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The Official Hempy Bucket Thread

U

Ununionized

I've got two in coco/perlite 5 gallons, that I'm about to remove to a remote location where there is some 110 volt power. I'm gonna put a little water pump on - actually a powerful one I'm gonna turn down flow from - and have it pulse my plants 15 minutes each day.

$3.95 dollar store timer
T fitting
aquarium tubing
water pump of any size.
hot glue, etc...

The REAL deal with these is to feed a 5 gallon or something with a float designed for an evaporative cooler.

Your ferts are in a big barrel standing beside it, feeding that float, so that the water level in the 5 gallon or whatever, is always the same height. This makes it always dispense the same amount of water through effectively, 10 five gallon buckets' worth.

I have the barrels but not the barbed connectors to feed from one to the other so I'm gonna just run a five, fed by a five sitting on it, with the bottom one having it's water level held the same

- at least through the first five gallons.


After screwing around with a couple different pots I am back to tempt buckets.
Got a round in my flower room now that is strait coco/ perlite with hydroton on top. Got a round coming up with hydroton bottom pure coco hydroton top. I think this is my fav. Thus far.
Grew some 7ft plus trees this last round in em and daily watering seemed to keep an happy.
Tossing around the idea of setting up a pulse feed for the flower room
 

SamsonsRiddle

Active member
Can someone explain to me the fulvic acid...does it really help with taste that much , how do you apply it how much and how often ...thanks
you'd be better off looking in other threads for this.

without getting into the science behind it, it makes your macros and micros more easily available to your plants. most people use it every other week.
 

Xanode

Member
Can coco/perl hempys be fed only from the bottom? Will salt build up? If doing so should one just flush from the top once a week or something?

With smaller plants that i can turn the bucket sideways without breaking the plant I have been feeding from the top, tipping out the rez and then filling the rez with fresh solution and they love it but once they get too big it gets impossible to tip the bucket to empty the rez.
 

Jellyfish

Invertebrata Inebriata
Veteran
I don't know about coco hempys, but the classic un-automated hempy bucket is fed from the top.
I don't understand the "tipping out the rez and then filling the rez with fresh solution" bit. Why are you doing that? I just fill the hempy until a couple drops come out the hole, and that's it.

The bucket is full (to the bottom of the hole), so why pour some out and then top it off? I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just trying to understand, because it might be something good you're doing. Thanks!
 

Xanode

Member
I don't know about coco hempys, but the classic un-automated hempy bucket is fed from the top.
I don't understand the "tipping out the rez and then filling the rez with fresh solution" bit. Why are you doing that? I just fill the hempy until a couple drops come out the hole, and that's it.

The bucket is full (to the bottom of the hole), so why pour some out and then top it off? I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just trying to understand, because it might be something good you're doing. Thanks!

reason, why I do that, is because I feel like its runoff sitting in the hempy rez after it's been through the coco, tipping it out and filling the rez through the hole with totally fresh solution cant be a bad thing?
 
Can coco/perl hempys be fed only from the bottom? Will salt build up? If doing so should one just flush from the top once a week or something?

With smaller plants that i can turn the bucket sideways without breaking the plant I have been feeding from the top, tipping out the rez and then filling the rez with fresh solution and they love it but once they get too big it gets impossible to tip the bucket to empty the rez.

I ran coco Hempys around the time that Hempy got pissed off and pretty much stopped posting... I ran them for a while. I found that they worked great as long as you have great plants and roots that move a lot of water. But, the pots were easy to saturate. That was hard to recover from.
I still use coco. But i switched to smart pots. And, i run a recirculating system with fairly high flow pumps. I like the plants to be completely flushed each time i water.
I really like this system except for the damn fungas gnats. I cant seem to shake them.
 
U

Ununionized

Just for whom it may concern, I was afraid animals were going to turn over my stack of buckets, and also at the time, didn't have a float installed into one of the buckets.

Looking around I had the float, but I also had the tubing and some barbs for an irrigation system; and I opted to sit the two five gallon buckets side by side, feeding each other, with a little stretch of 1/4" line.

The timers fed the buckets alright I guess, I wasn't around, and there's not a lotta complexity to feeding the one timer, with a previous one that only allows the clock to turn on the other, but half a day -

that creates, the two-day, or I could have made it three days or four days' interval between turn-on periods for the timing system - but I made the mistake of sitting the two plants, into a larger container,

into which I poured like... ten gallons of fluid before I left.

My timer setup then watered them on top of that. BaaaD mistake.

House #2 is hundreds of miles from house #1, there's the wife, kids, all this, I was afraid I wouldn't get back in time, and I nitrogen poisoned the SHIT outta my (otherwise, always passive fed to now) Hempy buckets.

The plants stood in way too much fertilizer solution, for long time and darn near died.
 
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U

Ununionized

I ran coco Hempys around the time that Hempy got pissed off and pretty much stopped posting... I ran them for a while. I found that they worked great as long as you have great plants and roots that move a lot of water. But, the pots were easy to saturate. That was hard to recover from.
I still use coco. But i switched to smart pots. And, i run a recirculating system with fairly high flow pumps. I like the plants to be completely flushed each time i water.
I really like this system except for the damn fungas gnats. I cant seem to shake them.

I did coco for awhile myself - just a couple of rounds - but went back to perlite, using coco in the place of the vermiculite, since I had so much coco.

Same situation here. The plants didn't seem to be able to handle the high water content of coco so well.
 
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Jellyfish

Invertebrata Inebriata
Veteran
Try the coarser coco chips. They work well in Hempy buckets mixed with Perlite .

Let me ask you this- does it work better than vermiculite mixed with perlite?

