Soil vs. Hempy Bucket vs. DWC

P

Papageno

Well-Known Member
I used to grow a lot, more than 10 years ago, but had to stop. I always used a soil mix I came up with over many years of experimentation. Recently I decided to give it a go again and thought I would try Hydro. I did some research and found an interesting option that I copied and started running last week. It is going to be a very expensive and a difficult system to maintain but it is compact which is important to me. The more I poke around reading stuff however the more I am thinking this will be needing constant attention. So I still want to try it out but today while poking around I looked at those hempy bucket designs and it looks to me basically like a fairly typical soil setup without the soil. So now I am wondering why not run those hempy buckets with the bottom filled with those recycled glass growstones and my soil mix on top. With a SCROG I think I can get good results in a compact space. I suppose over time much of the small soils particles will fall into the res at the bottom and that could breakdown and cause problems I guess. But I ran multiple times large pots with the bottom full of perlite and the tops were my soil blend and all was good. When I watered they would immediately drain but they would go into drain pans an sit there and a few hours later it would all be wicked back up into the perlite. So no active res. but that worked great.

So my question is for people who have run DWC or soil who have also run Hempy buckets. Why do you prefer one over the other? I have a DWC style system that is running fine but a Hempy Bucket looks so much easier and stable.

Also I have seen multiple mediums being used in a Hempy bucket that are very dissimilar. One had a perlite / vermiculite blend, another had just Large perlite on the bottom and a 100% coco above the hole. Has there been much discussion here about various mediums for Hempy buckets and what works "best"? (my idea of best would be fast growth) Why would someone use perlite over growstones? The Hempy bucket as I have read are a hydro style where you must control the nutes closely as there is no soil. If so why not just fill the whole thing with growstones?

For my concerns I am a simple home grower that has a day job and wont be around all the time. The main reason I wanted to try the Hydro was the quick turn and small space but those Hempy buckets look like they could do the job pretty well.

Thanks!
 
VilliageIdiot said:
I used to grow a lot, more than 10 years ago, but had to stop. I always used a soil mix I came up with over many years of experimentation. Recently I decided to give it a go again and thought I would try Hydro. I did some research and found an interesting option that I copied and started running last week. It is going to be a very expensive and a difficult system to maintain but it is compact which is important to me. The more I poke around reading stuff however the more I am thinking this will be needing constant attention. So I still want to try it out but today while poking around I looked at those hempy bucket designs and it looks to me basically like a fairly typical soil setup without the soil. So now I am wondering why not run those hempy buckets with the bottom filled with those recycled glass growstones and my soil mix on top. With a SCROG I think I can get good results in a compact space. I suppose over time much of the small soils particles will fall into the res at the bottom and that could breakdown and cause problems I guess. But I ran multiple times large pots with the bottom full of perlite and the tops were my soil blend and all was good. When I watered they would immediately drain but they would go into drain pans an sit there and a few hours later it would all be wicked back up into the perlite. So no active res. but that worked great.

So my question is for people who have run DWC or soil who have also run Hempy buckets. Why do you prefer one over the other? I have a DWC style system that is running fine but a Hempy Bucket looks so much easier and stable.

Also I have seen multiple mediums being used in a Hempy bucket that are very dissimilar. One had a perlite / vermiculite blend, another had just Large perlite on the bottom and a 100% coco above the hole. Has there been much discussion here about various mediums for Hempy buckets and what works "best"? (my idea of best would be fast growth) Why would someone use perlite over growstones? The Hempy bucket as I have read are a hydro style where you must control the nutes closely as there is no soil. If so why not just fill the whole thing with growstones?

For my concerns I am a simple home grower that has a day job and wont be around all the time. The main reason I wanted to try the Hydro was the quick turn and small space but those Hempy buckets look like they could do the job pretty well.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

If speed of growth is what your after than dwc is the way to go. Depending on your reservoir size and plant size you could only need to adjust the reservoir on a once a week basis. I do mine on Fridays.
Hempy bucket would be a little easier. But I dont think they work any better than a highly aerated soil. For complete soil health you need beneficial microbes. Perlite and grow stones dont have microbes so you would have to supply it along with your nutrients. Or just use soil with lots of perlite or whatever you choose and put that soil in a hempy bucket style container. (I would do that instead of coco or whatever.)

