Bottomfeeding: no drain, no waste

[cyat]

thanx rudy it is easy but I still need to water ever 3 days or so.9 girls in a pool is 9x easier to water this way. hey u could sell ur bottom feeder buckets w/ instructions i'd buy one!
honestly I have a problem trying new techniques
how about recirculating soil flow w plumbed pools 3in of water 4 in of rocks in cloth bags ($store) topped with a supersoil

 

[3dDream]

Crusader Rabbit - I too found out the hard way that smartvalves can float, but I now lock down the valves from both sides with clips. I also switched from pureblend pro to cns17 and have zero clogs.


Are there any other peepz that use just the valve in their own setup? I use my own trays and love how fast thing grow. When I see people hand watering or feeding to a timer I sometimes wonder if they think about the cycles a plant wants to drink, rather than the cycles a person decides feed. Why ration a plant when you cannot overfeed? I do find that I have to use lightly less food per gallon than my fellow icmag users recommend, I get burned tips if I do.

Anyone use beneficial bacteria in their setup? I have also been using GH subculture-b and my hoses and trays have been staying clean. No algae or brown staining from the nutes. I think the switch of nutes helps too, but I watched the suckers clean the trays during the switch.

 

[cyat]

hey 3d my smart valve locks into the tray. can you put up some pics of you diy smartvalve trays?

 

[cyat]

3D do you think one smartvalve could supply a big kiddee pool? is it as easy as fastening the valve to the pool/ or tray?

smartvalve controlled kiddee pools would be badass!

 

[3dDream]

First, I should say that I micro grow, so take that with a grain of salt. I think this could scale to a kiddie pool, but I also they the key element is: many feeding > few feedings. Many feedings also means more air exchange. I do not run young plants in my trays because it is too much water for a young plant to process. BTW, make sure you use super flat pots. When you do, you can watch the water get sucked into the pot when the valves first open. Speaking of the valves, they do float so you need to have them pinned down. I don't use the peg that the normal kit uses since my trays are flat. I use the black paper clips to push them down, I hope you can see it in the pics. My rez is hold about 4 gallons and I aerate it. One reason I like many trays vs one tray is because I flower a variety of plants and some take longer than others. When I flush I simply shut off the valve to the tray and hand water until chop time. I will also shut off a tray if I think plants are too small for the setup. So it is kinda nice to have control over small groups of plants.

Best of luck!

 

[stonedar]

my smart-valves came with suction cups to hold them down.
there is no reason you can't put 3-4 of them in one kiddie pool. the limiting factor is how slowly they fill the tray. one valve in a kiddie pool would never close, the plants would drain the water faster than it fills. they work best in small tubs, like a bus tub they use in restaurants to clear tables or smaller.
the manufacturer is fixing to come out with a much larger set up for using in soil beds, they have a video showing them in an outdoor garden they look promising.

tub = tray

 

[cyat]

thanks for the info 3d and stonedar. heard about someone putting the valve in a plastic pot in a cloth pot with rocks under it to give a higher water level.
what do you guys think?

 

[Strangely]

Great thread, someone as 'time conscious' (lazy!) as myself. I have a very small media wick system that's just started it's third run. I can feed every 3 or 4 days meaning no prob's for when I'm often away over a weekend.

Rez > coco with descending coco filled pipes > plant > scrog screen

So far I've top fed the water which drains through to fill the rez up. The media container doesn't completely cover the rez so it'd be easy to only bottom feed. Might give it a go this time around.

Just bought some H202 to add some oxygen in to the process (food grade 35% stuff) as my rez has no air stone etc to keep noise at a minimum. My rez is only a couple of litres so anyone any idea how much to put in for my sort of set up? I was going to use the highly scientific approach of putting a caps worth in and see if anything bad happened!

 

[cyat]

careful with the h2o2. 27% recommended dose is 2-3ml per gal every 2-3 days, so probably use less.

 

[Granger2]

With 35% use it by the drop. Better yet, dilute it 10 parts H2O to 1 part 35%, then use at the rate of 1 or 2 tsp/gal. Careful with the 35%. It'll burn you. I buy a qt. of 3% at the store, and refill with diluted 29%.

