Air-Pot vs standard pot grow from clones. 600w in a tent

howdy!

i'm using air pots for the first time, here's the deal so far! i hope things improve...

they're starting to annoy me. i got a bunch of, .3 (that's point 3) gallon pots. nice size units, a bit bigger than our standard party cups. i have seedlings in these and in party cups. i typically water a decent amount (it's all by feel these days), close the vegging closet door and ignore them for 2 to 3 days.

last night i noticed that the seedlings in the party cups are a nice dark green and are doing well. they don't need watering. the seedlings in the air pots look less green, are not as big and are very dry. like i should have watered them at least a day ago. the seedling mix i used had no ferts in it. i was too lazy to drive for 20 mins to get some light warrior! at about 12 days of vegging, the air pot plants look like they need some ferts and the party cup ones don't. i find this rather odd! i gave them a shot of 1/4 strength veg nutes last night.

i forgot to allow for the extra air in the air pots. those suckers dry out quick and i'll now be giving them twice as much water as the party cups to hopefully even out when everybody needs watering.

watering air pots is a big pain in the ass! i don't like tiny pains in the ass let alone big ones. i have a good mix of soil and perlite in the pots. i use a turkey baster to water my party cups and these air pots. using 1/2 a turkey baster of water, the water in the air pots will stand on top for 20 seconds or more before it's absorbed into the soil AND some of the water will pour, not drip but pour out of a couple of the holes that are well below the top of the pot. then i put in another 1/2 a baster etc. took about 5 times as long to water these pots. i watered the party cups in a few mins. fill a baster, shoot it in the cup! done! i didn't over pack the soil either. i was careful to follow their instructions on filling the pots.

i'm seriously reconsidering ordering larger air pots. i'm not about to spend an hour bent over trying to water these things. i have a 2.4 gallon air pot and i really need to put a currently flowering plant into it to see if it's going to be a pain too. my smart pots take water like a champ!

so techno, how have you overcome these irritations or are they just part of the deal when you use air pots! i'm kind of bummed!

since i'm getting steadily higher i had a great idea! i'll just fill the larger air pot with soil and try watering it. it should give me a good indication of what i'm in for if i put a whole crop in these things.

i always go the path of least resistance, unless the harder path has a large breasted blonde at the end!

Maybe using less perlite next time will help retain some water, "closer to what your used to with regular pots.?" I'm about to order some and this is a good point! I have a lot of experience with normal pots and I've got it down to where I can keep it moist without letting it dry up to much and keep everything perfectly happy! I'm sure it will take some time to get used to the Ap's.

fatboyOGOF said:

since i'm getting steadily higher i had a great idea! i'll just fill the larger air pot with soil and try watering it. it should give me a good indication of what i'm in for if i put a whole crop in these things.

i always go the path of least resistance, unless the harder path has a large breasted blonde at the end!

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Yeah, I get where you're coming from. Long term I'm not sure the small .3 gallon ones are going to work for me. As you say, they are a pain in the ass to water. I think the problem is that they are so narrow that it's to easy for the water to escape.

Much happier with the larger Air-Pots. As long as I water in close to the stem, I don't get to much runoff out the sides. I've had no issues with the two plants that went straight into the larger pots so I think I might start going straight from rapid rooters to the final pot.

good to know techno! i was hoping that with a larger surface area it might not be so bad. i'm going to fill and water the 2.4 gallon and get a feel for it. i'm either going to get some 3 gallon smart pots or 2.4 to 3.4 gallon air pots. decisions, decisions!

i have them in large plastic containers that hold 12 to 15 pots each. buying these was one of my better ideas!

Save yourself the money and get some 1/2 gallon and 5 gallon plastic buckets. Seedling and veg in 1/2 gallons for 2-4 weeks, transplant once(like it's suppose to be done) into the 5 gallon for the remainder of the plants life. You can just drill 1/8-1/4 holes at the bottom and around the lower sides and walla, half-ass homemade air-pots, or we can call them hole-pots, that allow just as much root growth as these silly expensive air-pruning pots.
I bought a 5-pack of the 5.2 gallon superoots air-pots for almost 100 dollars earlier this year. Of the three grows done in those 5, a total of 15 plants, compared to the total of 6 grown in regular 5 gallon buckets so far this year, NOT ONE of the air-pots outgrew the 6 regular 5 gal potted ones. And when harvested the root growth in the air-pots were definitely different, but in no way were they more massive or stronger. Is the idea that creating air pockets around the edges of the bucket to stop root tip growth and then get it to begin a second and even third new growth tip that will than eventually create more new root growth a good thing? Yes. But, all this does is create a different pattern of root growth, not MORE root growth which is the idea I imagine most are going for.
Get this air-pruning out of your heads and invest in some root enhance ferts and be done with it.
I gave my air-pots away last grow, it's not that they didn't perform as good as a normal pots, it's the fact they didn't perform BETTER than the normal $2 5 gallons. Get it?

