SIP - Pity Do Dah, SIP - Pity A

[Emilya Green]

I am officially joining the dark side today. I have stopped at Red Lobster to console myself with seafood and a strong rum and coke and I am now willing to confess that I just left Home Depot with the parts needed to turn 5 of my 5 gallon containers into SIPs. I need to transplant my 5 Purple Kush to their finals anyway and I can't think of a better time. Pictures later today

 

[Azimuth]

I am now willing to confess that I just left Home Depot with the parts needed to turn 5 of my 5 gallon containers into SIPs.

Yeah, you're going to need more than 5 because once you go SIP you really can't/won't go back. I get it if you want to pace yourself, but really it'll be more efficient to build all the buckets at once.

 

[Buds Buddy]

Au contraire. I get a surprising amount of top feeder roots with mine, but maybe the difference is thickness. I put my mulch layer on thick and get roots all thru it.


I've not had good luck rooting them in this setup, so I've taken to treating them like a normal cutting and waiting to put water in the reservoir until after roots have formed. Once they do I put a small amount down there and the plant forms water roots quickly.


These things are quite scalable. Most of mine have been in 1L containers, but I've recently built a couple of 2 Gallon ones. I don't have the space most of you guys do so mine have to be smaller plants but I've had similar (relative) success with them as I have with my 17G vegetable SIPs out in my garden.


There has to be some connector media for the roots to reach the water from the soil, otherwise they just air prune themselves and you don't get the benefit of the water tank. In the one Buds is using it comes in the form of soil surrounding a vented dome that defines the reservoir. In most of mine it is a central cup that extends from the soil through the air gap and into the reservoir.

But I'm convinced that it is that air gap that is the true secret to the success if these things. When I build mine I make them with two fill tubes to try to maximize that air space.

I'm not so sure about the Air Gap being the secret to success. Remember, I forgot to drill an overflow hole in my buckets last grow. I filled that thing twice a day for a while & I'm sure I filled it to the top as a couple of times water even came out the fill tube. I always filled it to where the float was all the way up (FULL).

 

[Buds Buddy]

I am officially joining the dark side today. I have stopped at Red Lobster to console myself with seafood and a strong rum and coke and I am now willing to confess that I just left Home Depot with the parts needed to turn 5 of my 5 gallon containers into SIPs. I need to transplant my 5 Purple Kush to their finals anyway and I can't think of a better time. Pictures later today

Kool ! Looking forward to your pics.

 

[Azimuth]

I'm not so sure about the Air Gap being the secret to success. Remember, I forgot to drill an overflow hole in my buckets last grow. I filled that thing twice a day for a while & I'm sure I filled it to the top as a couple of times water even came out the fill tube. I always filled it to where the float was all the way up (FULL).

Ok, but once the plant drank enough of the water to recreate the air gap, the roots get a recharge of O2.

And, if it's not the air gap, what could it be? Just a bit extra water in reserve? I suppose we could test that but the other thing that the air gap provides is assurance of proper drainage (assuming the overflow hole of course) so the main soil roots are never sitting in waterlogged soil.

I build my 1L SIPs in clear "takeout" containers so I could learn how the roots, air gap and water interfaced, and can say that the sip plants all performed better than their non-sip counterparts, even when they weren't draining the reservoir every day, so it doesn't seem to be extra water that's the key.

I'm open to alternative theories if you've got some, but so far the unique thing common to the best performing plants is the air gap.

But good soil and nutes are also key. I can keep my backup veg plants in stasis for a looong time with depleted soil, no nutes and low light levels, and that includes the sips, although they are bigger than the others even in those conditions.

 

[Buds Buddy]

I honestly have no idea why these things work so well. Especially when it's been drilled in my head for 5 years that plants have to have a Wet/Dry Cycle. All I can say is.... "Oh, Oh, Oh,.... It's Magic !" .... lol.

 

[Azimuth]

I honestly have no idea why these things work so well. Especially when it's been drilled in my head for 5 years that plants have to have a Wet/Dry Cycle. All I can say is.... "Oh, Oh, Oh,.... It's Magic !" .... lol.

Careful, I believe @Emilya Green frequents this thread.

 

[Buds Buddy]

Careful, I believe @Emilya Green frequents this thread.

Emilya is great. She was my Grow Tutor more or less on a different site 5 years ago when I started growing. I have learned a lot from her. My 1st grow would have been a disaster without her correcting all my mistakes.... lol.

