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Simple and cheap "hydro system"


firefighter
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Not all of us like sophisticated and complicated and expensive gear, but want more than just soil in 4 l pots. So I may have an advice for you.

Plantboxes for balconies come in two types. one simple with just one space, and one with an air pocket down there where you pour in the water from the side. Just look at the pic. This "hydro" plantbox works very good with cannabis and coco. No more overwatering with coco, always enough air for the roots and the roots are getting very strong in there because the take the water out of the reservoir. You do not water o top, ut the plants have to take the water by themselves. And the best: One box is just around 10 Euro in any garden shop. 1 m length box is good for 4 plants. Try it out! :biggrin:

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top idea, 4x4 grow tent and 3 of these and 4 autos in there every 4 weeks on 12/12, that's a good continuous cycle, and you can control which nutes are being given to each bank of plants because they will be at different stages. Cheers Tastynugz.

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yes nice idea indeed, i never saw those kind of pots in garden store tho, but i for sure never looked for them ^^ so next time i'll make sure to see if they seel any could be indeed great :) even for outdoor grower that can not water everyday

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yes nice idea indeed, i never saw those kind of pots in garden store tho, but i for sure never looked for them ^^ so next time i'll make sure to see if they seel any could be indeed great :) even for outdoor grower that can not water everyday

I don't know where you live, maybe Spain? Here in central, northern Europe they are everywhere in the shops, now sometimes even below 10 Euros for 1 m and they are usable indoors!

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Firefighter I like this idea alot. I wish there was a more detailed tutorial maybe you can give more instruction it would be greatly appreciated.

Is this truly hydro? I thought hydro was soil-less medium.

No it is not really hydro, it is a kind of very basic alternative mode of growing. But the plants take water and nutes by themselves from the reservoir down there, so it a little bit hydro. . It is easy, you don't need a tutorial. Just water the plants on top until the got good roots and then you only water the reservoir with the seperate water input. Use coco fertilier. That is all. Good luck

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  • 1 month later...

top idea, 4x4 grow tent and 3 of these and 4 autos in there every 4 weeks on 12/12, that's a good continuous cycle, and you can control which nutes are being given to each bank of plants because they will be at different stages. Cheers Tastynugz.

Any results yet or pics from you people?

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  • 1 month later...

Any results yet or pics from you people?

OK, no results from you so here are some from friends of friends: look how the little plants from the pic above have developed - 157 g wet for that plant. We belive it s Chronic, not AK 47, what do you think?

So we can really remommend this method!

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ive used these pots for a while now and remember my mom having them in her home as long as i can remember, they are called underwateringpots here and/or terraponic pot ive also heard term container growing, a very common household item in my country for keeping ordinary house plants and food growing when you dont have much time to keep eye on the plants, the long models are usually kept on the windowsills or hanging from the balcony fence with hooks, i got 4 salads in the 1m model just like yours and a tomato in my diy version

this big bang auto was grown in 16l pot with about 4-5l reservoir beneath the soil it worked ok, it makes the watering cycle few days longer and it is simpler to work with the plant as it doesnt have the saucer beneath, it can support little bit bigger plant if i compare it to pot with same amount of soil tho that depends how big and good the reservoir space is under soil. it can be boosted with airstone

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atm i got exodus cheese in that same pot, growing at nice speed, i can recommend these to any one who wants to save some time in between watering cycles and even reduce the time that it takes to water reg pots or air pots properly, it makes things very simple and its good option for beginners, at the beginning i wouldnt recommend keeping any extra water in res before roots grow in there and let it dry properly even tho it has the res you can top off, cannabis likes the dry cycle

i would also recommend inoculating it with bennies to keep algae and molds at obey in the reservoir. with some models you can lift the top pot and look in res and in some you cant

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this big bang auto was grown in 16l pot with about 4-5l reservoir beneath the soil it worked ok,

Yeah, right looks nice but the difference is that you were using single pots and we used these long containers for 4 plants. I can tell you man: whatever we try: we always come back to these household stuff. Somtimes you can get huge really huge plants out of these containers i have never seen before with other tequniques, I have seen 4 plants over 200 g that is 800 g wet from ust one container......

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ofcourse i use single pots for auto or any seed:) maybe 4 clones works good in the long container but 4 different autos or regs would be just asking for trouble, the amount of soil/coco you have for root space is what dictates the yeild not the shape of container, you have about 40l of medium in 100cm windowbox so 200g is expected from any pot soil or coco if we follow the ounce per gallon of medium ''rule''

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ofcourse i use single pots for auto or any seed:) maybe 4 clones works good in the long container but 4 different autos or regs would be just asking for trouble, the amount of soil/coco you have for root space is what dictates the yeild not the shape of container, you have about 40l of medium in 100cm windowbox so 200g is expected from any pot soil or coco if we follow the ounce per gallon of medium ''rule''

Right, you better not use seeds but the same clones in long containers. I do not really agree with your root space formula, because in those containers you do NOT have a lot of medium - maybe 20 l for 4 plants and you get results like that. That is why we like it: not much coco needed. I belive this is because of optimum oxygen supply to the roots. Also roots form long thick bundles horizontally. Try it out one time and you will see but use good clones :fan:

Please tell me: how many pots you have on one squaremeter?

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sorry i meant approx 40l container not medium. if there is only 20l of medium and its 100cm long they must thinner and and lower than what i got. 100cm x 15cm x 20cm would be a 30l total volume of the container 10l res and 20l medium so your is prob close to that, it is very hard for anyone to make any conclusions about anything if we dont get any of the numbers, how big pot, how much medium, what medium, veg time, dry weight, strain etc

the 1m model i have is 38l total with reservoir space leaving around 30l medium tho the roots grow in res too, but i have only salads in it.

20l of medium and 800grams wet? so what does that wet weight mean a plant can weight different depending on when it was watered..., every strain drys different some leave just 10% dry so we dont really care about the wet weights here as the finished product we are looking for is dry.

you can quesstimate the possible yeilds pretty close with just knowing the volume of roots and the area the plant occupies in volume all the avg strains come pretty close to the gallon/ounce area with the reg indoor pot sizes +- or ounce for cubic feet of space the plant occupies +- it was made just to give some idea what to expect from the plants as many newbs think they get kilo in 10l pot

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20l of medium and 800grams wet? so what does that wet weight mean a plant can weight different depending on when it was watered..., every strain drys different some leave just 10% dry so we dont really care about the wet weights here as the finished product we are looking for is dry.

well, the plant you see above has 157 g wet at harvest. Four of them in a box is about 600 g wet. Conditins were not good, because of heat and spider mites and thrips. Under optimal conditions you can get 800 g wet from 4 plants in a container. In that case lets say 35 g dry or more per plant.

People use one container by the other without an space between them!!! As you see in the first pic.

Lightning was excellent though: 2 Industria 600 watt and Phillips Son T 600 you need that!

Just try it out with some containers... :santaclaus:

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