T
thesloppy
I'm thinking about chucking an airstone in after I water, for oxygenation. Anybody done anything similar?
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Probably wouldn't hurt but I'm refilling mine daily so the water never really gets too old anyway. I assume it'd evaporate faster, too, if that matters.
Midnight Rudy
Member
I water through the top every now and again and as the water drains through it drags a lot of o2 into the root area. As JD said the water doesn't stick around too long anyways. If you do a side by side with an airstone I would love to hear what you find, but people have tried that with hempy buckets and found no difference and I think this is the same thing in most regards.
JD, as for the flushing thing. Yes, I do now use a container in a container. I was running so tight in my footprint that it was tough to do that at first. I'm in the process of reducing my plant count by about 2/3rds in the same space and have gone to a vertical set up. I am now running two small bins with 3 per and room for an internal so that I can flush any combination of the 3.
I also keep all my moms in a tray now too and I clone in a tray, but I always have...
Just saying... I literally bottom feed everything in my system and have been for almost a year with nothing but success. My plants love this and although I still have a rubbermaid of gorgeous compost in my closet, I don't think I will be using it ever again.
My moms I run in 50/50 coco/perlite in 10-12 oz plastic cups. They do great and love being bottom fed. I keep them very small. I have about 6" over the cup to the lights and they are usually about 1/2 that tall. If you search for the walmart ice cube tray cloner you will find how I clone, but I use clear plastic tubes instead of the ice cube trays. Just tubes of vermiculite in straight tap water at 85 degrees and it is near 100% success rate in a couple weeks.
I can't believe this method isn't more popular. It is so easy! I mix 2 batches of juice for all parts of my system. When I go out of town I set up a dog waterer-ish bottle and don't worry a bit
T
thesloppy
That's really my only concern at this point...I wish I could figure out someway to automate watering, if only for 4-5 days, so I could allow myself some vacation/emergency time, but I haven't been able to figure out something that both fits my extremely cramped cabinet footprint and that I feel fully confident won't fail.
...but that doesn't have much to do with bottomfeeding, which has only helped to ease my watering efforts. Like you Rudy, I have eventually evolved to have all my ladies bottomfeeding, from clones and moms and all the flowering girls. They all seem to love it, and it's so much easier to just dump your water in a tray and walk away, rather than yanking out your plants one by one, and draining 'em off, etc.
I think the reason more people don't bottomfeed coco, is simply that it's been gospel to not leave your soil plants in standing water for so long, as you run the risk of rotting the roots and killing your plants....I think a lot of folks assume that holds true for coco as well, which isn't the case.
I think the reason more people don't bottomfeed coco, is simply that it's been gospel to not leave your soil plants in standing water for so long, as you run the risk of rotting the roots and killing your plants....I think a lot of folks assume that holds true for coco as well, which isn't the case.
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soil works best for me! no root rot
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soil works best for me! no root rot
T
thesloppy
That doesn't surprise me either. Go figure. I guess the standing water thing is more of an old wive's tale that everybody just assumes is true.
Maybe in the past typical soil was less aerated than it is now, and more prone to water-logging? But I'm just making things up now.
VladTheInhaler
Member
I'm making a small experiment by bottom feeding two of my c99 F2's in coco. They're not the same size and one has been put 1,5 weeks earlier into flower than the other one. I started this week, fed them 2 times and they seem to love it (or at least they don't notice any difference).
Square root bags use this method of feeding. I had a hard time with them...
T
thesloppy
That surprises me a bit....I would think that something with some extra air/oxygen access would make it even easier.
You have to have the bag sitting in water for them to work proper..
I've done a lot of bottom feeding especially with small containers. Worked well, but any method can be done improperly.
I think where the problem comes in is when you top feed which gets the soil wet, but the containers are left to sit in a lot of the runoff which keeps the soil soggy wet for too long.
-granger
I think where the problem comes in is when you top feed which gets the soil wet, but the containers are left to sit in a lot of the runoff which keeps the soil soggy wet for too long.
-granger
when I was asked to do a test for them I had to follow there directions on there use. SQRB need to be in a shallow pool of water at all times. And feeding where from the bottom. I had to water them 4 or 5x to get them enough water. There bag material does not soak up the water very quick so I had to wait for the drip pan to empty then water again. I just did not like this method. Took to long to water.The plants did not like it either. I had better results with smart pots.. I think they would be better suited for a hydro type setup.
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T
thesloppy
Yeah, I can see how that would bother you, since that method of mircromanagement kind of defeats the reason most of us are bottomfeeding in the first place (ease of use).
NPK
Active member
I'm in the middle of my first attempt at bottom-feeding, and it's going great. I started feeding this way initially because it seemed an easy way to tend my seedlings, which were in quart-sized pots of coco. I assumed, correctly, that the coco would simply wick up the nutrients. It worked even better than I expected. After I started feeding this way the plants really took off, and I saw no reason to go back to pumps, timers, feed lines, or any of that crap again.
I'm using Sterilite storage tubs for reservoirs. As you can see, the pots (2-gallon) are resting directly in the nutrient solution. I use GH Bloom, full strength at 1300 PPM. I fill the tubs about 1/2" deep, not totally covering the drainage holes. The plants suck it all up in a day or two. I've rinsed the plants a few times but am less and less convinced that's necessary. They show no sign of stress or burn, so why bother? (A completely rhetorical question.) However, every now and then I do give them straight water with a shot of 3% H2O2--one tablespoon per three-gallon bucket.
The larger plants are Jackberry from seed. The smaller ones (started later) are Sweet Tooth from clone.
I'm using Sterilite storage tubs for reservoirs. As you can see, the pots (2-gallon) are resting directly in the nutrient solution. I use GH Bloom, full strength at 1300 PPM. I fill the tubs about 1/2" deep, not totally covering the drainage holes. The plants suck it all up in a day or two. I've rinsed the plants a few times but am less and less convinced that's necessary. They show no sign of stress or burn, so why bother? (A completely rhetorical question.) However, every now and then I do give them straight water with a shot of 3% H2O2--one tablespoon per three-gallon bucket.
The larger plants are Jackberry from seed. The smaller ones (started later) are Sweet Tooth from clone.
T
thesloppy
Looking good, NPK.
Midnight Rudy
Member
Just do the dog water thing... make sure you have a little bit of footprint available for a bottle by timing your harvests. The bottle needs to be completely air tight except for the bottom hole. Stiffer/more rigid bottles work best, a larger (1/4" to 1/2") hole will help, drill the hole so that you can easily cap it with your finger when putting the bottle in place or use some sort of rubber stopper. Just set your bottle in a pan of water for a couple of days outside your grow where you can watch it and make sure it is working, then put it into action and see how long it will last you. I normally use 2 liter bottles but like I said stiffer bottles and jugs work best. Bleach bottles and whatnot are great. You could even use a 5 gal bucket as long as you had a lid and sealed it with some silicone or something, and then fill from the hole. You could use a 5 gal water cooler bottle too if you built a support for it. Key is tweaking things until they work and then implementing them in your grow.
also, for the record, I don't think I ever mentioned that I far prefer 50/50 coco/perlite over straight coco for aeration and water retention reasons. I also reuse my medium with no ill effects. I also amend my coco/perlite mix with 1 small pinch epsom salt per quart of mix to help my mg whores. I use maxi grow for veg and maxi bloom for flowering at 1 tsp per gal with superthrive and also a silicate amendment in the flower side. Ph'd to about 6
Midnight Rudy
Member
My current flower setup. 4 @ 55w pll tubes down the center and all bottom fed. The smaller container is about 1 liter and the soda bottles are 2 liter cut down to about 8" tall.