 

[Emilya Green]

Careful, I believe @Emilya Green frequents this thread.

I am still willing to believe in magic. I still believe in the wet/dry cycle in traditional containers. The mind flip that I needed to make was in realizing that SIP is not Wick... because I still have problems with a wick system. But SIP, this is devious, setting up two individual sealed levels of soil, one being a wick, and the top level with the roots providing suction that starts the magic. Once in bloom, this automates what I am doing manually, in trying to force more water at the roots. SIP works with the plant, allowing the roots to draw up what is needed, apparently all the way to the top spreader roots. This, I am happy to realize, will be an upgrade to watering from the top, which allows the plant to put the water where it wants it and gets a sometimes forgetful gardener out of the way.

 

[Azimuth]

Emilya is great. She was my Grow Tutor more or less on a different site 5 years ago when I started growing. I have learned a lot from her. My 1st grow would have been a disaster without her correcting all my mistakes.... lol.

And nice to see you turn the tables and convert her over! She calls it the "dark side" but I think she's just compensating.

And really, the more growers, especially  good growers that try these things, the better we will all be from the expanding knowledge base. I would bet that she will likely see a bit less of the dramatic improvement the rest of us get since she's pretty well maxed out her watering system and poor watering tactics are what holds most of the rest of us back from maxing out our plants.

Still, it will be interesting to see if this structure (air gap or something else) can improve her results beyond what she already gets.

 

[Azimuth]

The mind flip that I needed to make was in realizing that SIP is not Wick... because I still have problems with a wick system.

Years ago I tried a version of this with a polypropylene wick with not great results. It cycled too much water when the plant was small leading to an overwatered look. Then when the plant grew larger it wasn't able to keep up with what was demanded and the roots grew down the rope and populated the reservoir anyway.

These sips seem to solve that issue by letting the plant decide how much water it wants. I've changed the connecting pot itself to hold hydroton clay balls instead of compressed soil as I didn't like the idea of my organic mix constantly sitting in water when the plants were small and not able to drain the water daily.

The soil roots morph into water roots on their way way to the water reservoir and once they set up shop things really get moving.

 

[Buds Buddy]

This morning I went out to the shed to check on the girls. Yeah, that's right... I lock my girls in the shed. Bad, Bad Girls .... lol. Well I'll be damned. I think they grew 6" in 24 hours. All 4 of the "Cherry On Top" reservoirs were empty. I think the roots found the water source. From now on I will only Top Feed when the top 2 inches dry out. These were up-potted with 1/2 the main stem buried so I figure 2" should be about right. So I'm guessing I'll top feed once every 2 weeks. All 4 of them are LST'd to the edge of the buckets. Now I'll let them grow vertically till they're at a height I like before switching to flower. I don't really keep track of how many days in Veg or Flower as it doesn't really mean much. It's the size of the plant in Veg that determines when I flip to 12/12. It's the color of the Trichomes that determine when to harvest. So the number of days doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

The 2 Aurora Indica plants are a week behind (had to laugh when I typed that.... A Weak Behind.... lol) getting up-potted to the SIP Buckets. Had to finish my harvest to get the grow bucket kit from it to up-pot with. That was a big girl. A little over 20 oz. total. Unfriggin real ! I never imagined anything like that happening to me.

Anyway, here's some pics of what the lovely ladies look like today.

In case you're wondering, I use Metal B-B-Q Skewers for my LST. 8 or 10 for $1 at 99 cents only & they work fantastic.
They're about 16" long so I have to cut some of them shorter or they hit the bottom of the pots.

 

[GreenFingaz]

I honestly have no idea why these things work so well. Especially when it's been drilled in my head for 5 years that plants have to have a Wet/Dry Cycle. All I can say is.... "Oh, Oh, Oh,.... It's Magic !" .... lol.

Im defo trying this when the bank has filled up a little lol

 

[GreenFingaz]

Years ago I tried a version of this with a polypropylene wick with not great results. It cycled too much water when the plant was small leading to an overwatered look. Then when the plant grew larger it wasn't able to keep up with what was demanded and the roots grew down the rope and populated the reservoir anyway.

These sips seen to solve that issue by letting the plant decide how much water it wants. I've changed the connecting pot itself to hold hydroton clay balls instead of compressed soil as I didn't like the idea of my organic mix constantly sitting in water when the plants were small and not able to drain the water daily.