Ever since coco got popular with growers, I've been hearing complaints and concerns about it. But I never hear anybody that uses the original perlite/vermiculite formula complain.

So what is it about coco that's supposed to be better than p/v?
 

Earlmarne

Member
Let me ask you this- does it work better than vermiculite mixed with perlite?

Ever since coco got popular with growers, I've been hearing complaints and concerns about it. But I never hear anybody that uses the original perlite/vermiculite formula complain.

So what is it about coco that's supposed to be better than p/v?
I am moving away from coco.
I believe there is faster growth to be had from perlite based mediums.
The plus I believe of coco is that it will support a denser root mass.
 

Jellyfish

Invertebrata Inebriata
Veteran
Thanks for the response, Earlmarne. I really couldn't ask for denser or better root mass than that achieved by perlite/vermiculite. The reason this thread is over 400 pages long, I think, is because the first post tells you 90% of what a first-timer needs to know to grow mary jane. ;)
 

Earlmarne

Member
At harvest I believe perlite roots look better.
I believe that the success I have had as a new gardener had much to do with hempy buckets. About as simple as you can get. I've had 7 ft trees in my 5 gallon hempys.
 

Capt.Ahab

Feeding the ducks with a bun.
Veteran
Let me ask you this- does it work better than vermiculite mixed with perlite?

Ever since coco got popular with growers, I've been hearing complaints and concerns about it. But I never hear anybody that uses the original perlite/vermiculite formula complain.

So what is it about coco that's supposed to be better than p/v?

I grow in the traditional Perlite /vermiculite mix. My only experience with coco Hempy buckets is using the coarse coco chips with no problems and great root development. If I remember correctly I used hydroton in the bottom of the bucket. I often use the coarse coco chips in my starter solo cups but those plants usually go in the traditional mix when transplanted.
 
Before the term Hempy..

Before the term Hempy..

I was an active member about a yr ago and went on a walk about for many months..I was growing with what I defined as SWC....The last crop and current one, I returned to passive growing...my first garden was in 1979 and within a year was regularly pumping out crops...Back then THE ONLY VIABLE system is what is now called Hempy bucket....Anybody growing in the eastern half of Massachusetts grew like this....The reason I was checking back in at IC, is that it seems over the years the name Hempy was attached to it, BUT for certain, this method was used since 1980 up there and quite wide spread....we would use pea stone in the reservoir area....we only top watered until the roots bottomed out and then watered down a 2 inch pvc tube attached to the inside of the buckets, as soon as the roots reached the bottom.....Since then, I fell for every grow method developed...I have come full circle back to passive 'Hempy' buckets..my larger gardens are done and this is by far the simplest, effective was to grow smaller crop....Nothing wrong with the name that got attached, but it certainly was widely used by 1980....included a pic of the bucket I use..the only modification since the beginning is the airstone in each...since I dont top water after ths roots set, it keep the internal res mixed and aerated..
 

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BombBudPuffa

Member
Veteran
I was an active member about a yr ago and went on a walk about for many months..I was growing with what I defined as SWC....The last crop and current one, I returned to passive growing...my first garden was in 1979 and within a year was regularly pumping out crops...Back then THE ONLY VIABLE system is what is now called Hempy bucket....Anybody growing in the eastern half of Massachusetts grew like this....The reason I was checking back in at IC, is that it seems over the years the name Hempy was attached to it, BUT for certain, this method was used since 1980 up there and quite wide spread....we would use pea stone in the reservoir area....we only top watered until the roots bottomed out and then watered down a 2 inch pvc tube attached to the inside of the buckets, as soon as the roots reached the bottom.....Since then, I fell for every grow method developed...I have come full circle back to passive 'Hempy' buckets..my larger gardens are done and this is by far the simplest, effective was to grow smaller crop....Nothing wrong with the name that got attached, but it certainly was widely used by 1980....included a pic of the bucket I use..the only modification since the beginning is the airstone in each...since I dont top water after ths roots set, it keep the internal res mixed and aerated..

You're killing it! Great job.
 
Hempy bud porn...

Hempy bud porn...

Cpl of bud closeups of last crop....Cheese Candy, White Widow extrm and Incredible bulk.....my current garden has mostly THC Bomb..thot I would check it out..its 4.5 weeks into flower....For those who wonder about the quality of a hempy grown bud, simplicity does NOT mean ANY sacrifice of quality...
 

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Response to light green cuttings

Response to light green cuttings

Sorry, this came out as new post...it was jn response to a new hempy grower saying his cuttings were pale the day after sticking them under 1k light....about a page and a half back...Dont mean to crash in..if a transplanted cutting got pale green that quick at 600ppm, mostly likely it nust due to 'transplant' shock..transition is a better word, its not as extreme....you probably had cuttings under much weaker light and stick them under 1kw, they need to adjust to that...I use 1k light but raise it about 4ft above transplants...cpl days bring it down a ft, a cpl days, some more....those roots will set and get active....I am in 5 gal Hempy and 700 ppms easily takes me into flower....a week to 10 days, it all comes together...the roots bottom out in the res and they are fully acclimated to a 1000w light...they EXOPLODE with growth....having that momentum going into flower is a key to success....ALWAYS helps to start with VERY healthy clones...I start mine in 8oz styro coffee cups and soon as they root, I put into hempy SOLO CUPS....I can get them a ft tall and thru a cpl topping before I need them for the next crop....MASSIVE roots in the solo cup and there is MINIMAL transition from the nursery to the main garden....cpl pics shows a hempy solo cup plant and all 6 only 1 day into veg....they usually dont skip a beat like that and in a week the roots are down in the buckets rez....YT
 

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