Jackopotomus
Well-Known Member
I'm about to start my first SIP. My question is how do you prevent overwatering. Do you keep your res full or do you let it dry out for a few days?
Sip, probiotics, recyled living organics
- Thread starter GR33Nkronic256
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kelticBlue
Well-Known Member
I am letting my res dry out. I don’t know if it is the right thing to do. As the earthbox direction seems to discourage it.
In veg I like to let it get dry and grow roots.
If the plant is mature I tend to keep the soil moist, especially if the soil is healthy. Using the EM-1 helps keep the soil healthy.
In veg I like to let it get dry and grow roots.
If the plant is mature I tend to keep the soil moist, especially if the soil is healthy. Using the EM-1 helps keep the soil healthy.
Jackopotomus
Well-Known Member
It seems like youd have to. Roots surely cant stay wet all the time?
kelticBlue
Well-Known Member
I have had root issues before. Like crown rot and weakened stem.
Not sure if it has been mentioned but on u tube “Pedro’s grow room” does a how to set up S. I. P.
Not sure if it has been mentioned but on u tube “Pedro’s grow room” does a how to set up S. I. P.
Tejasdirt
Well-Known Member
Yes they can. Done all the time in hydroponics. However there is a difference of moist roots and Wet roots. My sip is never without water thus never dries out . Roots in moistnesd
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
This is correct. Provided dissolved oxygen level is high plant roots can handle constant wet. If SIP is constructed correctly to permit a fill level with water that provides air gap between bottom of main planter and reservoir, DO levels will remain high and roots will happily grow into the wet wick portion and even reservoir itself. This is the ultimate measure of your SIP’s efficacy, do the roots comfortably grow into the wick portion and/or develop water roots into res itself?
Note: air stones can be problematic. If chosen put on a timer to run only 1/4 time max, pref less. I use small fish aquarium pumps to circulate and aerate the reservoir so that the bacterial teas I use that have many organic elements do not begin to seperate and layer. This can cause damaging microbe growth. However, just water with something like biothrive in it, or similar, will be fine without a pump.
Or, you could grow in buffered coco, hp pro mix or sunshine mix 4 (lots of pumice or perlite, aged wood chips or similar decompaction element important in my experience regardless nutrient type) and just use synthetic ferts. mixed into rez water.
Use at max 1/4 manufacturer recommended strength for plant size when using synths in a SIP, unless or until you see a nitrogen deficiency, then increase slightly. If also using humates or similar chelation agent start even lower, 1/5th.
Plant seedlings or clones asap into SIP. Plant autos as a popped seed. SIPs develop roots indiv to SIP design and plant will not transfer well if roots matured in a different method, either hydro or top watered soil. I use perforated nursury bags for seedlings (material is like hairnets, they’re very cheap on ‘zon) that are going into sips, and bottom water them while sprouting. Not necessary, but when I plant them in SIP I cut open bags along sides just to make root exit easiest. They poke through on their own no problem, however.
Myco products work really well here at this stage in SIPs as well as bennies and frass. Be sure there is direct contact with roots. I like to activate with my own custom cultured LABs, em1, hydroguard, or just dechlorinated water.
Try to use dechlorinated water for entire grow when refilling SIP rez.
Also…. Calcium, calcium, calcium, calcium. Such an important nutrient. Eggshells crushed up, browned in a skillet then dumped in a bowl of vinegar for a week creates an excellent bioavailable calcium that you can add to res 1:1000 with water and/or foliar spray. Don’t let calcium deficiency start, your behind the eight ball the rest of the grow. Diatomaceous earth can work also, keeps ph from getting too low, has pest protection potential and has some silica. 100ml per 10 gallons of soil premixed.
Avoid top watering, full stop, this potentially washes bio material into reservoir and can cause issues; to maintain moisture atop soil use a mulch. I use burlap sacks indoors, and legumes planted as cover crop (they fix nitrogen from air into their roots, helping you avoid late-grow N deficiency) to deploy legume nitrogen into soil clip the legume plants at their base. This way it’s there if you need it, or it goes unused if you don’t.
That’s the genius of nature… so be a natural genius!
Do not layer soil. IE a perlite layer, then soil layer, then a different soil, then seaweed, etc., these prevent capillary action needed to wick moisture upward against gravity. Soil should be same consistency from wick, through bottom to top and minimal compost. Under 10% rotting organic matter, again, capillary action slows or can be stopped by chunks and lasagna-style grow matrices.
All I can think of at the moment. Easiest way to grow I’ve used, let’s you focus on the canopy.
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
I made an error in my above thoughts on fertilization using powdered or bottled nutes. Not sure why but I rec'd using only 1/4 strength. What I meant was use recommended, or your usual strength, reduced by 1/4. SIPs are highly efficient, more so even than hydroponics, as all nutes are used up by plants. For this reason you will use less, but grow much more biomass.
Sincerest apologies to anyone who followed this and had issues.
It's important to note that I'm not a soil scientist, horticulturist or chemist. My experience is limited, having grown two years in SIP, veggies and 420. I'm studying this method using a lot of my time to construct and use test-bed only SIPs alongside actual grows in order to be more efficient in developing a knowledge-base. I recommend the Octopot and Earthbox products and that even DIYers like me download the Octopot user instructions and use as important referral with your homemade setups.
