I am also a SunShine#4 user and I have grown with no drainage at all, I am curious if other people do the same thing with #4. Does it work fine because it's so airy? I would think you'd be shunned by other growers for not draining out most soil-like mediums...but for some reason SunShine seems to work fine without drainage. Can anyone else tell us about their experiences with the medium?

Everything I have learned is that drainage is essential for proper flushing, however I just read a huge long thread on another site of a guy who did 14K watts in grow beds, with SunShine#4 and never let a single drop of water out of the grow beds... had no problems.

He said if he over-nutes, he will just give them ph'd water for one feeding, and then go back to normal. Let's exchange experiences SunShine users!

I don't really have a whole lot to add. I am a sunshine user myself. I've had zero problems as far as drainage.

I too do no usually have alot of runoff, Maybe once a month I will give it some extra water. Kinda like a 1/4 leech/ 5-10% volume runoff. Even when I do that there are no signs of over watering, so ya everyone around my area uses the stuff. great reviews! Sure beats have gnat eggs or shroom spores etc like if had before, not to mention ph way out of whack with some other soils.

Right now I'm in sunshine #1. I beieve. but I did add a little perlite cause I think thats the only dif bettween #1 and #4. I added the per mostly because I have about 10% compost that gets a little muddy.

The local greenhouse got a but load of pro-mix bx this year. I would like to try that as well I've heard the name thrown around on this site alot too.

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I'm going to use more perlite this time so they dry out quicker and grow BIGGGGGGER. Thanks for the reply... any other SunShine users? I've bumped into a few people now who say you don't even really need to flush when you use SunShine... pretty amazing. It also has some of the properties of soil but you don't have to worry about huge pH fluctuation and also seems to be a pretty forgiving medium.

bump it up.

I don't know about NOT flushing at all, but it sure cuts down on the number of time I have to flush. I mix 1 bale #4 Sunshine mix to 4 cu.ft. bag of perlite. I water 5 times a day for 5 min while the lights are on. Have not had a root problem since I started using it.

Wow, five times a day that's crazy. About how much water do you put in each time... do you know? My buddy wasn't kidding when he told me SunShine could be kept nearly completely wet without root problems eh? I am thinking of setting a drip system this time, so may water several times a day like you do. Thanks!

Guess the more relevant question would be how much water does your pump push through over the course of a minute? Five minutes five times over the course of a 12 hour period seems high to me... but I have never tried. Is the top of the soil-less mix pretty much saturated at all times? I guess the only thing you need to be careful of is root rot with over-watering... other than that, the plant will tell you pretty quickly if it's being over-watered.

The flow is restricted by the size of the tubing (1/4") that feed each pot. Not the limit of the pump. I have measured the amount of fluid with a bucket and it works out to about 1.25 gal.

1.25 gal. in 5 min. = 1.25 gal.

So each plant receives about 1.25 gallons over the five minute period. I may mimic your model and see what happens. How much do you give little clones that are just getting started? Just a minute or two two-three times during their 12.12 cycle I'm guessing?

Sorry for asking such dumb questions, I have never used a drip, it's my first time...and given that we use the same medium I def. want to know what to expect and you are helping me with that.

Next question would be how much medium is that 1.25 gal applied to?

I'm growing in 9 gallon garbage cans and would like to be able to relate my medium volume with that.

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SideWazeDaze!!!!!