spent thousands before my first grow and went right into a large 10x10 tent and 90 gallon RDWC system.
Click to expand...
Nicely done Fragileassassin...When I was disparaging DWC I wasn't referring to a professional approach like yours. Just wanted to make that clear.

It's guys that buy a bucket and an air pump and figure that's all there is too it...and then of course fail.
JD
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
JohnDee said:
Nicely done Fragileassassin...When I was disparaging DWC I wasn't referring to a professional approach like yours. Just wanted to make that clear.

It's guys that buy a bucket and an air pump and figure that's all there is too it...and then of course fail.
JD
Click to expand...
Oh for sure! That's why I made sure to mention how much preparation I did.
I am very diy minded and loved every minute of building it.

After doing it myself I wouldn't recommend it to most first timers that just want to try growing out either. The challenge was half the fun for me. I fell in love with the idea of rdwc the first time I saw it and i plan to stick with this for many years so I was ok with possible failure of my first crop as long as i learned.
 
JohnDee

JohnDee

Well-Known Member
Xs121 said:
Depending on how long would this take, add an extra day...…...this is now your dry point and you can flood the darn thing again.
Click to expand...
Xs...does this really allow enough drying to encourage root growth and to draw O2 into rootzone? Seems to me a few extra days (beyond your description) and past field capacity would be better.
JD
 
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