passive plant killer

[delta9nxs]

~$2 each

I have a few questions, should the holes be on the bottom of the cap or the side of the pipe? If the 'neck' of the 2L is a few inches above the water, can the bottle still be 12" tall. Could I then just make a ~3/4" hole in the top so that less water evaporates?

I've also been thinking about how to build a smaller version of that trashcan, where only a little bit of media is needed and almost all the water is used by the plant. I'll probably end up killing some herbs with a bottle, some PVC, a little perlite/vermiculite, and about 1 gallon of water/nutes..
Thanks

hey, themonarch, wow, that didn't take long. with a media wick i'm not positive but i think you don't want holes in the sidewall as that will encourage the growth of air type roots as the water recedes. presenting the possibility of drowning them when you bring the water level back up.

i don't see any problem using full size bottles. and a 3/4" hole should be more than sufficient for a 2 liter container.

 

[delta9nxs]

Wow what an excellent read!

Much info here.

Wicks rule! How far can a wick transport water? Uphill much less i guess...

Would hemp rope make good wick?? I have some spare lying round.

That cucumber pdf is also most excellent!! A smaller version would indeed be interesting for a late season guerilla grow!

Keep up the good work

hey, silversurfer, nice to meet you and thanks for the kind words!

i did an experiment with the polyester batting i was using as a wick using food coloring as a marker and it wicked at least 11". member darthfader reports he is using one of the microfiber towels with good results.

hemp and other organic type fabrics like cotton all scored rather low on "wicking" ability.

that cucumber stuff drives me crazy!

thanks for stopping by. d9

 

[delta9nxs]

I'm still having trouble understanding the concept of the media wick.

maybe someone could post a drawing of a simple version?

How is this accomplished using regular two gallon round containers if it all?

the media wick is nothing more than the sump filled with your growing media. no cloth necessary.

i'll use some of the same old pics again, hope you don't mind.

the first pic shows my original sump with the polyester batting in it. imagine it also filled with your potting media. like a belt and suspenders, i wasn't taking any chances here.

the second pic is the recently departed ppk #2 after depotting. the cloth wick is still intact. but the sump is also full of turface.

the 3rd and 4th pic show what i'm doing now. the only difference is no cloth wick at all. the media filled sump is always submerged in your nute solution and therefore is always transporting water and nutes via the same medium you grow in.

 

[delta9nxs]

one of the reasons i built mine as heavy as i did was that i grow large plants. i did not know at the time i was going to link my reservoirs and i wanted a high capacity res volume. the mat then became necessary to cover the res as this is a "closed" sub-irrigated system. controlling evaporation was and is a priority with me as rapid evap makes for rapid tds and ph changes. something i don't need.

if you grow in smaller containers there is no reason you couldn't have a smaller res also. especially if you know up front that you are going to link them all to a volume tank.

ljb, think of my 5 gal containers with their 1 1/2" sumps and then a 2 gal container with a 1" sump but without the mat and cut off support bucket underneath. just a bucket with a funny looking protrusion sticking out of the bottom.

now take one of those 3.5 gal buckets from lowes that are just like a 5 gal only shorter. put a regular bucket lid on it and drill a hole in the lid large enough to just drop the 2 gal sump into. no attachment necessary. a simple hole in the sidewall of the 3.5 gal at the level you want to run your res or a standpipe like i use. both control water level. or just hook them all to a bucket with a float valve in it, rdwc style.

i believe these principles can be used with any size containers.

 

[delta9nxs]

damn, time for a smoke!

 

[LJB]

ok so the pipe up the middle in photo #4 acts as the media wick? The pipe is filled to the brim with coco?

And you transplant into the sump and on top of the pipe? The roots grow down and around it?

 

[delta9nxs]

ok so the pipe up the middle in photo #4 acts as the media wick? The pipe is filled to the brim with coco?

And you transplant into the sump and on top of the pipe? The roots grow down and around it?

yes, both the pipe and the bucket are full of your medium at time of transplant. simply transplant into the top of your medium as per normal.

you will have to top water at least until the roots get down towards the bottom.

this bucket is ready to go.

it just occurred to me that you might think the roots somehow get past the bucket and into the res. in my design they do not. the formation of "air" type roots stops at the level the medium is saturated in the sump. we are using an anaerobic situation and size constriction to limit the development of "water" type roots. that's why the "controlled water table" concept is so important here. the maintenance of a limited water level range denies the opportunity for drowned roots. it's as if we are training the plant to form one type of root over another. the plant is adaptable as to where it gets it's oxygen. it just has to get it from somewhere. ambient air seems sufficient.

