You Gotta SIP, Not Slurp

[flylowgethigh]

Those SWICK pots always show a Blumat reading about 30. It turns out that with this soil, that is the number you want. I was drying out the soil in the 7 gallon bags in my little tent. So, the worst has been transplanted into my little SIP pot. Got one of these at WMT today...

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays...nter/923074937

Put rinsed perlite in the bottom res... they use soil as the wick like the earthpot does. under those grills is the hollow area, and roots won't go in same as an Earthpot. We'll see how it does. If the pot was raised so the waterline is 1/2" under the grill via a control box, I bet it would be self watering.



Added a layer of the improved soil I plan to use for my next run, and moved the poor plant in... drenched and re-inoculated, and now watching the water level in the little built-in res.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Dodged a bullet tonight, saw water in the perlite. Took the plant pots out and added 2" more perlite, about 10gallons total. I suppose it settles from moving the bags.

 

[Fronk]

I am loving these SIP’s. Makes it hard to fuck up.

 

[thailer]

i am loving them as well!! i am hand watering these while i get the soil ready in the big ones. i am about to go out and work some more on it. a light broke and i have been devoting my time to that trying to figure out if it is the ballast of fixture or bulb. i am also redoing the ventilation system and i left town for some fun, then had to recover from fun. lol

 

[moses wellfleet]

i am loving them as well!! i am hand watering these while i get the soil ready in the big ones. i am about to go out and work some more on it. a light broke and i have been devoting my time to that trying to figure out if it is the ballast of fixture or bulb. i am also redoing the ventilation system and i left town for some fun, then had to recover from fun. lol

Wow looks great!!

Never forget the fun factor

 

[thailer]

.

 

[flylowgethigh]

I love the SIP, and the whole idea of using it to water my bags - ala SWICK. I got a couple 7 gallon pans and cut the tops off water bottles, added slits with scissors, used an inch of vermeculite on top of the perlite to make top-watering SIPs for the bags in the veg tent. These are being tested with the 2 midgets left over from my 1st run in the 7 gallon bags they are in. If they work like I think, I will be able to leave my 10 gallon bags on there for a couple days unattended. I have 2 gallons of water in each, and they are showing the reservoir dry already.

Reservoir is just a water bottle with the top cut off, and slits cut in it.

I will be able to fit 4 of those tubs in the 4 x 4, and still have room for the plants that don't make it.

 

[thailer]

so I put some plants in nine days ago and the middle one Donny Burger has just taken off growing while the Mac1 plants have grown a node or two of new growth. As expected for them all too. Since the system has been running now with plants I wanted to update on if it is doing what I’d hoped for AND IT HAS!!!

the first inch is dry peat like dehydrated brown in color before you start to see that milk chocolate brown that leads to dark chocolate brown colored soil as you dig down in the sip. So if fungus gnats are a concern, I don’t think they will like this setup which I think is pretty freaking cool for those who struggle with them. I’m certainly not a fan and older designs will have a very saturated soil and top soil is always wet. The Mac1 plants don’t like to be over watered and if it wasn’t my favorite plant in the world, I wouldn’t have bothered to upgrade all of this. She is ok in the sips and she grows better for me in them compared to a fabric bag but you can tell she is a little water logged. Anyways the topsoil in these is dry but still moist and the deeper you go down the more moisture and now since they’re twice as deep, the bottom of the rootball on transplant day isn’t sitting on top of the perlite bed or basically right by the water source. I think this reduces the water pressure/ root pressure from the wicking capillary action on the plant so it is happier.

 

[thailer]

It’s been nine days I think since transplant and here’s a before pic

 

[flylowgethigh]

Here is the aftermath of my first run - using the SWICK system with automated watering. I love it. Those bags will just lift out, knock off the perlite stuck to the roots, and recycle the soil and maybe the bag. The root ball, which will be as big as the bag, gets tossed.

I will add more perlite to make up for the stuff that crushed, put on a layer of coarse vermeculite, and clean out the control box. She will be ready for the next set of plants. I may lose the fan, as that causes a 1' dia hole in the canopy, but does vent the lower leafs well.

 

[Guest]

long story short, i've been waiting on this dude to bring me plants but he lives a long drive away and the snow this year is the worst we had so i told him no biggie but the situation still sucked. now the snow has finally allowed passage across the mountains and he says he is gonna come over, then calls in the morning and says he can't because he has a plant emergency. fine come the following day but he posted that night a pic of him fishing at a river that is the same distance away. whatever dude. so the following day arrives and i get this call middle of the afternoon when he is supposed to be arriving saying he isn't coming because he has to buy a water pump for his plants so he can water them, so i offered to meet him halfway to get the plants...like in plural. then he says he doesn't want to give me a bunch and he is gonna just bring me one i can mom out and can i buy him lunch for the plant? sure dude whatever gets some clean bug free plants in my room. so i drive halfway two hours up into the mountains where people ski and meet him. we go inside and its one of those order and pay at a counter and they'll bring your food to your table. i order $14 meal and so does he but he orders two appetizers also and the total comes to $50 including a tip. He slips me a $20 and says he didn't bring me a plant at all.

so i sat there and ate my food while he told me all this shit advice and I am thinking about all the stuff i had to reschedule to meet dude the past two days, the money i am out of for gas, time and i've waited for months now for these specific plants (long story about a business agreement) before i chop down my spider mite plants for his replacements. so after an hour i finish and after a two hour drive home in the shittiest traffic in our state i noticed i don't have my money. it is back at the restaurant on the bench seat beside me. so i drive two hours back up there and two hours back home again. i am so mad about the whole thing and i am done with this flake. maybe it worked out for my benefit because his plants could've had bugs even though he says they don't. he has said a lot of stuff that hasn't panned out.

