Bird of Hermes
Member
Been planning to run a 50/50 mix of hydroton and perlite in hempy buckets but am now wondering if it'd be okay to run all hydroton. Reason being is that hydroton is a lot easier to clean and reuse. The plants would still be started in 1 liter foam cup hempys filled with perlite and moved to the 3 gallon hempys after they've grown for awhile and I know their sex. The bottom of the cup gets pinched off when being transplanted and most the perlite would stay suspended in the cup with the roots.
I'm fairly confident hydroton wicks water but do you guys think I would need to setup some kind of wick system? If so I was thinking either cotton rope or maybe buy some cotton undershirts and cutting them into 3" wide strips that would extend down to the res.
Also would I want to cover most the top of the bucket? I've done some searches and some people argue that it evaporates the water too fast. I was thinking covering say 90% or so of the top with a plastic liner might stop that. Would that be a good idea or would I be totally killing the air exchanging process and have root rot occur?
Thanks for any thoughts or input on this and if it's a terrible idea I'll stick to 50/50 hydroton and perlite instead.
I'm fairly confident hydroton wicks water but do you guys think I would need to setup some kind of wick system? If so I was thinking either cotton rope or maybe buy some cotton undershirts and cutting them into 3" wide strips that would extend down to the res.
Also would I want to cover most the top of the bucket? I've done some searches and some people argue that it evaporates the water too fast. I was thinking covering say 90% or so of the top with a plastic liner might stop that. Would that be a good idea or would I be totally killing the air exchanging process and have root rot occur?
Thanks for any thoughts or input on this and if it's a terrible idea I'll stick to 50/50 hydroton and perlite instead.