SIP question

Looking to do a DIY sip, basically a tray filled with perlite then sit my smart pots on top.

My question is will the drainage layer (chunky growstones) in the bottom of my smart pot need to be removed for it to properly wick the moisture up or will they work fine in the bottom?

Let me tell you from experience.

If your working with large volumes of perlite on a table situation . Or where you haveto clean it .. Its hateful stuff lol

Get everywhere, hard to pickup . Its annoying stuff and hard to clean for next time..

Also the dust raises your ph over time so wash em good eh.

I wouldn't add the grow stones, the soil will wick it up fine. Keep an inch air gap between the pot and waterline and you should be good. So if the pot is sitting on 6in of perlite only let the waterline get up to 5in at most. You can look up swick watering method on Google and find a couple threads.

Thank you sir, the growstones are already in the pots but I need to pot up soon so I can remove them when I do that and start the sip in the new pots.

projectinfo said:

Let me tell you from experience.

If your working with large volumes of perlite on a table situation . Or where you haveto clean it .. Its hateful stuff lol

Get everywhere, hard to pickup . Its annoying stuff and hard to clean for next time..

Also the dust raises your ph over time so wash em good eh.

Click to expand...

Yeah I know the issues with perlite. Is there any cheap alternative for an sip reservoir?

I agree seems like a mess!!
Check this out u may like it better!!

https://www.rollitup.org/t/no-till-probiotics-sip-experiment-journal.968009/#post-14334384

There is a SIP thread on here... not very active atm but there are a LOT of variations listed on there.

and yeah perlite is ANNOYING I used to run all perlite hempys (before I ditched the nutes lol) and yeah that sht sucks and you should wear a mask when using it and rinse it very very well which also really sucks to do.

I have grow stones in a container under my 4x4 fabric planter bed. Works great. I fill it up and then just top water once or twice a week with just a little water. No problems here.

Never had a over or under water issue and don't monitor it hard at all.

I would consider trying Pumice!

I'm gonna try with the perlite in bus trays under my 10 gallon smart pots. I would like pumice but nowhere locally has it and it costs to much to ship.

I want to check this out too. Are you planning on posting a thread on this grow? I'd dig seeing it! I'm going to do some of these soon too.

I want to compare this design (fabric pots on perlite reservoir) to a 5 gal bucket reservoir with a nested airpot with a wick plug. I'll build one of this latter type and post pics as soon as I can.

I also want to do air pots on a baby pool of perlite. I think I could fit like 8 2gal air pots on a small baby pool. I'd rig up two induction lights overhead, and some leds/PAR-T5s on the sides. Damnit, money out, new lights, --looks like i've got work to do!

Sorry not trying to jack your thread dude, just a little baked

Keep us posted on the perlite bus trays!!

I think both those options will work fine. The wick idea sounds alot like an earthpot. I know the perlite should work out good! It is very similar to what I'm doing with the grow stones and that works great for me.

I will definitely update on how it goes, idk if I will post any pictures or not though. I'm kind of old school so posting pictures online kind of sketches me out. But I'll definitely give honest feedback on whether it works good or not.

I will say I noticed today when transplanting that I had areas of the soil that were completely dry while others were moist so I'm hoping the SIP fixes this issue. Got my tubs today so now I just have to pick up the perlite.

Ok so I got them started, they have been in the tubs for about a week. I'm getting alot of tacoing on the tops leaves. Do I need to let the resivour and soil dry out before refilling the tub? Humidity is within 10% of ideal in the vpd chart. Any other ideas on what could be causing it?

Forgot to add that I folliar sprayed the day after switching to sip so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. I've never heard not to folliar a saturated plant but maybe this is what caused it.

I use pumice in the bottom of my fabric pots. Only an inch layer though and i fill the saucers to the brim. Works great for me and I got the idea from Shluby! Here's a photo of my DIY SIPS for Veg & Flower. Fabric pots in a swick method and then a 15 gallon plastic pot with drilled holes around the bottom and the interior of the pot lined with weed fabric. I have a 2" pumice layer at the bottom of my flowering SIPS containers.

Just a word of advice that anyone that tries this, dont pot up and switch to SIP at the same time. The plants will take in way too much water . I would make sure you have an established root zone in the pot size you are going to use before going SIP. Growth has been explosive though, I'm just dealing with the taco leaves because of this.

Here is an example of how I do my SIP.

4x4 flood container filled with grow stones, 4x4 planter bed sitting on top of it.