Using H2O2 routinely will kiil beneficials. Have fun. -granger

 

[cyat]

just got annoher autopot gonna rig the smartvalve to a kiddee pool

 

[Strangely]

Cheers cyat and Granger2. I'll suitably dilute as instructed and see what happens! Thanks for the info.

 

[stonedar]

you know futuregarden.com sells just the smartvalves, if you live in the US
http://www.futuregarden.com/hydroponics/systems_autopots.html#product_listing

 

[John Deere]

Last week I got called out of town for a full week due to an emergency. My seedling survived just fine and is looking pretty good.

I also tried the pet feeder-style gallon res for a male that I was growing for pollen but I think my hole was too small and it didn't make it. I was still able to collect some pollen off it so no big deal. Good learning experience.

 

[habeeb]

you know futuregarden.com sells just the smartvalves, if you live in the US
http://www.futuregarden.com/hydroponics/systems_autopots.html#product_listing

I think the US version is suited better as they flood to 20mm I believe, and the australian one floods to 30mm

all and all, I've given up on autopots.. they were awesome to grow in ( only grew veggies with salts ) but worked amazing.. only thing was, when cleanup time came... very very bad. now if you forgot the root mat and bottom filled media ( whatever you use ) then I think were talking, but if your using the bottom media and root mat, forget getting 5 stars on the cleanup box..

I still have yet to fully clean some of the valves and trays and pots, there sitting outside... and by no means do people call me lazy.. I call it a flawed system that's hell to clean up

 

[John Deere]

Still rockin' the bottom feed. I had some minor (but annoying) algae issues recently so I scrubbed everything out and started adding a couple drops of bleach to my res. No more algae.

I've been comparing bottom feeding to hempys. It seems to me that the only difference is that hempys have the res inside the pot and bottom feeding has the res outside. Otherwise...?

BOG Sour Bubble, 1 G root pots, coco/perlite, K.I.S.S.

 

[Midnight Rudy]

Still rockin' the bottom feed. I had some minor (but annoying) algae issues recently so I scrubbed everything out and started adding a couple drops of bleach to my res. No more algae.

I've been comparing bottom feeding to hempys. It seems to me that the only difference is that hempys have the res inside the pot and bottom feeding has the res outside. Otherwise...?

BOG Sour Bubble, 1 G root pots, coco/perlite, K.I.S.S.

There is also the whole pouring fluid from the top thing. I have noticed some grey/green fuzz growing on the top of a few pots so I just stir up the surface with my finger or pour through the top of the pot and fill the res that way.

Another advantage of the bottom feeding is that you have essentially a hempy setup with a shared res, so the thirsty ones can take from the ones that are less thirsty which extends the time between feedings if you need to.

Downside to bottom feeding is flushing if you have different finish times on different plants within the system.a

You are right though, they are mostly the same thing. I have been doing this for over a year and have found it works great.

 

[cyat]

update:
kiddee pools with cloth grocery bags, filled with sunshine #4/napa 8820 and bottom fed
this is outperforming hard pots and buckets by far. did I mention ow easy it is to water?
dump a 5 gal bucket of nutes in the pool every 2-3 days ur done.
thicker bushier larger plants
no waste like when I did coco drain to waste or even hydro
FND flood no drain

 

[John Deere]

There is also the whole pouring fluid from the top thing. I have noticed some grey/green fuzz growing on the top of a few pots so I just stir up the surface with my finger or pour through the top of the pot and fill the res that way.

Good to know. I've pulled my plants out every once in awhile and given them a quick flush, just to rinse out anything that may be accumulating. I've considered watering through the pots but honestly, it's easier to just dump it in the res instead.

 

[John Deere]

Downside to bottom feeding is flushing if you have different finish times on different plants within the system.

I'm running a couple smaller reservoirs instead of one big one so I could fill them differently if needed. If you're using a kiddie pool or the like I'd think you could place a smaller bucket of some sort in it and use that for flushing. Know what I mean? A smaller separate res inside the big res.