Now you have to choose. Soil or hydro. Soil gives better taste and smell and is more forgiving to mistakes. Hydro is faster rate of growth and is more "adjustable" for lack of a Better term. I like them both so I alternate between the two.
Good luck, Idiot.:peace:
 
So yeah that goes along with my experience and what I am thinking. A hempy bucket is basically a nutrient deficient and pain in the rear way of running soil. That is why I started this thread because there seems to be a lot of people doing Hempy Buckets but it doesn't make much sense to me over a top quality loose soil blends. Better to just run a good lose soil blend and properly fertilize I would think. I am looking for someone who knows how to run soil properly and has run hempy buckets to respond.

I had great results with soil back when I used to grow like 10 years ago. If you understand how fertilizer bonds to organics you can get explosive growth similar hydro. The biggest problem people have with soil is not using enough manure or some other organic. Fertilizers either burn your plants or wash out if you don't have enough organic material like manure in the blend for them to attach to. If you have 1/3 precomposted manure and 1/3 perlite and 1/3 your favorite soil (lets say black gold) as a "base" (there is a ton of other things fun to add in small amounts) then you wont need to fertilize through veg really and when you start to change over... the bloom nutes have a place to sit. This way they wait to be adsorbed evenly. And tons of perlite just makes for tons of extra roots and aeration if you flush and dry it out properly.

So here is some more on that to comment on.

So my long time buddy never stopped when I did. So he is doing it for probably more than 20 years now. He runs 2 small 10 gal totes with 2 plants each. He runs GH (which I think must be synthetic for this to work) and never changes his res until the grow is done. He just adds more water and nutes as needed and never has a problem. He runs femd Autos and gets 8 oz. every 12 weeks which is good enough for yourself and is all I want to do. He has been doing that method for at least 6 years and prefers it over soil. He claims it is much easier and less maintenance than when he ran soil.

That said I have been looking seriously into this organic Mills product that everyone is switching to. Being organic they claim you must switch out the rest every 4 days max. Now they also claim you have to switch out the res on synthetic every week or 2 but my buddy never does this. So has anyone tried running organics into the ground and seen it work? When they eventually lock out does it hurt the plant or just sit there and do nothing? Can you run an organic nute products continuously like synthetics without changing the res or do you have to dump regularly like the guys selling me this stuff claim.

It all seems like just a big scam. My buddy checks his PH and PPM every 2 days and just adds what he needs and that is it.
 
Yeah sorry I get long winded.

So I am asking really what is all this hype about Hempy buckets. I am designing a large garage "closet" and starting a new grow soon. I never did hydro and wanted to give it a shot. I did some research and came up with a DWC type design I am experimenting with now. It will be very expensive and need lots of attention. While looking around at other designs when I came across this Hempy bucket I keep seeing all these great reviews and posts for something that just seems like a poorly thought out design. I want someone to explain to me why you would go with a Hempy bucket as it sounds like it is adding up many of the cons of hydro grow to a soil grow without adding any real improvements.

I think the best answer is for me to run them side by side to see. I was hoping someone here who had experience with both methods had some good data.

I will have to figure out the popper nute schedule first on the Hempy buckets which will take probably a few grows first. So it seems like I go through all this work to prove that you can spend a lot more money and a lot more labor to run a Hempy bucket and get maybe 1 week sooner results or something like that.
 