 

[LJB]

Thank you. I get it now. Sometimes it takes a while.

 

[LJB]

ljb, as you know, i'm still very new to coco. i have only 3 plants in 100%. fascinating stuff. i know from reading that perlite has a capillary rise potential of around 6", and turface has around 6.5", but i've never seen anything on coco. have you?

I just found something that offers a calculation for capillary rise potential.

http://eprints.utm.my/7979/1/7979.pdf

Another usage of a retention curve of soil is to estimate the capillary rise potential following Darcy’s law, which can be expressed as follow (Lu and Likos, 2004),

where, q is discharge velocity, n is soil and z is the distance from water table.

Solving eq. (2) and (3), the capillary height, z as an implicit function of time,

Got it?

Just kidding. I am baffled.

 

[delta9nxs]

hey, buddy, i lost sleep for 8 mos thinking about this shit! reading research papers, patents and applications, manufacturers claims, greenhouse and gardening sites.

i built it over and over again mentally, thinking about why it would or would not work. there is still a lot of info to be read and a lot of unanswered questions.

it would be great if more people were working on it. lots of small observations and experiments add up.

 

[delta9nxs]

thanks a lot, dude! like i'm going to understand that. my math ability is limited to 21 with my pants off.

 

[turbolaser4528]

Turbolaser, i've got one plant in a 70/30 perlite/coco mix, and 2 plants in 40/40/20 perlite/turface/coco. Compared to my turface /coco experiments they do dry out faster. Also, the 70/30 plant is showing tip burn on the same nute schedule everything else is on. I don't have another case of tip burn in the house.

The 3/8” nylon wick sounds a little light for a 2 gal pot. The comparisons i've read show acrylic and polyester to be better wicks.

I'm sold on the media only wicks. All 7 are doing fine. I think a 1” media wick would be sufficient for 2 gals. Above that a 1 1/4” or 1 1/2”.

the drawing was done with a 2 gal, maybe 3 gallon container in mind. I think I would go up in size for a 5 gal. Maybe 2x3 or 2x4.

The wick can extend almost to the bottom of your res. The further down it is the more time you have in case you can't take care of your plants on schedule.

I really don't know about the air line hook up. It could be done a lot of different ways. Maybe it shouldn't be through the sump at all. Maybe just one of those long air stones or a soaker ring going all the way across or around the bottom just might get you better dispersal. If you aerate the sump it could invite air type roots to grow in that space, where they would have a higher likelihood of being drowned.

Truth be told, hallelujah!!

Figured a single 3/8" nylon/polyester piece of rope (14-18" long each) was 2 small. I will have to add more somehow.

As for the air pump, I think I will just run an open line directly underneath the sump in the bottom of the 4" pvc, I think this would be alright, at least for now, and i wont have to buy air stones

I also didn't know the lowe's buckets were 3.5 gals but now that you mention it yeah they are much smaller than the orange home depot 5 gals, ill pick more up.


I will draw up another rough sketch soon, a picture is worth 111 words

how long are the rope lengths?
& how deep into the media do they intrude?

Some are longer than others, but about 12-20" long, extended down into a 27 gallon resevoir filled with 750 ppm solution. Canna A+B nutrients, and Rhizotonic. Still have all kinds of burned leaves, perhaps from letting them dry out but thats another story ill post pics l8r

ideally, the external rope should be placed w/ 1 frayed end beneath the root ball... the other end extending out of the container-holding plant, & into a solution-filled basin - that is never dry...

Gotchya, they are submerged and frayed into 3 strands, plenty of solution

thus, the plant will never be w/out water - @ the root.
as has been posted in this thread, top-watering ~1-2 moments per week - just enough to dampen the media - is
the wick will do job if kept saturated... even then, it can only deliver so much water to the plant... has limitations... really there to make sure plant never goes w/out water, but top-watering still a '+', to get even distribution of water+nutes.
1-4 wicks per container ... perlite is not issue. can do wick method w/ 100% perlite...

Gotchya, I need more wicks! Media Isn't completely dry, slightly moist, moisture meter usually reads moist/dry not so good huh? lol. I hand water them with the same solution they are in every 2-3 days because of accessibility problems, otherwise I'd hand-water every day I love this stuff!!!!

if spread ropes thru media, may be better saturation of bucket.

then top water, until damp. keep slightly damp w/ simple spray bottle daily...

even though the media looks dry, if dig out the plant & examine root ball, may be more moisture 'beneath the surface' than estimate... either/or, dry is no water, moist is just enough... your strains may require daily watering, if only in increments.



as over-watering may cause harm like underwatering...

if rope is kept moist/wet, solution will make route up into container... if dig out to check, or examine @ harvest, should find roots inter-twined into rope(s)...

but, if dry, correct w/ maintaining dampness w/ regular, cheapo spray bottle & ful trength solution.

hope this helps. enjoy your garden!

