Bottomfeeding: no drain, no waste

[John Deere]

Sort of playing it by ear but yes, I'll keep bottom feeding. I've got 1 G smart pots sitting in a tray and I let them suck up all the runoff. Seems to be working well so far but I'm still fairly new at it. I'll definitely keep posting.

You could always buy smaller bags/bricks of peat and coco. I mixed mine up in a rubbermaid tote. It all sounds like more work than it really was. I'm pretty excited about it all at this point and I'm learning tons over in the organic forum.

 

[Swan Lee]

High humidity problem ?

High humidity problem ?

Phew,i finally made it to the end of this thread very informative and definitely interested in trying this next grow,but i live in a part of Europe that suffers from high humidity ,and wonder if having trays of water in place,would only add to the problem ?

 

[habeeb]

What are people's nutes/ratios for bottom-feeding? I use 10ml GH Flora bloom, 7.5ml Flora micro, and 5ml floralicious bloom thru week 4 (half that for week 1, with ), when I drop the micro, and add 1/8tsp Kool Bloom powder, until the last two weeks, when I go to plain water.

very interesting, can I ask where did you come up with this formula?

I see looking at head's formula, you might say raise the bloom up to 10ml, but looking at my plants, never would have thought the need to micro also... very intrigued now.. more info would be excellent

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I myself have ran heads 6/9, it was ok, more tweaking needed.. thing was the guy didn't give us a formula on R/O which I think if he was gonna go through all the trouble, should have added into making a formula.. also he goes on to state, just use a coco nutrient if you have one, but when he was in pro-mix, he didn't "just use " the directions on the bottles of GH. he made his own formula.. so in that whole sense the guy kinda killed it for me.. 6/9 is a good formula.. I'm not gonna lie about that, but when someone makes a statement then does the opposite, it just kinda ruins it for me, and leaves me questioning

anyways, I've also run a modified flora duo blend, at 5A / 8B and varying the A formula to 4.5-4 depending on looks. It was super low in Ca, but the thing was it worked very very good first run, and this is what I'm gonna stick to, it works and I think with a tad more tweaking, I have a winner, and it's the "newest" nute from GH, so I think we have something here.. problem being the US ans Euro versions are different

also ran H&G coco, it was ok.. maybe my growing style didn't really fit it.. I would like to run it again some day.. problem being for me, was it's super acidic with R/O, and i don't like using pH buffers, the less I use the happier I am.

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one thing I do know, coco is far superior to peat for me.. I found a very old bag of peat, so I used it to test germ some seeds. took 1 1/2 days to re-wet the peat.... I'm glad I found coco, that's all I can say. I don't see any reason to use peat, ever again.

 

[thesloppy]

very interesting, can I ask where did you come up with this formula?

Deep within my ass. The GH calendar for recirculating their 3-part calls for 15ml bloom and 7.5 micro, but that was a little too hot for my girls, so I pulled it down to 10ml bloom. The Drain To Waste calendar calls for 4ml micro, and 8ml bloom.

I don't quite follow the above plan anymore though. These days I'm more apt to do 7.5ml bloom and 5ml micro for most of the plant's life, and then bump up to 10ml bloom for the last couple weeks before flush. So, I guess I kinda fall in the middle of the GH calendars.

Truthfully, there wasn't much science to it....the overriding factor is that I only mix a gallon of nutes at a time, and therefore limited to the volume provided by measuring spoons. So it was either 5ml, 7.5ml, or 10ml of bloom and 5ml or 7.5 of micro, and I've just gone with the mix of those numbers that my ladies seem to like best (7.5ml bloom and 5ml micro).

 

[siftedunity]

it seems to be working for you which is good. your using quite small pots though so that would help. you might have a problem with larger pots though?

i have notice with top watering is that when the surface layer is dry the bottom half of the pot is still wetter. im thinking of trying drips and/or smart pots. i think that when they dry out more often they put out more roots. and i think that for me should improve the yield/quality . thanks for showing us your ideas though buddy

 

[Guest 279031]

I just want to pay a little respect to the OP. When working out my system I stumbled across this thread and it solved my dilemna. In a sog situation, watering can be a real chore. But not for me so far:



Plants on the left are almost 3 weeks old (check out the roots in the bottom), and the ones on the right are only 2 weeks old (Pure Kush). Obviously the PK isn't going to work out. I have to get strains better suited to fit the short space. It's about 13 inches from dirt to glass.

However, the bottom feeding seems to rock. I pour a cup a day in there and next day the bottom is still wet but the water's gone.

So, thanks again for this thread

 

[thesloppy]

Looking good ChrisQ! That's a cramped space indeed, but you look to be getting the best out of it. Thanks for the thread props (though that may be more than I deserve for just starting a thread about dumping water in my drain tray).


On a semi-related note, I've finally started adding Mycorrhizae to my routine, after reading many positive reviews over the last few years, and the roots have really seemed to explode as a result.

 

[StoopheadFred]

Like mycorrhizae? Start brewing aerated compost teas!

I'm going to go this route for my veg cab. Has anyone tried any different medium for bottomfeeding? Would perlite work, or would it not wick enough water? I'm wondering because I'm basically looking at bottom feeding in netpots, then moving over to DWC buckets for flowering and I think the coco will hold too much water to work as hydroponic medium.