You might get some slower growth with the Hempy bucket vs DWC the nice thing about the Hempy is you don't have to worry about root rot , you just water with your nutes and don't have to go back and keep checking PH and only need a container 1 gallon for every month it's gonna be alive. if you go into my sig link there are a few guys who do hempy on that link it's a pretty big posting but some of us are growing the same strains so you can get a comparison. Another guy and I are growing pineapple chunk bout the same time line but I look to be a few weeks ahead of him growth wise. But my next round I'm splitting my grow and gonna do half hempy and half DWC to see a side by side comparison. And it will simplify things so I don't have to haul so much water which is the other plus and hauling a 100 liter bag of perilite is way easier to do than a 100 liters of soil :cheesygrinsmiley: pros and cons for everything hope that helps a little
 
Hey Kola320...Can you post back here some of your side by side results when you are done? That is really what I am looking for. Data from someone who knows how to run both doing side by side is key. I have years of soil behind me but I am just starting my first DWC. So I wont be able to do a comparison for a year or so until I figure both out and I am doing them correctly. I can only grow 4 at a time without a license in Oregon so it would be difficult for me to do this. If you are going to do it already then I would really appreciate hearing about your results.
 
Ya I can I won't be running for a few weeks yet as have to finish my rooms out, But I will be doing both Hempy and DWC side by side for a perpetual , veg to flower with some autos in my veg room. I will get some weekly pics of both I'll even break my strains up and do some in Hempy and DWC so you can get a better growth comparison.
 
Hempy is great cause it's dirt cheap to start and grow with, no pumps or wires or res temps to worry about, no root rot, no pH fluctuations cause you water it every day or two and what you put in is what it is, no toxic salt buildup, less worry about pests... There's a long list of its benefits. I wanted to grow in the cheapest simplest setup, and this was it.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. Lately I have been reading about Under Current DWC. I think I am going to go that route in the end. It seems like a bit of expense up front but once it is going it is probably the easiest thing to maintain other than maybe a Hempy Bucket, especially if you have a huge tank to keep things topped off. I plan to pipe the epicenter outside of the cabinet I am building so I don't need to open the doors to check pH or add nutes. I can more easily control water temps this way as well I figure (although I have become a believer in beneficial nutes instead of running it cold).

I started this thread when I just got my first hydro setup running and realized what the costs would be to run it as I was told to. Since then I have found that multiple people, including a friend of mine whom I trust, do not run their similar DWC systems the "recommended" way and get great results on the cheap. So even though this is my first hydro run ever I have been trying to do a few things differently than recommended...and so far it is working out. Specifically there is a lot of info out there stating you have to change your res out every 4-5 days. But I also have read about people who change twice, once at switching from veg to bloom and at the very end of bloom. My buddy does this and has no problems. I believe he is running synthetic nutes and that must be the only way. I have both kinds here and I was going to do some experimentation on this. It all comes down to nute lock out and nute degradation for the organic stuff. So I have a pile of questions about that. For that however I will search the site first and if I don't find what I am looking for I will post a new thread regarding running DWC for long hauls without a res change. In my case everything looks great and the pH is stable. I haven't added any pH treatment in 4 days and the roots are great and the plants look great. I was going to do a res change anyway but I kinda want to see how far I can push it. These are probably 16 year old seeds I am using to suss out the system I built so no big deal if I loose them.
 
Love the hempy
Got to be the easyer way ever
Straight coco or perilite
Even a mix 50/50 of both
Add in the K.I.S.S. With maxi bloom
And ya got the simplest hydroponic setup ever that just
Pushes out the bud!!
Keep it simple!!!
 
Hey Village, I love this thread. I definitely was considering the Hempy Bucket after looking at Tead's grows. I was going to his 80% Perlite and 20% Vermiculite. But! i'm afraid of over watering. and also i would have to learn a whole new method of care for those buckets. It would be nice if there was a Setup Options and Maintenance thread about the Hempy Bucket :thumb:
 
Tead said:
There are... there are many actually. Doc Bud was one of my guides. I'm sure some forum searching for "hempy" will turn up some of his threads. Feel free to stop by my thread and toss out some questions.
Click to expand...
Thanks and im subbed to ur threads already :thumb: i got the inspiration to inquire about Hempy from you. I will definitely look out for Doc bud. Thank you!
 
I still plan to try it some day but I have a few soil grows planned first then I am building a new hydro probably next spring or maybe in the winter next year...just depends on timing. After that I will try a hempy.


