This is an excellent answer. I think I’ll just buy some totes and start farming 
3 Likes
There’s a link to the 27 gal tote one that I made at the top, but there are tons of designs on the webs. I have a 3 tiered Can-o-Worms that I really like also. Happy wormin’!!
7 Likes
One thing I haven’t found a wealth of on SIPs is: experiences, problems encountered over time & in different climates, & failures.
How’s the learning curve been & have you run them both indoor & outdoor?
The humidity where I am now is insane but where I’m from & eventually returning 
it’s incredibly arid. In the past I’d considered using a 200 gallon horse trough & a solar powered fountain pump & bubblers, set in the ground for temperature stability.
Containers outside in 105-110F 10%RH are a bit challenging
The first I ever heard of SIPs was 20 yrs ago from Israel, using buried 5 gallon bucket reservoirs, drip lines & submerged container/planting.
Ha’wai’i = “place of (fresh)water” wai = water, ka = ocean 
5 Likes
Not all soil mixes are created equal. The one I use, I’ve mixed up a batch and planted seeds in it the next day and they’ve been fine, no need to let it “cook.”
And along those lines,
Where did you get that recipe? And why did you use it? I’m not criticizing, just curious. The manure you added is composted manure, correct? If not, then yeah, you’re definitely gonna need to let that sit for a whiiiiiiiiile.
Looking at the Royal Gold recipe on their website, it says there’s already basalt added, so you may not have needed to add the soft rock phosphate and the azomite, unless you felt like maybe they hadn’t added enough. Basalt is rock dust, the same thing as SRP and azomite.
There’s also already dolomite in there, so maybe you shouldn’t add the oyster and you definitely shouldn’t add more lime, unless you know exactly at what ratios the dolomite was added when Royal Gold mixed up the soil you bought.
The rice and oats are just gonna decompose and throw things outta whack, totally coulda skipped that.
And since you added an extra 1 gallon of EWC and .75 cu ft of compost/manure to the existing 3 cu ft of Royal Gold , you’re probably gonna wanna add an equal amount of aeration. I like pumice.
Honestly, it’s much, much easier to just mix up your own soil and not rely on some bullshit bagged soil mix as your “base” or whatever. I see on that Kings Mix website that there’s bat guano and fish bone meal and feather meal and the aforementioned dolomite lime in the mix you’re using, too, which, uh…
I’m not saying you won’t be able to grow great plants in that, but personally, I like mixing up my own and knowing exactly what I put in it and at what ratios, if for no other reason than if problems do arise (which barely ever happens), I know what the culprit might be.
8 Likes
Damn lol sounds like i just fucked myself. Thats rough to hear. Any advice on what to do now? Throw it away and start over?
I was being walked through every step by a member who went radio silent and i was left hanging with all the ingredients (his recommendation) and no clue how much of what to use.
So i hopped on here ran everything by multiple people i got multiple answers kinda blended some recipes together and this is what i got.
Gonna suck if its trashed
2 Likes
You could add more peat/aeration to tame it down. Here’s a recipe from someone who knows what’s up.
2 Likes
Aloha bud,
I honestly haven’t run into too many issues using SIPs. They actually seem to correct any issues plants may have going into them. Plants can get too large if not checked.
This is the easiest method I’ve come across. Little work to set up the smorgasbord, but plants eat/drink when and what they want and I stay out of the way. Just keep the reservoir filled with a microbial inoculate and it’s smooth sailing. I haven’t ran them outside, but people do all the time.
SIPs were designed for arid places to cut down on evaporation and water loss. The Hanging Garden of Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient world were said to be sips. The idea being you can add the water directly into the root zone where it is all utilized. Rather than doing a drench, where the water would evaporate from the heat of the substrate/environment before making its way to the root zone. there is no runoff with SIPs so it is a very efficient system as far as water consumption goes. Often requiring much less over longer periods of time than conventional pots. The History Of Sub-Irrigated Planters And Why You Need One » Garden & Greenhouse
I would think either burying them or creating like a shade cloth over the planter would help keep the root zones temperature in check. Also, you could flip the EBs cover to the white side to reflect some sun.
Love Hawaii! I have friends on Maui and Kauai! Been out to visit a few times.
