Good luck!! Looks like you will have a great grow!!
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I am very interested in how you will use that tote. I am looking for something like that to keep a mother in. 
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Congratulations @TeddyNuggets Keep us updated on your progress!!
There are a few diy tutorials at the top of this thread that should get you started. Feel free to ask questions. Happy to help!
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Personally, I got a 27 gallon tote to try to go the DIY route, I’m very excited… just gonna do a seed run or two and then I’ll probably start the sips for some flowers to smoke.
Have to say thank you @CrunchBerries for having this thread full of information about this topic.
Have a good day! 
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I started diy’ing with a 27 gal’er and had planned on no-tilling. Shortly, changed up to the 10 gals I’m running now. I could only fit two in my 5x5 and still access the plants easily. I can pick up and move these 10 gals, without issue to inspect. I was super happy with the results though. Would love to someday have a dedicated no-till sip tent/area for plants I know I like and want a lot of.
No problemo, bud. It’s nice to have a repository of information related to this topic in one place. I was tired of searching hither and yon. I access the Link Farm often for information and/or links.
…And a good day to you, sir!
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Thanks! Will do.
I am planning to do something similar to the bin in post #3 here (from the links in post #1 of this thread):
https://rollitup.org/t/greens-probiotic-method.985411/
but without the nets around the bottom pots, and with more holes in the lid. I might also use a different method to support the bottom lid/tray (instead of the PVC pipes) but I’m not sure yet.
I’ll definitely post pictures once I start building it.
I just kind of bought that 12 gallon bin on a whim. If I end up building more, I would like to find bins with a slightly smaller footprint if possible, and I would most likely make the ones detailed in the plans linked below:
https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/inntainer-construction-guide-pdf.3648313/
I really like the way he uses the two bins by cutting the inner one to fit so cleanly. I also like how the side channels (between the bins) would allow more potential air flow.
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Hey @CrunchBerries do you think that two 3” net pots will be enough for the bottom wick? I have some laying around. If not what size would you recommend?
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Hey bud,
I didn’t know how to answer your question, as I’ve never made any with net pots. I did measure the wicking areas in an eb and city picker and it seems like a 3” net pot would be perfect. An EB has 2 wicking areas and a CP has 3. Just as an fyi.
Earth Box
City Picker
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Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to measure.
I’ve seen them made with one 4” net cup or one 6” net cup, so I’d think two 3” net cups would be enough to wick the moisture up. Especially since this design keeps the top of the bin/soil covered with plastic.
I guess worst case I’d have to increase the net cup size.
Or I could just do three 3” net cups for the wicks…
Would it cause any potential harm to use a 3rd cup/wick in the bottom? It would give the roots another area to enter the reservoir, so that seems like a positive. But can it wick up too much moisture into the soil?
I would think 3 would be ok seeing as your design with the drain tube in the bottom uses a pretty large wicking area in the center… ?
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Sorry for the late responses. Dealing with a sick family.
*Edit a City Picker has 3 wicks. I guess I wasnt paying much attention.
I think 3 wicks is fine as you want the soil to stay moist 24/7 and the roots to reach down into the reservoir. The whole floor on these 10 gals is a corrugated drain pipe and vermiculite wick.
Are you using a microbial inoculate like LABS, em1, etc?
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Yes, I will be using a microbial inoculate once I start it.
I am actually in the process of making a batch of LAB now! The water has only been sitting for a couple days now so I still have a bit before it’s ready but it’ll be a minute before I start the SIP anyway. I am pretty full-up at the moment. I need to cull some stuff.
Thanks again for the help!
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Hope everybody’s doing well! We need more updates from the Crunchmaestro and the rest of the SIPs tribe!
It’s day 35F here and things are looking pretty good.
Temps are colder than I’d like (64-68 at lights off, 64-70 during lights on), but whatcha gonna do? Hasn’t seemed to hurt flower development, although they maybe look a few days behind…depending on the pheno. Since I haven’t run most of these before, it’s hard to say.
Tahoe looking good and chunky, drinking her 2gal rez every day, prolly could use a little more defol to allow light to the lowers. Very low odor so far, but that will change in the next month for sure.
I may defoliate to also help reduce transpiration so it can warm up a little more during the lights on cycle. Right now, the exhaust is on nearly nonstop cuz humidity is set at 60%, so that’s keeping temps cool. What do you guys think about defoliating to reduce humidity? A dehuey is not an option, sadly. I’m not concerned about harvest quantity, which is what higher temps would help, but the quality might be improved with slightly lower temps at the end of flowering.
OK, on with the show.
Nigerian Rafiki #8 doing good but getting off to a very slow start. I talked to another guy who ran her and he said she’s a late bloomer, slow to start, plateaus during mid flower with almost no growth for weeks, and looks like a disappointingly small harvest until the last month of her 11-13wks flowering where she packs on the weight and frost. I’m definitely in the plateau phase where she hasn’t done shit in two weeks, so we’ll see. On the plus side, she smells like straight Jack Herer (terpinolene) right now, which is one of my favorite smells.