You may not have seen better growth but others definitely have. The idea isn't so much to grow more roots as it is to stop plants from being root bound with very long roots. Whenever you have roots that are spiraling around the pot, that means it just takes longer for water and nutrients to get into the growth above the soil. Get it?

Absolutely no difference whatsoever between the standard and air pot, just like the pictures a few pages before. If I had to vote on which one is larger or wider or just better overall, I would vote for the standard pot. Going to continue, only on page 7 of 9.

Yes, to each their own. But I used the Superoots 5.2 gallons for 3 grows with basic 5 gallon drywall buckets and saw ZERO difference in above or below growth. I saw different root growth patterns but not stronger or more massive. And so far, I have seen no differences with your grow here.

Awesome journal. I'm going to link this to a lot of folks I've been arguing with on here and other forums about the differences. You may just be THEE person to have the ONLY or at least FIRST side-by-side comparison of air vs standard. Thanks.

wakebakeworksleep said:

Absolutely no difference whatsoever between the standard and air pot, just like the pictures a few pages before. If I had to vote on which one is larger or wider or just better overall, I would vote for the standard pot. Going to continue, only on page 7 of 9.

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wakebakeworksleep said:

Yes, to each their own. But I used the Superoots 5.2 gallons for 3 grows with basic 5 gallon drywall buckets and saw ZERO difference in above or below growth. I saw different root growth patterns but not stronger or more massive. And so far, I have seen no differences with your grow here.

Awesome journal. I'm going to link this to a lot of folks I've been arguing with on here and other forums about the differences. You may just be THEE person to have the ONLY or at least FIRST side-by-side comparison of air vs standard. Thanks.

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I'll try to get some more photos up tomorrow. With the two plants that started out in the larger size pots, I'll agree that there isn't a lot of difference but it's there. With the two plants that were transplanted there is a much bigger difference.

One thing I do regret is that I flipped them to flower so soon. I want to do a side/side with just two plants and veg them so they are about 50% taller before switching to veg. That's about 6 months away however. My next grow is going to be a new strain from seed and I want to wait for the side/side when I'm using clones from the same plant.

Sunday, December 4th 2011
Total days: 82
Clone: 11
Veg: 28
Flower: 43

Did another Sledgehammer flush on the plants and figured it was a good time to take some new photos. Because the Air-Pots are a little taller I put a piece of wood under the standard pots so the top of the soil for each pot is level.


Here's the two plants that started off in smaller containers. I know it doesn't look like it but the top of the soil is level with each pot. The Air-Pot plant seemed to handle the transplant better.


These are the two plants that weren't transplanted. Here the difference isn't nearly as noticeable.

cant wait to see how they look manicured

They look really good brotha, nice comparison! So is it worth the extra money in your opinion?

So the 2 bigger ones you grew from clone in there final pots and the little ones where transplanted along the way? Did all veg the same amount of time?

SmeLLyTreeZ said:

They look really good brotha, nice comparison! So is it worth the extra money in your opinion?

So the 2 bigger ones you grew from clone in there final pots and the little ones where transplanted along the way? Did all veg the same amount of time?

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I think I would skip the smallest size. The are so narrow and tall I feel it's hard to do a good watering. I'm also happier with the results of the plants started in their final pots so I'll probably start going directly from clone/seed to the larger pots.

All were vegged for the same amount of time but the smaller plants were under much weaker lights during the veg stage. For my next grow, which will be from seed, I'm only going to do two plants and I'm going to to veg them to a larger size before moving them into the flower cab.

Thats usually how I do it. I'm planning on 3 5 gallons next time around Very nice thread though, thanks for sharing!

Yeah I'm only seeing the original benefit of growing big ass plants in smaller containers without fear of them getting rootbound. I'd love to see a monster in a .3gal air pot....

WaxxyNuggets said:

Yeah I'm only seeing the original benefit of growing big ass plants in smaller containers without fear of them getting rootbound. I'd love to see a monster in a .3gal air pot....

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That was really all I am looking for. I just started a couple of new seeds tonight. This time I'm going to veg for a few weeks longer to get a bigger plant. I'd like them to be about twice the size. With plants this small, I'm just not hitting the wall with standard pots.

Very interested to see what they do with a longer veg, I usually veg 6-8 weeks and finish in 5 gallons if I have the room. would be interesting to see what those babies are capable of!