 

[thesloppy]

Hey Fred, I bottom-feed straight perlite to clones, but it's in a very small, and shallow container, so I dunno if the comparison is worth much to you. It certainly wicks well, and I assume it would fine. You could adjust with some vermiculite if you wanted to tweak porosity/wicking without coco. Let me know how it works out for you, if you end up giving it a try.

 

[RicoT]

First off, thanks a ton for the thread sloppy! Just read it beginning to end and thought someone said it didn't work so well with square pots.. But the possibilities using this with a sog and square pots are incredible to think of. I'll be following along closely to see how things turn out..

 

[NPK]

Just read it beginning to end and thought someone said it didn't work so well with square pots.. But the possibilities using this with a sog and square pots are incredible to think of. I'll be following along closely to see how things turn out.

RicoT, this summer I've been doing a decent-sized backyard grow, 50+ plants bottom-fed in buckets. I used one-gallon square pots for vegging just because I had 'em around, and they worked great. I was able to fit around three plants in a four-foot plastic planter box, which is perfect for the square pots. So easy to move several plants around the yard at once, and watering's a snap. I agree totally about the SOG possibilities--have been thinking the same and am going to be doing this very thing in the yard next year.

 

[thesloppy]

I only use 2-liters because they're cheap. I covet some of the square tall tree pots for my SOG for sure.

 

[RicoT]

Thanks guys!! But I'm thinking more like 7 or 8 x 7-8 6" square pots in a 4x4' space under a 1k or 6x6 6"s in 3'x3 under a 600, etc. and just filling the tray they're in to feed, which can easily be framed and pond lined about 8-10" deep. Got a long ass 9months left in Iraq but man when I get home..! I'm telling you I see it now two tiers and all..! Should electric suspicion permit...

 

[thesloppy]

Sounds neat. Build a custom bottom-feeding 3'x3' SoG cabinet!

 

[RicoT]

Or to keep it simple a sog on the floor with a sog on top of that one.. The floor's sog lights hung on the floor of the upper tier. Like vert horizontal grows.. Been wanting to do this a while actually. Only seen pics of it in those huge warehouse grows so far.. And you can automate anything.. But this seems so simple and easy already. Glad you started this thread sloppy!

 

[StoopheadFred]

Finally got my bottom fed setup going and I am loving it so far. 16 small SOG plants get watered in 30 seconds, and by using a pond pump on a timer I could easily and cheaply automate this process.

Respect and thanks to ya sloppy! I'll throw some pictures up here as my setup progresses if you don't mind.

 

[thesloppy]

Go crazy Fred! this thread could use some action.

 

[tejashidrow]

WOW
i HAVE BEEN BOTTOM FEEDING FOR YEARS!!.. all STARTED WHEN I WANTED TO TRY A hempy inspired mini SERVER GROW.
i COULD ONLY USE A SMALL KITTY LITTER TRAY WITH 4 INCH pot SQUARES.
nOW I hAVE A CAB WITH 4 -9 QUART TRASH BINS.
hOLES DRILLED ALL SIDES 4 INCHES UP FROM BOTTOM
i HAVE BEEN RUNNING STRAIGHT PERALITE, BUT SWITCHING TO COCO NEXT RUN
Will use PBP soil and floralicious plus.
My roots get matted at the bottom by the end of a run, but NEVER had a problem. (i don't use any hygrozyme stuff ever)
I water once every 3-days, exactly one gallon
i get a consistent 1 oz from each plant
2.7 square foot 250 watt hps scrog

 

[quinoa64]

Thanks, thesloppy -- this is a really inspirational thread for a noob like me, and I'm glad to see so many bottom feeders dropping love in here.

I've tried a bunch of different methods and mediums for growing vegetables over the past year, just to learn the basics of growing stuff. I've pretty much settled on coco as an ideal medium, but what method to use? I plan to grow micro, so hempys seem like overkill. And what do you do with runoff in a small, stealthy space?

Bottom feeding, using 2L bottles in a baking pan or Rubbermaid container, sounds like the perfect approach. Lazy = win!

Two comments that may help some other folks come around to this approach:

1) I aerate my tap water before mixing nutes to get rid of the chlorine. It's a great alternative to putting an air-stone in the reservoir, and makes adding H2O2 safer if you need to do that.

2) If you occasionally need to get a bunch of water out of a reservoir, you don't need a pump. You can make a siphon with a foot or two of aquarium tubing. Just submerge the whole length in the reservoir and let the air bubble out. Then put a finger over one end of the tube, remove it from the tank, and put it into your drain container. As long as the drain end of the tube is below the bottom of your reservoir, the whole thing will drain out.

 

[SRGB]

Nice thread.

A bottom feed that supplies only the amount that a given plant or tree uptakes per 24-48hr period might be advantageous; whether the feed is fed through the top, drains through the medium and runs off into the reservoir, or is poured directly into the bottom of the reservoir and wicked up as feed, or other similar approach. We found during experiments that if the supplied solution was an amount that the plant or tree used (depleted from the reservoir) within 24-48hrs, managing pH and nutrient solution composition was simpler than managing a larger volume of solution that might remain for a longer period. Just noting options that might be considered by the soilless gardener utilizing a bottom-feeding method.

Kind regards,
/SRGB/