The Official Hempy Bucket Thread

[Miraculous Meds]

Ok so u guys got me interested in doing a test. When I fire back up im going to test a couple simple hand fed coco plants just dtw. Then right next to them im going to do a couple hempys hand fed, and see which performs better. Is it ok to use hydroton on the bottom? It sure wouldn't crush as easy as perlite. Just cut a little hole a couple inches up a 2 or 3 gallon bucket, and water to get runoff each time. Am I missing anything guys?

 

[noyd666]

now there will be a pissing match over perlite or hydroton lol. I used perlite for years , no crushing, but hydroton should be ok. how about one of each? he ses with grin.

 

[DoomsDay]

^^^ RIGHT... I'm personally a fan of 100% perlite, however I've never used coco before. I've done the Verm/perlite mix and didn't like it as much as just perlite. Just my .02

 

[Miraculous Meds]

I will definitely do coco as the grow medium as I have a shit ton. Ive got one of those big bags of perlite, but I think its the small stuff. Idk I haven't used it since I was mixing my own soil probably 4 or 5 years ago. So is the small perlite a no go?

 

[Budwhyser]

I think its great to do a side by side and see what works in your environment. As they say " your mileage may vary.

I've personally never been a fan of coco as I've heard multiple past horror stories of infestations believed to have originated from coco. I've had to do a few complete reboots and just never wanted to watch that movie again.

 

[noyd666]

allways had the big perlite myself, that old could break down, found my chunky perlite got a bit ratty over time. don't use the bloody stuff no more , drain to waste coco.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

Ive got tons of coco experience. Id do coco over soil everyday of da week and twice on sundays. Anything can get bugs. Just keep it clean, and preventive maintenance.

Bugs don't originate in coco. Its just another location with roots in it for bugs to eat. the main culprit is the grow stores that can spread disease, or if they get wet during shipping.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

allways had the big perlite myself, that old could break down, found my chunky perlite got a bit ratty over time. don't use the bloody stuff no more , drain to waste coco.

What are u saying? U don't do hempys anymore, just regular dtw coco? If so why? No better performance than regular dtw?

 

[Jellyfish]

FYI- They don't make hydroton anymore, so I wish people would stop crushing it up.

 

[dansbuds]

What are u saying? U don't do hempys anymore, just regular dtw coco? If so why? No better performance than regular dtw?

i've been doing both for awhile now & No ..... i see no great advantage between the 2 styles .
but i will say , i don't use Hempys the way they were intended .

they were brought about so a person didn't have to feed every single day . thats why the rez in the bottom .
but with the introduction of coco to the hempy , which is what i was doing . coco hempys with perilite in the rez .
the better growth from feeding coco daily so they get fresh nutes & O2 daily made it so i was feeding them everyday . i set up drippers on a pump & rez , so i kinda was doing DTW anyways but only draining from the side hole instead of out the bottom of a regular pot .
so for me its just as easy to use regular pots with no perilte than Hempys , i get the same yield either way .

 

[Cannabis]

I will definitely do coco as the grow medium as I have a shit ton. Ive got one of those big bags of perlite, but I think its the small stuff. Idk I haven't used it since I was mixing my own soil probably 4 or 5 years ago. So is the small perlite a no go?

You can use the stuff from Home Depot or wherever that isn't big, it's just that when you're owning it, moving it around, it can't help but go from larger pieces,

to smaller pieces,

thus eventually to sand,

losing it's prodigious wicking power.

I switched out to coco eventually to give it a try; because of it's CEC


and just generally to know what it's like.


Perlite is the kind of stuff a person would want to use if they were growing say, in an illegal place, indoors, where there might be some kind of a need to just pick the plants up and leave.

Perlite is INCREDIBLY light. A whole five gallon bucket of the stuff weighs just a very slight couple of pounds - when bone dry I feel comfortable saying ounces, realizing people are getting my drift that
maybe it's a pound or so, but the difference between perlite,

and almost anything else in weight, is pretty big. *That being said*

there's the fact that dry coco IS the THING that probably BEST COMPETES in WEIGHT so that advantage against coco is pretty nil.

Coco really wicks and holds water and when perlite plants dry out sometimes the wilting seems pretty sudden.

Coco just holds more water and gives it up a little slower and when a plant is allowed to dry out to the point you're shocking the plant,

it acts PRECISELY like soil does: the wilt is more gradual in it's onset, and there doesn't seem to be quite so visible a collapse of turgor or pressure, within the plant.

I accidentally dried out a coco plant last summer and observed this; and I think, it has something to do not just with he wicking capacity of the coco in holding a larger reserve,

but when perlite kind of opens up - dries out, so atmospheric air can really move around within the matrix,

if there's any stimulus for this to happen such as the hole in the bottom of the bucket providing a way for air in, etc -

compared to the way the grains of perlite lie together, the coco is more closely interlaced,

and I don't think the evaporative drying takes place that happens in perlite.

This is just a bump and I'm really REALLY not an authority on the handling characteristics of both through extensive use.

I did work in a plant nursery for a couple of summers when I was doing electronic engineering at night. Nine hour days going around trimming hedges and taking the cuttings back and sticking them into sand beds to then grow plants to sell wholesale to other nurseries which x-planted them into larger pots to sell to landscapers.

It was a kind of interesting job, the numbers of clones we rooted were like a quarter of a million one summer, and a third of a million the second summer, a team of like five guys. Five guys or so, there was a whole nursery to run, so that wasn't all that GOT done, but it was a pretty decent experience.

