Perhaps you are trying to over engineer things. In a 3x3x6 you won’t be growing monsters so in a 5 gallon pot at worst you’ll have to water every 4-5 days.
But I’m anti reservoir of any kind. Just can’t risk it here.
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How can a space be created indoors that’s light proof to control photoperiod, add lamps, and not need ventilation fans and such?
Many blessings and much love
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Why is that?
Very likely true,not even gonna try to lie. My 5g bucket SIP even has an air stone mounted in the bottom of the reservoir to prevent the water from going stagnant.
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That is fairly easy if you have an internal room with no windows. Or if you put up plywood to cover any windows in the room.
I live in an apartment and reservoir failure would be a big deal. If I had a basement I wouldn’t care.
I use much smaller pots and they require much more maintenance but if you keep your pots oversized all this fancy stuff is likely unnecessary.
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I was thinking something similarly. Keep it simple. If wanting a mondo reservoir for less work hand watering frequently I thought to suggest aerating the reservoir and turning into a deep water culture type setup instead of a wicking system. Seems like it could be accomplished for approximately the same cost and less work than a dual box wicking type system. Since it’s already a soilless set-up, seems like it would be a smooth transition for @Ace71975 as well. Many blessings and much love
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Ahh ok, that makes sense. My Grow room is in a basment. My goal honestly its to minimize the maintenance as much as humanly possible so that I can focus more on the fun parts of growing instead of the tedious stuff, I have ADHD so the tedious stuff is dangerous, because if it becomes too tedious, I will simply give up and stop doing it. This is the main reason i tend to pick sit and forget hobbies that dont require constant interaction. I make wine, mead,and beer, I do rock tumbling, I grow plants, I make soap, I do canning, etc all stuff that does not require a lot of attn or focus to do.
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The problem with this, is that it would require a rather expensive water chiller to do right in my state, especially in the summer months when we have temps into the 90s, I have done hydro without a chiller, and it was a nightmare, the water temp was always way to high which led to slime and other issues in the reservoir. Kinda soured me on true hydro lol
The method I’m proposing works out to about 10 minutes every 5 days. I bet you’d spend more time than that playing with an auto water setup.
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Are you not using a/c and adequate air exchange to cool the space? If it’s too hot for an aerated reservoir I don’t think an unaerated reservoir would be anymore helpful. Could it have possibly been light getting in which caused the issues you noticed? Many blessings and much love
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Closets or dedicated room and good planning work well for me.
12 12 can be done at night, say from dusk to dawn.
I use blinds, then hang a towel or whatever over them.
Using full spectrum keeps the funky glow away.
One other thing, in a non Leo emergency
You can chunk wires in closet
Close the door and nothing is seen
4 plants in 5 gallon pots
Box fan in room for ventilaton.
They don’t call me El Cheapo for nothing lol
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Dont have AC in the House Or Cental Air, Just fans lol, Oh I have an air stone mounted in my proof of concept Sip, and If i do build the big one, it will also have about 6 Air stones mounted in it.
I was doing 1g pots, and I was watering every single day just to keep up with the soil drying out, even in a 5g pot I had to water every other day. maybe i just found thirsty strains?
Why not a bunch of City Pickers, small SIPS, and some kinda automatic watering system. Seems easier in the long run.
.02
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I’m guessing your north of me a lot, here without ac
It’s BRUTAL.
Humidity is a killer.
A cheap widow unit, say used for 40 bucks
5 to 7k btu would help big time, and they help scrubbed the air.
I was curious and walked outside to see if I was blasting cheeseberry down the street but nothing.
Inside lower Temps always help with smell
And keeps the Humidity at non retarded levels.
But some folks are lucky and most times AC
Is not needed in the North though I have seen crazy
Temps in Saskatchewan recently.
I mean whatever works for anyone is cool,
But it’s just easier and I’m lazy and getting to 12
Plants and all is easier on my back just doing a room or closet.
And if folks show up you can crash dive. Spray
A blast of feebreez and no one will be the wiser.
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I am in the usa, In Ohio. Fairly northern state, but summers here can be Brutal, 95F+ and 98%Rh at times, normally summer is in the mid to high 80s, and usually fairly high humidity 70%+ Winters on the other hand are Brutally cold and EXTREMELY dry, usually below freezing and zero humidity outside.
I am admittedly a weirdo, I am most confortable when the temp is 85F+ and I love the humidity(execpt in my grow room lol). I feel comfortable all the way up to 120F, and I HATE AC. Mostly because I have Fibro and Arthritis, and the warmer it is, the less pain im in, the cold really sets off both. If I could afford to live somewhere that never drops below 70 I would move yesterday!
Being in a Legal state, i do not worry about the smell, and if anyone says anything i just say “ya I grow weed that is what you are smelling”. But honestly no one ever comes to visit my house anyway, I am fairly antisocial unless its online lol
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That big of a soil container is only going to need watering once every few days I’d think.
My opinion only, but an auto drip system for a large “soil” type grow is massive overkill. You also don’t want that much open water/nutrients in your tent - it’ll just drive your humidity up big time. If your res is in your tent, it needs to be covered.
Good luck.
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If you want to go no-till and not have to change soil, I’m not sure the reservoir is a great idea. You could build a big ass SIP (sun irrigated planter) but I am not sure you will be able to stay no-till in it forever (you may be able to find more info on that in the SIPs thread here). You may eventually have to do some maintenance on it or change the soil and it could be a big PITA removing + replacing all that soil.
If you wanted to do SIPs, I’d probably do a few smaller ones. Either make them DIY or buy city pickers or earthboxes.
You could also do some type of wicking system with a separate reservoir. That might be a better option than a SIP for long term no-till.
Either way, I’d recommend staying organic over synthetic if you want to stay no-till without having issues.
If you want to go synthetic, I’d look at the OctoPots.
Personally, what I would probably do, is Leighton Morrison’s horizonal soil system in the big container you planned to use and stay organic.
You would have to hand water but it wouldn’t be that bad. It wouldn’t be a daily thing. And it should be able to stay no-till for a long time.
Or you could use blumats to water for you.
Something like Bio-buckets might be a decent option for you too.
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Oh I am not doing living soil, its just going to be a very large Dirty Hydro with full synthetic nutes. I dont mess with organic or living soil, way too expensive to set up and scientifically proven to not be any better than synthetic nutes. Closest i get to “living” soil is using mycos in my soil.
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Sorry should have been more clear, I run full synthetic with some organic inputs like Mycos and bacteria, I will more than likely never go full organic, too expensive and Scientifically no better. I run Inert Peat Based Media. Which In theory anyway, with a 67 gallon tank under it, at the end of the grow, I can just run plain water through it, flush any nutrient salts to the tank, replant and by the time the roots get deep enough to hit the nutrients the plant should be able to handle them.
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