SIP thread -- (Sub-Irrigated Planter)

[Nu-Be]

You can add an airstone down the fill pipes, but it's not required unless your room stays above 73F. I've read it adds explosive growth when used, and I'm trying it out this cycle. Here's what the wick & rez roots looked like at harvest without airstones:



Not bad, and only mildly sour smelling after a couple days outside after harvest. The roots at the top of the wick likely pruned themselves because I didn't add any water the last two weeks, so the rez got pretty low. In the height of flowering, my 18" plants drank about a gallon a day, and I liked to top them off almost to the lid with 5-7gal a week. Bigger plants could drink much more.

Here's a pic of the room reset happening at day 57F for the Cobra Lips, with the new SIPs housing 2 Barefoot Dr. and 2 GG4 x LBL before airstones were setup:

 

[Tim Fox]

You can add an airstone down the fill pipes, but it's not required unless your room stays above 73F. I've read it adds explosive growth when used, and I'm trying it out this cycle. Here's what the wick & rez roots looked like at harvest without airstones:

View attachment 3799732

Not bad, and only mildly sour smelling after a couple days outside after harvest. The roots at the top of the wick likely pruned themselves because I didn't add any water the last two weeks, so the rez got pretty low. In the height of flowering, my 18" plants drank about a gallon a day, and I liked to top them off almost to the lid with 5-7gal a week. Bigger plants could drink much more.

Here's a pic of the room reset happening at day 57F for the Cobra Lips, with the new SIPs housing 2 Barefoot Dr. and 2 GG4 x LBL before airstones were setup:
View attachment 3799735

Sadly Hyroot and Someguy have left RIU,,,, but Rob and I are still around,,,
your sip build is way cool,, and I really like the LARGE Res,,, good looking roots too,,
on my next sip grow I will not be using airstones,, just for simple sake,,

Hey are those AUTO's?

 

[Humanrob]

This is what my SIPs looked like in use at day 49F

Great looking set up, I look forward to hearing and seeing how this works for you. Interesting that in the desert you need to wrap your cloth pots in plastic. I was not planning on doing that (I'm in the NW), but I will think about it. There would be less humidity escaping into the tent, that would be a good thing for me with PM control.

Yours are very close to what my next two are going to look like, the biggest difference being I'm using 10 gallon Rubbermaid bins -- same width and length, but shorter. That's partly because I have height issues in my tent, and partly because I think that's enough water. I will have a pair in my 2x4 tent.

Personally, I would not want 15 gallons of water in each bin, mostly for practical reasons. What if I have to move one? A gallon of water weighs about 8.3 lbs., so that would weigh 124.5 lbs. Per bin. Poop happens, I like to plan ahead and be sure I don't build something I can't work with down the line. When my plants were finished in the 14g in/over an 18g bin, it was a bear to get them out of the tent to break them down and clean them (I had filled them in place, and was not aware at the time of just how heavy they would get). It made me question what the sweet spot is for giving the plants everything they need while staying within parameters I can manage. But that's just me, we each have our comfort zones.

I've thought that if I ever need to empty them for some reason, I would get some sort of water pump, at least I could pump the water out the window.

 

[Humanrob]

You can add an airstone down the fill pipes, but it's not required unless your room stays above 73F. I've read it adds explosive growth when used, and I'm trying it out this cycle. Here's what the wick & rez roots looked like at harvest without airstones:

View attachment 3799732

Nice root development. I'm not sure why, but my roots only grew in the bubble stream of my air stones. And my outdoor ones without air stones did not have any roots in the water at all (beyond small root tips that grew in about 1/2" from the wick). It might be because I'm not pH'ing my water, and local water seems to come in high around 6.5 - 7.0. Perhaps that's not a friendly environment for root growth.