So a couple weeks ago I turned up the lights to 275w each panel and raised them as high as possible. The NR8 still has not stopped stretching and is now 1-2" from the light on the tallest tops, and 3-5" on all the rest.
It’s not a big issue cuz this style of light has its highest intensity at 4-8" below the fixture, but we’re getting pretty close to running out of room. I also want to turn it up to get the full 360w each side since this is a 5x5 space and I could maybe benefit from the 720w (28.8w/sqft), but I want to keep everything from getting burnt. I guess I could jury rig the lights to get another 2-3" of height, but it’d be tough.
Also, I thought this comparison of the actual color of these 2700k Bridgelux strips with what our eyes see is pretty cool. This is the actual output color of these lights and what the plants see:
But this is what we see cuz our eyes are good at correcting for yellow light:
Luckily, my phone’s android camera app does auto color correction, but sometimes results in a pinkish hue in the tent walls. Oh well.
Anyway, continuing the update, here’s the Santa Cruz Blue Dream which is very berry and seems to be happy yet not drinking much water right now - she doesn’t seem to have a very vigorous root system, or maybe just not for me. Will try to correct that in the future cuz this one is a keeper in every other way.
Spellcaster #10 from @nobodysnursery is also super happy and very thirsty, drinking her 2gal rez every day. She’s putting out a lot of budsites and looks like she’ll create some heavy colas if they fill out. Right now, she smells just like Bandaid Haze #7. It’s creating a little cognitive dissonance cuz she looks nothing like the BH7. Interested to see how she turns out.
Over to the other side of the tent, here’s Dragon Hammer #3 smelling JUST LIKE that old Hawaiian Tropic Cocoa Butter tanning lotion, the stuff in the brown bottle. She’s going to have to really WOW me in the smoke test cuz so far she’s not impressing me at all in vigor or structure, but at least she’s started drinking more and fattening up a little. Could be another late bloomer!
Last but not least, we have Mother’s Milk #31 going bonkers in the back right of the tent, also drinking her 2gal rez every day. I really love how this cut grows, so incredibly vigorously and with great node space, yet responds great to pruning and training, and still stacks on the colas. This frost is maybe the best in the tent, but she is also fairly low odor yet you definitely can smell a hint of candy hearts. 
Honestly, if you ignore the severe stretch, her flowers look and smell like many other Appy crosses at this stage of flower. And that’s a very, very good thing!
That’s it for this week. Until next time…
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Hello all I am slurreme-I am. I do well enough organically even though I have been growing for far less time than a lot of the awesome folks here! Earthboxes caught my eye and things just clicked I knew this was the way, sub irrigation just seems to me to be where I want my grows to be. This is my first attempt at trying my hand at this . I reached out to @CrunchBerries and bro came at me armed with encouragement thank you CB! And thank you to all in this thread!
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We are gearing up for round two in the SIPs. The goal is to try at least 3 runs with this setup. OGKB 2.1 x Mendo Breath (left) and Famous Aimless (right), Left these girls veg for too long so Its gonna be a gong show. There is a second SIP with Saltwater Kush and Death Slap going as well. In the downtime, between runs, SIPs were maintained with JMS soaks bi-weekly and have now been re-amended with worm castings, Gaia green 444 and 248, biochar, home made bokashi, malted barley and flipped to flower. Here we grow!
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Are you no tilling in eb’s?
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Yes, that’s the plan. They are city pickers (11gl).
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Awesome ! In my minds eye I’ve got a plan on how I want to make a notill sip . Wanted to dip my toes in the water with eb’s to get the hang of things .
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People love the EBs so I’m sure you can’t go wrong. I went with the City Picker cos they had them for sale locally and they measure 20” x 24” which is perfect for fitting multiple ones into at 2x4 or 4x4 space. It also makes them a manageable size to move around. I’m not sure if they hold enough soil for no till but I re-amend each run and so far the plants love them.
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Have you ran two City Pickers in a 2x4 before? I’ve thought about this before but thought that two plants might be massive…but then again, it would fill out the whole space or overgrow it.
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EBs don’t hold enough soil for notill, but the CPs just barely do - right at 14gal if you mound them up. This round I notilled a few of my CPs and they’re doing great in my 5x5. I also left five CPs out through all of 2022-23 winter and then notill planted tomatoes and basil directly into them in early summer 2023, added a topdress of craft blend and cover crop, and they were my best tomato plants I’ve ever grown in pots - significantly better than the previous years in the same pot.
@unomas 2x CPs in a 2x4 is perfect if you have two plants that have similar growth & stretch characteristics. Yes, the plants will get large fast, but you maximize the potential of that space. SIPs are the light, the way, and the truth!
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