Best of success with the Dispo Seed Score.
Hmm, this is starting to sound like a bit of high maintenance. And if I went to the 14 gal HDPE tote, then the plants would just get bigger and require even more fertigation. So I guess one can regulate growth by just alternating with straight water. Again, I am only looking for an 8 oz yield, due to the restrictions of my bud dryer, which isn't built yet!
For full disclosure, the girls DO drink a lot once they find the res. (It is like you want to hook up a firehose...)
Well I would water about twice from the Top & fill the res the rest of the way after the top drains. The roots will hit bottom in about a week. I had a plant I thought was a female that I vegged in a regular pot. I put it in a SIP & about a week later saw male parts so I disposed of it. I was surprised at how much root growth there was so quickly. Wasn't packed with roots yet, but some were already at the res.
Not that high maintenance. Way easier than Fabric or Plastic Pots & no mess to clean up from run off. I never fed plain water. Nutes every time. At first you will only be filling the res every few days. Once you start flower you'll be filling it daily & by the end of veg you'll be feeding twice per day if you were to grow a giant plant. But for an 8 oz. yield / smaller plant I doubt you'll ever need to feed more than once per day. Another plus to growing in SIPs is you don't have to worry about overwatering. For me, growing in SIPs falls right between Hydro & Coco but much easier than either one of those methods. It's damned near foolproof !
Cool. and I realize ... much more efficient, because I'm losing a lot of water and nutes in the runoff. even nutes from the super soil. I would be happy with once a day starting in flower. I could probably make it to mid veg on just water. it wasn't long ago that I flowered in 5 gal plastic, although it was far from ideal.
I could also do radial slots using a skill saw, plunge cut.
Thanks. Looks good, but I'm not growing autos.
That design won't simulate the GrowBucket since you won't have a connector cup/bowl. To mimic it you'd put an upside down bowl at the bottom of a single bucket to act as the reservoir/air chamber and fill around it with soil bit leaving an easy way for the excess water to drain out.
1/4 in holes are pretty big and for drainage you could definitely go smaller than that. I make mine with a soldering iron and they're probably half that diameter and work fine. Without a connector pot it'll be hit or miss for the roots to reach the reservoir given the air gap that's central to these pots.
If you're going to do slots I'd go with a Dremel over a skill saw if you have one.
With small enough holes soil won't get into the reservoir very much and even if it does it doesn't much matter. A trick I use is to put really wet soil as a first thin layer as it will hold together and then fill above it with normal moistness soil.
A bucket in a bucket design also allows for easy flushing if you ever do that in your grows but I'd still encourage you to rethink the 'no connection between them' idea.
OK, I see a problem now with this idea. The GroBucket does have wicking, due to the shape of the insert...
The soil fills in around the insert, which means the soil is sitting in the reservoir water. So the roots are easily able to fully reach this wet zone, and the water wicks upward, while the roots can also permeate the slots and holes of the cone. (If anyone's wondering, the plastic used for the GroBucket insert and tube is PVC.)
Thanks for the reminder about silicic acid. I'm gonna use horsetail tea for bioavailable silicic acid. For my SIP grows.
Soil aeration is very important in a SIP. 1:15 is 6.66%. Typical recommendation is 30-40%.