Welcome to American Cannabis. Everyone is full of shit. The more qualified you're supposed to be the less you are . Everyone has bugs and no one knows why. It's a culture of DUMBASSES who prefer to remain DUMBASSES andFFRAUDS for their entire life. There's only two types of pot growers I can even tolerate at this point: foreign ones, and novices. All these idiots coming out of California claiming to be hot shit, are an absolute joke.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Back on subject kinda... My SWICK was on a "nearpow" timer, set to run 5 minutes every 6 hours. I unplugged it and noticed the water was still going down - so there is some kind of automatic fill going on between the reservoir and the control box. This is nice, as now no timer needed for water as the bilge pump in the waterfall control box seems to do it all. I suspect a siphon, despite cutting the fill and return lines to prevent that. It has been working over a month, so I am rolling with it. 13 gallon reservoir, plants take 4 gallons a day.

The real beauty of the SWICK is the reservoir built into each tub with the wick bed. To support the plant a 4" drainage line is made into a loop, set on the bottom of the tub, and enough wick to cover that pipe by a couple inches is added on top. The water in the tubs will hold the plants a few days by itself, even if the reservoir stops supplying water for some reason.. In the other tent I add water to the tubs manually, filling until the water is a couple inches below the fabric bag bottom.

Bulletproof.

 

[thailer]

Been a real joy watching Bmac’s plants growing. My SIPs grew tomatillos over the summer and worked great outdoors. Just checking in and I miss this place. Got a great job that will take care of all my needs with an awesome supportive company who has a herb garden box I get to take over this spring. Not the herb y’all like but it’s the best I can do to enjoy my gardening hobby for time being. It took me three months to be able to have a clean drug test and while I miss smoking Mac1 and spending time in my indoor garden, I feel really blessed to have an income, retirement plan, awesome health benefits and good company to work for. Been working every day for almost a month now and I still enjoy going to work. Not everyone can say that so I feel so fortunate. I hope you all are well and making strides in your gardens.

loads of love to y’all!!!
thailer

 

[flylowgethigh]

Great to hear from you Mr. Thailer, and great news about the employment. Thanks so much for making the little opening in the edge of the growing woods, into which I ventured and found this automatic SWICK system I am using.

It works well for me. I have a 2" stem in one of the 10 gallon bags.

 

[trichrider]

Great to hear from you Mr. Thailer, and great news about the employment. Thanks so much for making the little opening in the edge of the growing woods, into which I ventured and found this automatic SWICK system I am using.

It works well for me. I have a 2" stem in one of the 10 gallon bags.

that's pretty impressive ... how long did you veg to get that stem, and what are the other dimensions.
is that outside? or do you have really high ceilings?
Thailer did you have to quit growing? shame if you had too. food in the cupboard really is more important. be well.

 

[flylowgethigh]

It's that freak of nature Kali China Haze. The others are the usual 1" diameter. That plant is in the LEDs, 7' above the floor of the tent. My run #3 diary.

I'll get stem pics up when I feed Sunday AM.

 

[thailer]

Thailer did you have to quit growing? shame if you had too. food in the cupboard really is more important. be well.

Well sorta. I really don’t want to grow something I can’t enjoy. Plus I don’t really have a way to make any money off it. The job follows federal guidelines for drug testing.

 

[flylowgethigh]

My SWICK system with auto watering is working great. It looks like there is a commercial version, sorta. When I am done with a run and pull te bag off the SWICK, there are roots down in the wicking medium and into the water. Very similar to the Octopot :

https://youtu.be/-FJ5KryxThg

Yeah, they have kinda commercialized what we were doing here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-V5tOsSKs

But I think my auto-watering SIP s a better system for a lot of reasons. Being able to lift up and rotate or remove the bag/plant being a big one.

 

[Bio boy]

you want the water level an inch or two below the soil when it is full. you can use a bulkhead to attach DTW pipe or i just balance a milk jug on the bulk head to catch run off. then the water level is the same every time and if outdoors or heavy handed with the watering, you don't oversaturate the media.

wyf is going on here lol

has this progressed from a self fill gravity system to a automatic self draining self feeding system ?

I was gona hook 8 buckets together in a ring to the 9th bucket which had a float valve in set to an inch below soil where connector is
and hook that to my res

assuming the float will regulate round from the res till all is the same


so why does it seem peep are now using pumps ? Literally sold my drain to waste last week ….so I need to buy it back now??

 

[Bio boy]

wyf is going on here lol

has this progressed from a self fill gravity system to a automatic self draining self feeding system ?

I was gona hook 8 buckets together in a ring to the 9th bucket which had a float valve in set to an inch below soil where connector is
and hook that to my res

assuming the float will regulate round from the res till all is the same


so why does it seem peep are now using pumps ? Literally sold my drain to waste last week ….so I need to buy it back now??

Is this the idea ?
no pearlite in the buckets or res just in the net pot and basically allot gravity recirculating happen
the first bucket needs lifting to ensure 2nd gets filled am I right from that vid ?
does the res float need raising too

im running over flow from the air gap but back to res seperatly for each container
due to the level changes to keep water level

have I got the right idea cause so many different plans here I’m confused lol