We made the sandbeds about six feet wide and there were sprinklers from a shallow agricultural well about every ten feet and it was all covered with shade cloth.

a team of the owner and his wife and inlaws would trim the hedge clippings down to the size you stick out, and the type stem and plant determined the size of any clone you cut.

the woody ones which were for some small leafed hedges, we would put into the sandbed by hand at a rate of two or three per second.

And the bigger ones that had sorta soft stems, from two, to sometimes one per second for a couple of minutes maybe if a bundle of them popped apart and you had to collect them back up and start sticking them out.

I know that doesn't have much to do with Hempy Buckets LoL

 

[Cannabis]

I don't know why I said all that to you, lol, like you didn't already know about half or most of that, I just get thinking I wanna talk about growing pot sometimes,

break out the one hitter and get baked, and start spamming; hopefully not as weird and obnoxiously as I used to (be) LoL !

sheesh.. .

When the net first came out I was a pot activist and also a F.P.S. gamer and I used to get in some flame wars that were... woah.

Nowadays since my guys are generally winning the pot war in spite of the fact the terrorists have kidnapped Gypsy, I'm not so mad all the time - and I've trained myself to just chill out

but I have been in some doozies no doubt. (Not that any of THIS has anything to do with a Hempy bucket either LoL)

Peace

Everything I said's kind of a bump for the Official Hempy Bucket Thread which is a great way for someone to learn, and later on keep growing, pot. I've got about four hundred dollars in pH controllers sitting on a shelf one of em unopened, cause aero takes so much work and resources.

 

[DoomsDay]

^^^^ I'm going to agree with that. I switched over to hempys just under a year ago I believe, and damn.

Root ball of 5 gal hempy bucket

 

[jcash]

So when I put the clone in the hempy5g pot I should water it everyday till I replace the solution in the reservoir. Im hearing that you cant over water the plants. I just dont want to drown the little clones feeding that much water everyday till the roots hit the reservoir. Should I be worried about drowning my clone this way. How do you water until the roots hit reservoir?

 

[Jellyfish]

How do you water until the roots hit reservoir?

Every other day works fine for me. BTW, the roots don't really have to hit the reservoir for the plant to start up-taking water.

 

[DoomsDay]

I never water every day either. I typically go every other to every 3 days, but the first 2 weeks are under semi intense led indoor. The plant will show you when the roots hit the res, then introduce her to high pressure lighting/ sunshine. (Slow break in going into sunshine from led obviously)

 

[DoDad]

I am having pretty massive PH drift up with perlite/verm and using maxibloom.

It seems to be holding stable out of the pots but the runoff in the rez is much higher within 24 hours after I water my plants.

is there anyway to stabilize the PH?

 

[MrBelvedere]

I am having pretty massive PH drift up with perlite/verm and using maxibloom.

It seems to be holding stable out of the pots but the runoff in the rez is much higher within 24 hours after I water my plants.

is there anyway to stabilize the PH?

Depending on how high you drilled the hole, too much fertilizer may be accumulating in the bottom. You can experiment with one bucket and drill hole at the bottom of bucket and not use a reservoir or greatly decrease the reservoir. The reservoir is insurance in case you forget to water. Personally I drill holes at bottom of bucket so there is never stagnant water sitting there... And it works great.

Having a very tiny or zero reservoir makes it a lot easier to flush the whole plant if necessary also. If you have 50% vermiculite it will be moist enough for a very small Rez.

 

[DoDad]

Depending on how high you drilled the hole, too much fertilizer may be accumulating in the bottom. You can experiment with one bucket and drill hole at the bottom of bucket and not use a reservoir or greatly decrease the reservoir. The reservoir is insurance in case you forget to water. Personally I drill holes at bottom of bucket so there is never stagnant water sitting there... And it works great.

Having a very tiny or zero reservoir makes it a lot easier to flush the whole plant if necessary also. If you have 50% vermiculite it will be moist enough for a very small Rez.

I'm running 75/25 and am watering everyday sometimes 2 or three times.

I just tested my runoff at the plant and it was fine. But when I tested the water in my rez, it was much higher.

This water in the rez is the runoff that has sat in this tub for a few hours. When I poured this seemingly too high PH water over the plants, that runoff was fine.

It's the standing water I'm having issues with. I also have lots of bubbles in that rez.

I would like that water to be stable in that rez for more than one watering or day. It's only about a gallon standing or in the bubbles and it's also open to the temps in the room and air.

I'm doing something like this. It's the water below the water line that seems to be my issue.

 

[MrBelvedere]

I'm running 75/25 and am watering everyday sometimes 2 or three times.

I just tested my runoff at the plant and it was fine. But when I tested the water in my rez, it was much higher.

This water in the rez is the runoff that has sat in this tub for a few hours. When I poured this seemingly too high PH water over the plants, that runoff was fine.

It's the standing water I'm having issues with. I also have lots of bubbles in that rez.

I would like that water to be stable in that rez for more than one watering or day. It's only about a gallon standing or in the bubbles and it's also open to the temps in the room and air.

I'm doing something like this. It's the water below the water line that seems to be my issue.

75% perlite? Yes that will need more frequent waterings.


I am not experienced with that style. I just use bottled organic nutrients add to tap water in gallon milk jugs. Shake and let sit overnight to reach room temperature. The next day shake again and add the gallons to a watering can and let it rain until there is runoff. There are never any issues with the primitive method.

Why not switch out the Rez water if it is bad? Generally in a hempy bucket the only Rez you need is in the bottom of the bucket. You don't need a large reservoir because at that point it is complex and problems can start happening.