Sincerest apologies to anyone who followed this and had issues.
It's important to note that I'm not a soil scientist, horticulturist or chemist. My experience is limited, having grown two years in SIP, veggies and 420. I'm studying this method using a lot of my time to construct and use test-bed only SIPs alongside actual grows in order to be more efficient in developing a knowledge-base. I recommend the Octopot and Earthbox products and that even DIYers like me download the Octopot user instructions and use as important referral with your homemade setups.
Pete Detroit
Well-Known Member
Brilliant, co - planting legumes / clover to nitrogenize the soil.
Stolen!
Pete Detroit
Well-Known Member
Also FYI for SIP info, people be chatting here...
SIP Club - Getting Hydro/Coco Results In A Soil Based Medium
Was chatting to u few weeks ago, ur were kind enough to give me good advice on watering. 2 weeks on and my plants are looking much better. They have had x2 dry periods now, with it taking 5 days in between watering. They are actually praying all the time now and ai ntoce new growth every day...
www.420magazine.com
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
You might even try veggie seed sellers for a version of bacterial inoculation designed to support legumes, that comes as a wettable powder. Search 'legume inoculant'. They contain some or all of the same bacterium as many of those included in much more expensive cannabis bacterial inoculant products. I've grown legumes as cover, but I've never done what I was suggesting there, that is to cut the legumes right when my organic soil was starting to show some weakness and see if the plants respond to the accumulated nitrogen nodules releasing into the soil. Not my invention that's for sure. Probably the Maya, or Aztecs. Maybe even the ancient peoples of Laos/Vietnam. I mention them because so far as we know, these civilizations were all mega-scale SIPpers who realized they needed to get the most from the resources at hand, especially water if they were to become large, successful civilizations. I'd say that, despite their eventual decline, each succeeded tremendously. Many of the most exceptional ruins of these mentioned civilizations are in fact anchored/floating mega-sips constructed to allow a kind of agrarian/city combination that was more easily defensible and required fewer transport resources. Each completed without the help of extra-terrestrials, I'm quite confident.
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
To be clear, I have done this to container plants, just not cannabis. I couldn't advise, from experience, on the timing factor for cannabis. But, if you lightly trim legumes, in my experience, you can keep them on-hand for quite a long time and then have them there to "harvest" their nitrogen when it suits you. My habit for legume plants used as cover (or for culturing bacteria which I'm using more legumes for right now) is I usually trim every other pea/bean plant every other week/watering sorta thing, and they seem to stay active, but I don't know if that results in any nitrogen release. I should find out.
You don't know that.Each completed without the help of extra-terrestrials, I'm quite confident.
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
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Fenderbender
Well-Known Member
Ah good that I catch this.. so 3/4th nutes!
And you mention an airstone can cause problems? In what way? I'm very inclined to bury an airstone in the trench with the pot I'm about to get, and indeed have it on a timer, to bubble the solution occasionally but also when the roots get down there.. to have the ability to prevent them going slimy. As the system is like this.
I'd imagine that before too long you'd be providing air to a dry reservoir and dry out and kill the roots that way. Air stones have been reliably proven not to be needed with these things, especially in pots. Maybe you could get away with it in a big tub like ResDog uses, but even then, not necessary and adds additional complexity and something that can go wrong.
Try it if you want and report your findings over in SIP Club, but I'll bet it doesn't improve things much, if any, and introduces another element that could cause you issues.
Try it if you want and report your findings over in SIP Club, but I'll bet it doesn't improve things much, if any, and introduces another element that could cause you issues.
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
Reported pH swings in the grow medium (soil). Which is almost untestable with normal gear so who knows? 'Apparently' there's even a paper out there somewhere but I've never found it.
I have used a low power air pump/stone (like 5-10w) on a timer before, pulsing a one-minute burst every fifteen min, or so, and I've seen high-volume SIP growers use it the same way, but even they ultimately scrapped it claiming no benefit. Remember you're also sucking in every mould-and-whatever spore in the vicinity at much higher capacity that way and warming up the rez solution quite a few degrees by pumping warmed gasses in constantly (pumping losses as heat) which reduces water's capacity to hold oxygen, especially over 70 degrees where it's almost reverse square law-type losses. So, it has to overcome quite a bit before you're back to break-even.
I actually have a couple of cheap aquarium water pumps in two of my 27 gal tub-SIPs that I fashioned a venturi intake onto. The idea is I pulse the pumps for 3-5 minutes every 60 min or so and it stirs up the reservoir, supposedly preventing layering, anaerobic conditions, and the venturi tubes are fed up through the medium, or the fill pipe, and they suck in oxygen and add it to the pump's outlet. I even have little homemade 'merv' filters I made for the intakes. (omg! what a geek.) So you can probably slightly and more safely bump the dissolved o2 that way, but the real purpose for that system was to stir the mix, and I haven't had a rez go bad yet so those aren't in regular service.
Thing is, at some point each of us knows next to nothing about SIPs when we start and for some reason, we all feel like we're practically going on a spacewalk or something, and start reaching for some lifesaving tech to drag with us into the unknown. Don't worry, it'll pass! Come on in, the galaxy's fine!