The soil roots morph into water roots on their way way to the water reservoir and once they set up shop things really get moving.

So is it like hydro with the roots sitting in water?

 

[Buds Buddy]

So is it like hydro with the roots sitting in water?

The roots seem to stop at the top of the water level from what I seen at harvest. Didn't look like they actually went down into the water.

 

[Azimuth]

Im defo trying this when the bank has filled up a little lol

You can easily build your own diy for the cost of a 5 gal bucket with a lid, a 4" plant pot or salsa container, a short section of pvc pipe, and a few drill bits.

So is it like hydro with the roots sitting in water?

A combination. Soil roots above, water roots below.

The roots seem to stop at the top of the water level from what I seen at harvest. Didn't look like they actually went down into the water.

That seems to depend on your connection medium. I use hydroton clay balls in my connector pot and the water roots completely fill it, but I saw Buds' pic of his recent harvest and the soil roots did seem to stop about at the water line.

 

[Emilya Green]

The roots seem to stop at the top of the water level from what I seen at harvest. Didn't look like they actually went down into the water.

The design I am using puts a cloth plant barrier between the layers. The roots can't pass the air gap but the suction they develop will cause the water to rise up through the barrier.

 

[Azimuth]

The design I am using puts a cloth plant barrier between the layers. The roots can't pass the air gap but the suction they develop will cause the water to rise up through the barrier.

Do tell. What does the cloth sit on to keep it above the air gap?

 

[ReservoirDog]

Cool man I'm just getting a rough idea. This method of growing has got me thinking about going organic might do some research into what the plants need throughout there life including the top dressing. Thanks again

With 5 gallon pails, either with the kit Doc has or if you DIY a 2 five gallon buckets, you will water daily for most of the grow. If you can DIY a larger rez, using a different shape, you can increase the rez size and start reducing watering days. My rez are 6+ gallons and 4 weeks I I refilled, but out of boredom, they were only 2/3 emptied. I anticipate in high-flower mode to be every third day filling.

The air space is critical. If doing DIY make sure the weight of pots does not collapse this below an inch. I can watch the plant respond by becoming heavier with water, looking 'overwatered' if I merely block the holes. Reducing the airspace furthermore increases this overwatered appearance and slows growth.

And, having an airflow between the fill tube and overflow drain is critical too. I leave mine uncovered and install fine screen on them for bugs and perlite.

Last year all of my 27gal SIPs with tomatoes ran shockingly well with only sunshinemix #4 (promix-like, essentially 60peat40perlite with some silica to keep from getting hydrophobic) and GH's powdered All-in-ones, Maxi-Grow, then switched to Maxi-Bloom. Was stupid easy. Couldn't hold up the tomatoes with cages. I mixed 5gram/gallon and those designs had 5 gal, most of them (I made 10, from 27 gallon totes) This year I did cukes in a couple but I focused on a large 12 cubic yard raised bed I built and transferred the SIP discovery to my new indoor dual 5x5 cannabis set up.

That's how I'm growing the cannabis, predominantly with dirt-cheap salts in the rez. Mega Crop 2 part (bought 10kilos each of 5-12-26, and cal nit 15.5-0-0 when the Russians invaded, figured prices would only go up) and a little bit of Epsom salts. Does anyone here live in Epsom? Always wanted to know an Epsomite.

Anyway, my research tells me that when using high salt nute levels with peat I ought to fear nute buildup that could lead to lockout, so in order to be able to keep the salt nute levels moderate, I did spike the peat mix with some powerful worm castings, and a 1/2 cup per 10 gallon pot of aged chicken manure when I mixed it. That and some Dolopril, just water soluble dolomite lime product. Then I whetted with some high potassium products, Humboldt's Secret Golden Tree and Liquidirt (my fave bio mix).

It's microbe Monday today so c'mon over to my thread to see how that goes down, and I shall reveal all on how she's built.

Thanks for the space Buds!

 

[ReservoirDog]

I'd say it's pretty much the same as when you top water. About the same amount of time before the res. gets low.
Naturally, that depends on the size of the plant & how much it's drinking. In mid-flower they gulp the shit down.

Buds you can run all of your buckets off a main rez with a control bucket that dictates level with a multiposition float valve. Totally gravity fed, passive. Cost almost inconsequential. Never fill your buckets once. For 5x5's on slightly different levels didn't make as much sense for me. For you with many more buckets, much smaller reservoirs....