Drain to waste question

[gr0w]

What do you do with your water run off after watering?
I have my coco plants in the tent and have a drip tray under the fabric pots and water til the 10-20% runoff.
But what do you do with it? Do you get the runoff out of the tray? Or can you just leave it in there?

Thanks.

 

[Suntana]

I would prop the bags up a little, a couple strips of wood works well. I use a shop vac to suck up the run off, but I've also seen people use a turkey baster to suck out the water with smaller grows. If you can find a couple baking cooling racks you can lay them across the top of your trays to sit the bags on. It just helps with drainage, provides more room for run off and keeps them out of the run off.
Hope this helps some.

 

[gr0w]

Just curious. Why is it so important to get rid of the run off water?
I have the plants sitting on some baking cooling racks like you suggested so the pot isn't sitting directly on the tray.
Does all the water need to be sucked up? Or can some be left in the tray? It's just a p.i.t.a to dryvac it all up.
Going to come up with something better tomorrow.

 

[Why Doe]

I just get most of what I can with a turkey baster then feed it all to my tomato plant growing outside. It freaking loves it. Btw what are the black circular things you have sitting around the base of the plant?

 

[gr0w]

I just get most of what I can with a turkey baster then feed it all to my tomato plant growing outside. It freaking loves it. Btw what are the black circular things you have sitting around the base of the plant?

Drip Trays to catch the water runoff.

 

[Mayne]

you get rid of the water for humidity reasons, bugs,just makes sense.

 

[GhostFacePurp]

you get rid of the water for humidity reasons, bugs,just makes sense.

And drain to waste avoids most of all nutrient deficiencies and excess, given the ph is correct .that way your forcing yourself to make fresh nutes everytime.☝GFP

 

[MadeInUSA]

to elevate my plants in the 4x4 tent, I bought a 8 ft hanging shelf (14 inches wide), cut it in 1/2 using bolt cutters, worked great for me. I think I might have a few pics in my grow thread on my signature showing this. I think it's the pic where I am doing a flush....using a water heater pan and PVC to route the water LOL. We are a clever bunch on 420 aren't we lol. Page 3.

I'm in late veg right now, so my take on this is to take my plants out of my tent and water/nute them in a separate tray on my nearby table, let them sit for 5-10 min afterwards to let the water drain out of pot, clean up dead leaves, then pick up just the air pot and put it back on the shelf/pan in the tent, and toss out the water on the table tray. This routine keeps most all the runoff water out of the tent, and saves my back from all the bending over and up/down. I'm CO2 in a closed tent right now and my RH is off the charts and I can get away with it now in my grow cycle, though I would like to move it back down into the 75% range. After a few weeks of flower, plants will stay put inside the tent for watering because they will be in scrog net, and my RH better be dialed in to 50% range. SO...I'll be shopping for a small water pump on amazon tonight. I need it anyway, Yes, you can use turkey basters, etc too. My best to you on your grow.

 

[Nightmask]

You'll wanna get rid of the excess water to help bring down your humidity. 75% is way to high for flowering. Also you wanna get rid of the water to hopefully help prevent bugs.

I've got a similar issue to you. Pots in the tent sitting in saucers that would end up full of water. So far I've been hauling my plants into my bathroom to water then carry them back afterwards. I originally just put them in the bathtub and watered and let the excess just go straight down the drain but you'll notice quickly how bad of an idea that is when the drain looks more like a swamp with all the algae growth. So don't flush your nutes down the drain folks! Now I play a sort of musical chairs where the 2 flowering ladies are in saucers in the bathtub with an extra saucer and as I water and there gets runoff I'll move one plant to the empty saucer and empty the full of water saucer into a jug then put the plant back and so on. That way I can collect the runoff which goes on veggies.

Many people have suggested a shop/wet vac which I've looked into and might get one later but for now I can't find one that's not too expensive and has good reviews. Instead I've been looking at a hand held multi-use fluid and gas pump (there are different brands but several similar looking/functioning hand pumps). I couldn't tell you how well something like that would perform since I haven't got or used one yet but the reviews seem mostly positive for sucking water (not so much heavy liquids like oil but who cares that's not what we want it for). The hand pump is fairly cheap, hopefully easy to use, and quiet. It should be great for 2 or even 4 plants, maybe 6? Guess I'll find out how many plants it takes for hand pumping to get annoying when I get around to picking one up.

Just thought I'd throw out the idea for you too since for some reason I don't think I've seen other people mention those hand pumps although I've seen plenty of people recommend a shop vac or turkey baster or huge syringe (that last one was my thinking before I stumbled upon the hand pump). I wonder if anyone has actually used one already and what their thoughts are on it.

Koehler Enterprises RA990 Multi-Use Siphon Fuel Transfer Pump Kit (for Gas Oil and Liquids)