Wicks? Opinions?

Has anyone used a wick system for their grows?

I'd like to hear :

1. What kind of system you used

2. Your experiences - pros/cons, comments

If you haven't used wicks, but have considered it, what were your concerns that kept you from doing it?

I plan on doing it when I upgrade my pot size soon.

Pros: Stable moisture, easy nute delivery. Can get away with not watering for long periods of time,

Cons: Takes abit of effort to set up, need ALOT of rope lol.

haha. I'm in the process of converting everything. How many pots do you have to convert? How are you going to set up your res?

can you dot his in a grow tent?

can you explain the process

At first, 18 pots, so going to need a shitload of rope.

I am probably going to give each plant a 1 gallon bucket, which the plant will be suspended over. Dont want to have 1 big reservoir, if something goes wrong, I rather not lose an entire crop.
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I dont see why you couldnt.

Basically get a ton of around 3/16" or 1/4" polyester rope (something synthetic that wont harm the plant, organic ropes will eventually decomposs or something lol). Hang about 2-3 foot of the rope through the bottom of the pot. Put around 2-3 inches of soil in pot, then coil the rope around the outer edge of pot towards the inner parts, leaving about a 1-2 inch circle. Place another 2-3 inches of soil over the rope, and repeat process till you get to top of pot (make sure its soil on the final layer), dont coil the rope too tightly, you want the roots to be able to weave themselves through it easily.

Have the rope hanging from bottom placed in a bucket of water, you can also mix nutrients in the water. Its best if you can keep light from getting in the reservoir so you dont have to worry about something contaminating it.

Wicking is nice because it keeps the soil moisture consistant, as the plant uses the water, the wick draws more from the reservoir. Good for vacations

Yeah. I've got a pretty good plan for how to rig it up. I'm going to use linked individual reservoirs with a large common reservoir. My plan is to run weak solution through the common res and supplemental top feed. The nice part about wicking is it also keeps you from overwatering, as it will also wick out excess moisture.

Having a common res is also nice, as you can just let the end pot go to drain and flush them all out that way.

Never thought about using individual reservoirs AND a common one, might have to try that

I've got a nice design ... working out the kinks now for a side-by-side.

What I started this thread for is to assess what people's common fears are of when contemplating switching to a wick system, and the problems people have experienced when using them. I have full faith in its efficiency; I just want to figure out what I would need to do to convince them to use it - besides show them it works, of course.

Make sure you post that design once you get it all worked out, might have to do something similar.

I've used wicking for houseplants before, but just the basic wick & tray method. So I do know how well it works. The only fear I had was that the rope I used may have something in it that could harm the plant, I used 550 paracord, which didnt seem to hurt the plants at all. Hoping its the same with marijuana lol.

I'm very interested in this system.

Have heard chuckles about wick systems in passing on here. But I like the hands off aspect. (I travel a lot, up to 2 weeks away at a clip)

The overall mechanics seem simple enough. Though up for all ideas/materials.

My current Qs is on nutes.

I had mixed up a 3 gallon of FF nutes, and it went rancid. (I had called them and they said to use a mixture right away, a day at most)

I would like to go organic, but worried about the above (I know FF isn't fully organic) I'm thinking hydro nutes might work better.

Comments?

I used a small wick system to sprout my seeds in cubes... Works prety well... =]

You can see my first wet grow journal to see the pics... =]

Any developments?

BigBudBalls said:

Any developments?

Click to expand...

yes. Prototyping and setting up a test with some tomatoes.

Stay tuned.