Understood yes that helped a lot. thank you very much!

 

[turbolaser4528]

hey, buddy, i lost sleep for 8 mos thinking about this shit! reading research papers, patents and applications, manufacturers claims, greenhouse and gardening sites.

i built it over and over again mentally, thinking about why it would or would not work. there is still a lot of info to be read and a lot of unanswered questions.

it would be great if more people were working on it. lots of small observations and experiments add up.

Yeah I gave up on trying to sleep, ill rest when I'm dead. haha

thanks a lot, dude! like i'm going to understand that. my math ability is limited to 21 with my pants off.

lol wtf?@!


that stuff is mumbo jumbo hoopla gypsy dust, what are you trying to pull man? jk im sure someone will figure it out, shall i send it to a bro who's a calculus teacher? perhaps he can figure it out?

 

[LJB]

I don't think we're going to be able to do anything with that calculation. It was kind of a joke to post it.

However, going back to my notes, the now in famous "Al Fassezke" on gardensweb.com advises people that when using a wick for drainage, it is a more effective practice if the end of the wick not in the container also comes into contact with a growing medium because the capillary action of the medium on that end can be used to assist in the drainage.

By using a medium wick, delta has for all intents and purposes eliminated the middle man.

 

[turbolaser4528]

word.

open to modifications, just some food for thought. lol this would be a 4x8 room for example, with the resevoirs sitting just outside the room.



3.5 gal buckets, 4" pvc, 1.25-1.5" sump/wick. water level maintained via float and ~25 gal res on top of ~25 gal res.

airlines under each bucket.

 

[TheMonarch]

Once again, only ~$2

So this is the other one - made from a 2L bottle, the bottom part of a turkey baster, and a small piece of pipe (the actual pvc pipe will be 4" long). The threads on the bottle and baster had to be sanded to make the sch40 pipe fit (good luck finding thin-wall). I'm going to drill 10-20 more holes (3/16") in the baster, fill it with a few T of media, plant the seed, and add ALL of the water/nutes. Nothing else until it dies. I want to use GH micro/bloom/grow and don't know how long the plant COULD live for, but will probably just go with the 1:1:1 veg formula. It only needs to keep them alive long enough to show pre-flowers and then I can take clones from the females.

 

[delta9nxs]

hey, turbolaser! this drawing looks good except for the experimental sump. it would prevent you from lifting the pots out of the tube.

the only other thing i can think of that you might want to reconsider is that 3.5 gal containers are going to produce some large plants. 16 big plants in that 4x8 space might be too much.

 

[delta9nxs]

themonarch, what does the baster do?

how are you going to support these in an upright fashion?

what are you going to use for a reservoir?

 

[turbolaser4528]

hey, turbolaser! this drawing looks good except for the experimental sump. it would prevent you from lifting the pots out of the tube.

the only other thing i can think of that you might want to reconsider is that 3.5 gal containers are going to produce some large plants. 16 big plants in that 4x8 space might be too much.

LOLLL yeah i didnt even think about it, i was just messing around hahahha

yeah im not goin to do 16 plants, its going be be 6-8 eventually. For now there might be some sort of perpetual ty;e deal goin on until i get things rollin a lil more.


Are there 4" elec. conduit fittings available at the store, or should I order something for the 4" pvc connection to the rez? thnx bro im building tomorrow!!!

and with 3.5 gal buckets, will a 1.5" sump be best? 1.25"?

 

[TheMonarch]

Its a small version of that trashcan which slowly becomes full of roots, but I'm attempting to use 2liters instead of 35gal. Hopefully I can start seeds in the baster tubes and fill the bottles with nutes a few days later. Then you just put the 3 pieces together, top the plant once, and take some clones if its female. No pumps OR watering :yay:

what does the baster do?
it holds the media and supports the stem, it was the closest thing to a forestery tube I had laying around

how are you going to support these in an upright fashion?
they have 'feet', the bottles are not incredibly stable but were chosen for several other reasons. I don't think they will fall over (unless the plant grows)

what are you going to use for a reservoir?
the bottle?

so do you think its capable of killing?