8 Likes
Ok we currently have 3 outside in the Bay Area cuz everybody needs a little light…
Diesel Trees ^^ City Picker
Bogbubbble ^^ Earthbox
Sunshine Daydream F2 Bx ^^ Leaky City Picker
…under the Sun + water and goodies. Ran 2 of em, sips, in a tent before this. Only issue is the original CP (SSDD) is leaking first at 1 wheel now 2. Dunno if it was leaking in the tent but it’s possible. It’s too much weight.
The other issue is having nothing to do but listen. If you been growing awhile you’re gonna wanna do stuff to help. Cool but nothing stands out. Sit, stand, still or dance with them until… they’ll probably just be full of gratitude though so a Spidey meme of praises.
Outdoors hijack done.
Happy Love Peace
11 Likes
Yes, it’s pretty simple and cheap too - add 1cuft of fluffed peat to your mix, add 1/2cuft of aeration (like @minitiger also mentioned), and call it good.
After living in a high pH tapwater region, I disagree with adding lime. Almost all plants prefer a slightly acidic soil (5.5 - 7.0 pH). Soil bacteria in living organic systems has, in my experience, a much easier time dealing with slightly lower pH than higher, likely because it’s evolved to meet the plants’ needs. I’ve had really serious issues with high pH tapwater (8.0+) causing soil pH to slowly creep up. Not adding lime, reducing the amount of calcium carbonate in my mix, and using peat-based soils has fixed this.
Not trying to be argumentative or ruffle any feathers either 
, but why fight a high pH problem by adding amendments that increase pH? When I had issues I read the same thing from many sources - just add lime, it buffers the pH. What people don’t tell you is that it buffers low pH by making things higher pH. It’s like pouring gas on a fire. Adding lime sure caused nothing but problems when I had high pH tapwater (from a limestone aquifer) - so much so that my soil was unusably high pH after two recycled rounds.
Only necessary if there are many composting ingredients, which the user @seeds2weeds isn’t adding. If you haven’t added a lot of carbon sources to your soil, you can plant in it immediately with no issues like @minitiger said. The issue with stuff that needs to break down is that it heats up while doing so - it becomes thermophilic - and too much means your roots get uncomfortably hot. Here’s a good link that describes the process: https://www.compostmagazine.com/compost-science/
This is the recipe I recommended to @seeds2weeds in PM last week. I’m not the guy who went radio silent on him. 
But I did recommend a less is more approach and specifically Coots mix. Said add 1/2 the ingredients listed in Coots mix to his bagged soil, aeration, call it good.
We actually want this in SIPs, as it starts the fungal process off with a bang. It’s like poor-man’s bokashi. You should grind the brown rice and oats first so they’re slightly faster to go fungal.
Naw, you didn’t fuck yourself. It’ll be fine. One other thing is you probably want to use myco or some type of bacterial inoculation product when you transplant into this soil for the first time. I use rootwise nowadays, but just about any of them will do - mykos, great white, recharge, tribus, mammoth p. I use rootwise because the company has good ethics.
Now, on another subject, I’m actually having problems with half of my SIPs. Since I am running 5 city pickers outside, I didn’t have enough recycled dirt for this indoor run, so I bought four bags of BAS 3.0 from my local grow store cuz they started stocking it and I was short on time.
I did the last four SIPs with that, Oly compost and ewc on top, and then planted into them. I watered in the same as my recycled homemade dirt, let the plants spread their roots for a week, saw some growth but not explosive growth, top watered and saw a little more growth after another week, then bottom watered and they started yellowing out. Also got an explosion of gnats and a couple dozen mature flies, which I’ve never seen in any past grows. Not sure what’s going on, but I’ll figure it out.
Yesterday I mixed two 27gal totes of fresh soil myself with 40% peat 40% pumice & rice hulls 20% oly compost/ewc and added 4c craft blend per cuft. Going to dig into the soil in one today and see if they went anaerobic or something else is at issue. Hopefully there aren’t pests that crawled into the store-bought bags of soil. 
Wish me luck!
12 Likes
It’s my understanding that garden lime can raise the pH to unacceptable levels, dolomite lime usually taps out around 7.0, and gypsum doesn’t raise pH at all. They all have their place, just depends on the situation.
Slownickle has a great thread on calciums on ICMag.