 

[Nu-Be]

Sadly Hyroot and Someguy have left RIU,,,, but Rob and I are still around,,,
your sip build is way cool,, and I really like the LARGE Res,,, good looking roots too,,
on my next sip grow I will not be using airstones,, just for simple sake,,

Hey are those AUTO's?

Nah, they're Cobra Lips (Chem 3 x Appalachia, almost done), which are bodhi reg freebies. Here's one of the CL phenos at harvest, 60 days flowering in the ROLS-filled SIPs, no airstones, with 5gal cloth pots.



The new ladies are 2x bodhi reg freebie high-CBD called Barefoot Doctor (high-CBD Harlequin x bodhi Sunshine Daydream), and 2x Bad Dog Genetics freebies from GLG that are GG#4 x Longbottom Leaf.

Great looking set up, I look forward to hearing and seeing how this works for you. Interesting that in the desert you need to wrap your cloth pots in plastic. I was not planning on doing that (I'm in the NW), but I will think about it. There would be less humidity escaping into the tent, that would be a good thing for me with PM control.

Yours are very close to what my next two are going to look like, the biggest difference being I'm using 10 gallon Rubbermaid bins -- same width and length, but shorter. That's partly because I have height issues in my tent, and partly because I think that's enough water. I will have a pair in my 2x4 tent.

Personally, I would not want 15 gallons of water in each bin, mostly for practical reasons. What if I have to move one? A gallon of water weighs about 8.3 lbs., so that would weigh 124.5 lbs. Per bin. Poop happens, I like to plan ahead and be sure I don't build something I can't work with down the line. When my plants were finished in the 14g in/over an 18g bin, it was a bear to get them out of the tent to break them down and clean them (I had filled them in place, and was not aware at the time of just how heavy they would get). It made me question what the sweet spot is for giving the plants everything they need while staying within parameters I can manage. But that's just me, we each have our comfort zones.

I've thought that if I ever need to empty them for some reason, I would get some sort of water pump, at least I could pump the water out the window.

I'm right there with you on both the height and the weight when using these big rezzes, and these are really experimental - I have 4x 10gal rezzes as backup, too. I'm concerned about the stretch on some of these phenos and might have to make a scrog net to keep them off the lights. That won't be the end of the world if so, but it will pretty much guarantee they aren't coming out until harvest...maybe tying down is a better option. The COBs help to keep them short and squat.

Moving them around is a real pain when they get more than 5gal of water - you have to be super sure of your setup and config, and the weight is a real strain when moving them out of the tent. It's doable when they have 5gal or less, but a huge pain at greater weights.

These grows are tests to see if they'll work for 17 days or more while I'm on an upcoming vacation. If so, giddyup!

Nice root development. I'm not sure why, but my roots only grew in the bubble stream of my air stones. And my outdoor ones without air stones did not have any roots in the water at all (beyond small root tips that grew in about 1/2" from the wick). It might be because I'm not pH'ing my water, and local water seems to come in high around 6.5 - 7.0. Perhaps that's not a friendly environment for root growth.

Thanks, man. The ancient aquifer water here makes for delicious beer - the city of ABQ is becoming beer mecca because of the great water. I'm guessing it's neutral PH, but the plants seem to be OK with it filtered through an Aquasana (meh). RO is a future upgrade.

 

[Humanrob]

Nah, they're Cobra Lips (Chem 3 x Appalachia, almost done), which are bodhi reg freebies. Here's one of the CL phenos at harvest, 60 days flowering in the ROLS-filled SIPs, no airstones, with 5gal cloth pots.

Looking at those beautiful buds that have had time to actually finish... makes me really psyched to do my next indoor!!!! My outdoor this summer was full of issues, and every single one (to varying degrees) had to come down before it was truly ready. Those are some awesome looking buds you've got there.

 

[VegasWinner]

Here is a nice video I watched that helped me understand better.