There are lots of options and I really liked the DWC built after I decided not to do this. But I will try it some day. I am always changing it up to keep it exciting. Right now I am dialing in a fully organic grow that requires no added nutes. I almost got away without nutes on my current grow so we shall see about my next 2. I just put down a bunch of seeds and plan to do a fast back to back run to select a mother or 2 and after that is when I will probably try another Hydro run. I will make a ganged system so I want a good strain to clone from for a ganged grow. Then after that I may try the hempy. Or maybe I throw one in the corner when I try my next hydro run. that ia way too much planning and way too far out there.
 
VilliageIdiot said:
I still plan to try it some day but I have a few soil grows planned first then I am building a new hydro probably next spring or maybe in the winter next year...just depends on timing. After that I will try a hempy.


There are lots of options and I really liked the DWC built after I decided not to do this. But I will try it some day. I am always changing it up to keep it exciting. Right now I am dialing in a fully organic grow that requires no added nutes. I almost got away without nutes on my current grow so we shall see about my next 2. I just put down a bunch of seeds and plan to do a fast back to back run to select a mother or 2 and after that is when I will probably try another Hydro run. I will make a ganged system so I want a good strain to clone from for a ganged grow. Then after that I may try the hempy. Or maybe I throw one in the corner when I try my next hydro run. that ia way too much planning and way too far out there.
Click to expand...


Everyone seems to settle in a growing comfort zone. We find what we like and run with it.
I've been dabbling with using Osmocote+ as a nutrient source rather than the standard liquid nutes. Luvin it. No mixing every feed. Just put the Osmo in the perlite and let 'er ride.

And on another subject, you tickled a neuron this morning... sorry.
Oregon..Where it is green year round
Click to expand...
My first daughter was born in Texas. Lawns in that neck of the woods tend to be a bit brown year round. My 3yr old had never experienced a green lawn before. My time in Texas had come to an end and we were driving back to Oregon. We were headed in on I-84. I forget the exact location, but at one point during the ride, there's a dramatic shift between desert land and green valley goodness. There's a rest stop there. We stopped. It was the first time the young 3yr old had felt soft green grass. It was such a cute and stunning moment that it's survived 40 years in my stoned mind.
Thanks for tickling the neuron!
 
Best to run one of each type of whatever you're interested in... I prefer rdwc waterfarms, but 75/25 coco/perlite is my second favorite... Ether one can deliver great results... I'm running 2 of each in my current grow thread... For me the coco/perlite is a little more sensitive to fertilizer burn... It seems to retain more nutes, and can build to a higher level than you want... They're entering 5 week of 12/12, and i couldn't be more pleased with the results of each type..... You'll soon find what best suits you, after a couple grows....
 
That is a beautiful drive. I live in the Portland area and work out in the gorge so I make that drive a few times a week. It is actually very famous. I can imagine someone from Texas going through that. and may people are shocked that the Columbia is a river not a lake. It is hilarious to me as to me "big" is normal. I was in Texas last summer and it was so odd to me to be able to see forever without mountains. I am so use to big mountains and big rivers. And in the valley it really stays beautiful all year ...but don't tell anyone...just keep telling everyone all it does is rain here. You wont like it. Unless you like sticky icky weed...then you may be able to handle the rain.

There are areas of Oregon where (and this goes way back) you can barely throw a stone without hitting cannabis outdoor growing. It may only be recently legal but it has always been accepted. every couple of years it was on the ballot as far back as I can remember. There are some rural areas that are like the emerald triangle where the cops just couldn't enforce law. I have a buddy there where 4 out of 5 of his neighbors have outdoor grows. He doesn't grow anymore because it is too easy to get he says. So yeah it is green here.

But all it does is rain all the time!



Anyway I think I will always do DWC and soil in rotation. I will try Hempy some day just so I know how to do it but it seems like so much extra work and I wont get any real benefit. I can grow enough for my needs in 2 grows a year using any method so why not do something simple and hassle free and cheap. I rather enjoy making a compost tea and if that is all I need and some silica then it is hard to get away from that.
 

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