But like you said, you don’t want to be adding Ca inputs willy nilly 
6 Likes
Hind sight 20/20 i wish i went with the coots mix. I psyched myself out when i read the bottom of the coots mix link where it says
“ Notes: Clackamas coots mix is a great soil mix but in our side by sides we found that it is too bacterial rich and does not provide any fungal components. University of Oregon has found that 20% castings is about the correct amount to keep a well balanced soil. This mix also lacks a potassium component and thus lacks the ability to build flowers and reuse your soils without the need to remix.
Check out my own mix that I crafted especially_ for cannabis and for longevity and reusability.”
I indeed checked out that link and decided to go off of that instead of the coots mix. I dont know if i screwed up or not with all the mixed knowledge and experience flying around me i was unsure who to follow and i was eager to get the soil cooking. The kings mix i used as a base only provides 1-2 weeks of nutes for plants. If the ph doesnt come down in 30 days should i add 1cuft of fluffed peat and 1/2cuft of aeration? Or is it one or the other in 30 days? Or can i add one or both now while its cooking?
2 Likes
Oh, really? That’s interesting, didn’t know that. seeds2weeds has been DM’ing me (sounds like he’s been DM’ing a lot of people haha) and while I’ve tried to help him out, I’ve made it clear that I know nothing about SIPs except from what I’ve read on this thread. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve retained all the info haha, didn’t know that about the rice and oats.
Bagged soils are the Devil haha…
7 Likes
Thanks for the feedback. I’m only talking about lime. Lime always raises pH, no matter what kind it is. My reading of the research on it says dolomite only raises pH slightly slower and to a less extent than hydrated or calcitic lime because it’s a little less reactive than those two, but it still always raises pH. It will not lower his high pH soil - lime never lowers pH.
I had terrible results when I added lime to high pH soil. I would not recommend it. I don’t know who slownickle is…is he a soil agronomist?
I knew it was a risk going in…but here I am a week into flower and I need to salvage the run for the bag soil plants.
7 Likes
Bro if you popped up on any threads involving living soil and/or sips I probably shot you a dm. Really wasnt trying to be a dm hoe i just really needed advice.
5 Likes
Been looking for a good angle into this question. It might sound stupid, but I’m a little curious of the mechanics of wicking from the reservoir. From what you’re reporting, it works well for microbes. But I’m worried about certain nutrients leeching out (moisture, gravity) and not wicking back up properly. I don’t think flipping the reservoir and running it all through is a good solution, it seems like it’s gonna pull more out. Do I just swap with clean and let the runoff dry before mixing with some topsoil dressing? Or am I just worried over nothing? It did occur to me to add nutrients directly to the reservoir, but the problem stated has me scratching my head.
1 Like
I’ll bet, lol!
Yeah, my point was know your Ca inputs, and when to use them
Yes.
6 Likes
It’s fine, dude, no problem. You’re definitely not the first person who’s DM’d me with grow questions. I’m always happy to (try to) help; I just don’t know the mechanics of SIPs and how they differ from growing in airpots. I follow this thread because it interests me, but, like I said, I don’t always retain the info haha.
7 Likes
No you’re right. I didn’t realize the soil already had lime and sounds like the oyster is the equivalent.
3 Likes
Here’s a pretty good link I found on sips The History Of Sub-Irrigated Planters And Why You Need One » Garden & Greenhouse
It works through capillary action where water and oxygen are pulled up through the roots and soil wicks.
Any nutrients that ends up in the reservoir will be used by the plant or worms that always end up in my reservoir. On average sip plants will drink between 1-2+ gallons of water a day during stretch. Definitely keeps you on your toes, so I can’t be lazy with my 3 5 gallon buckets of molasses water that are constantly bubbling in the garage.
You don’t want to add nutrients to the reservoir as that is their clean drinking water. Thirsty roots would be forced to drink the nutrient rich water wether they need those nutrients or not.
8 Likes
RH matters (should be a t-shirt 
)
I wonder about … well a lot of shit, really, 
but once I get off the island (@Esrgood4u that’s not dirty, just so you know) I’ll be doing side-by-side testing as much as possible.
Like what about a giant plant in a huge container? Big trees move thousands of gallons a day supposedly 
And what about media variation, like 90% aeration?
Yes, I broke a lot of my toys as a kid but that’s how I learned. I think.
6 Likes