Pedrod grow room with his SIP pots. nice thread. I have two Earth boxes and I was messing with them. I got them for $2 total cost with wheels. peace

 

[jj302030]

Rob or NuBe... what are you guys doing with the soil after the grow? are you guys using a no till grow style with earthworms? are you guys keep the container topped off or let it dry out completely before refilling?

Great thread lets keep it alive

 

[Humanrob]

It depends on what it looks like... the experimental ones I ran outside in 5 gallons of soil became so root bound that about all I can do is re-compost the soil. In general we recycle it into the outdoor garden, and start fresh each time, especially with the indoor grows. But I'm growing at a pretty small scale, so its not a cost issue.


(outdoor SIP roots)

 

[Humanrob]

I had a successful enough outdoor summer grow that this winter's indoor grow is just about adding some variety, volume is not an issue. To that end I'm going with more smaller plants in my little tents (one 2x4, one 3x3).

The only SIP-related experiment I'm running is that in the 2x4 I'm going with 4 plants, and I plan on two SIP's pots being plastic, two fabric. While in general I had moved 100% to fabric pots for growing, I'm curious if with SIPs they are the better choice. Since I'm going to run four different strains, there simply is no science to this at all. Mostly its going to be about how often I have to water them, if one is more prone to bugs, things like that.

Being in the NW I have had PM problems from time to time, and my understanding is that "overwatering" can be a factor, so I have been keeping an eye on how SIPs might contribute to that issue. I am curious about the way a plastic pot will retain moisture vs the fabric pot, and will that be a good thing or a bad thing. Last SIP run I used 14 gallon plastic bins as the pot, and I was worried that all those gallons of moist soil would encourage gnats and possibly root aphids, but the opposite happened and the runs were bug-free.

I won't pick up clones and start this run until next week, at this point I'm still prepping the spaces.

 

[coughphee.connoiseur]

Is AIS, or air injected soil, a related tech?

Sorry I'm hella late ... air injected soil.... sounds very interesting.

 

[coughphee.connoiseur]

@Tim Fox Thank you, i want to share my layout with you. Via inbox or pm or whatever the hell they call i

 

[pinner420]

Do autopots count as a sip?

 

[coughphee.connoiseur]

Do autopots count as a sip?

no not to me but can be used in conjuction to create one for sure

 

[Tim Fox]

@Tim Fox Thank you, i want to share my layout with you. Via inbox or pm or whatever the hell they call i

sure ill send you a message

 

[Tim Fox]

Do autopots count as a sip?

they function about the same,, it appears as though they are keeping the roots out of the res with the screen,, so its really just an auto watering system,, close and simular, but not exactly the same,,

 

[Tim Fox]

Auto pots are a FLOOD DRAIN system

 

[Lysemith, Lowkey]

I'm looking forward to hearing -- as our collective experience increases -- if there are res sizes which can become too big. I'm wondering if at some point X number of standing gallons of water invites its own issues, that a smaller res that is drained (by the plant) and refilled more frequently would avoid? Time will tell. IIRC SomeGuy, you are a big fan of maximum air stones? It seems like its keeping your water clean so that's a good thing, and I think you have the biggest res capacity I've read about so far.

Am I the only one using Pond-Zyme? LOL I can't wait to open these things up and see what's in them....
As it stands my next grow will be a pair of 5 or 7 gallon cloth pots over 10gallon Rubbermaid bins. If I can get a second tent going, I already have two 5 gallon pots over 3.5 gallon buckets that I'll use in that one.

In reference to this I've put a 2 gal smartpot in a 5 gal dwc with a bubble bucket ring around the top and it rocked.

 

[Tim Fox]

In reference to this I've put a 2 gal smartpot in a 5 gal dwc with a bubble bucket ring around the top and it rocked.

trying to imagine what this looks like,, do you have a picture?

 

[Lysemith, Lowkey]

Not handy I'm afraid, password recovery malarkey. Imagine One of the big nets for clay pellets in a 5 gal bucket except there was a smart pot with soil in it. Not technically sub irrigated.