Hempy is more popular for sure, but why? Help me understand, advantages-disadvantages. I’m on my third krarty now and want to try a hempy grow next.
Great question!
I understand neither, lol.
Maybe you can explain your method aswell as possible pros and cons of each that you know of? 
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- Start the seed in a rockwool cube, I take a 2 x 2 inch cube and cut into four. One on left I did in a jiffy pellet to test.
- Use a 3 inch net pot with Hydroton clay pebbles {both re-useable}
- Place in solo cup until roots hit the water.
- Then place in final one gallon container.
- Keep an inch or so of nute water, when just about gone, fill with another inch, five/six days time.
- When I adjust nutes or add something just empty the container.
- That’s it, very simple and easy to move around too
Here’s the two I have going now.
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So, the nutrient water fills most of the jug and is kept a couple inches below the net pot?
And no circulation or air stone?
Sorry, I’m clueless to this method. Though very curious. I did a DWC run recently and was quite impressed. But am mostly a soil guy. 
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What ph, what nutes are you running?
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Glad you started your thread mate as I’m interested in hempys and the associated substrates etc.
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Cool cool, plants looks stellar so keep it up!
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Good topic.
I ran across Jeb Gardener’s videos when researching SIPs last year. He’s got a ton of Kratky variations he documents in search of the ultimate hands off hydro method for his vegetables. He fills his reservoirs almost all the way up, leaving only a couple inches of air gap. I’ve done hempy’s in the past and prefer DWC (albeit a fairly different beast,) might throw a couple pepper plants in a ~15 gallon tote Kratky style this summer.
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I got turned on the hempies by a grow store employee after I talked about my struggles with grows. I read a bunch, and ended up growing a few kiss method plants. It “worked”, so I had to fiddle with it. Now I’m trying coco and it makes me feel like I have forgotten how to grow haha. I’ll come back and expand more tomorrow.
EDIT:
So the more I think about this, the more I realize there is really no where for me to expand with rambling haha.
Hempys work, for me the best runs were 1/2 soil, 1/2 perlite with an all perlite res. Maxi bloom, silica, cal mag.
There are even people out there running straight perlite with Osmocote (don’t quote me on which version) that are water only, which is pretty dang cool in my opinion.
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I have not done any back to backs, but I have grown plants of various kinds in these setups.
It is impressive that Kratky even works… and that it works as well as it does.
I personally like something that allows me to water back to a known pH and ppm reading. Kratky you just let it fly and hope those stay stable. With a hempy, you are constantly adding a properly mixed nutrient.
A (coco) hempy can also get away with adding beneficials ( like recharge) if you want.
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So in order to get yields you would need to automate that kratky thing I would think. Just cannot supply enough food and water to make a lot of bud. It’s fine for a single cola cup grow perhaps. Hempy’s and earth boxes can have some real nice yields.
Last plant I had in a self irrigating planter drank a half gallon of nutrient water everyday
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Interesting composition. When you say all perlite res, what do you mean by that? Curious indeed @potpotpot 
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the bottom of the bucket in the hempy style is usually perlite or hydroton to at least the air vent/overflow hole or above.
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I’m not understanding the need for the additional resevoir with the perlite. Is this to catch the overflow as you feed? Or rather as an “extended watering” hempy?
If “extended watering” hempy, I tried that, just hempy in bucket (sans perlite + excess water to feed as they drank up existing) and found that it ended up kind of smothering the roots? Need the oxygen flow from top down, as other growmies have explained to me. I can tell you that you’ll have algae growth in that resevoir if you keep it open and filled with water.
My hempy buckets are 80% perlite, 20% vermiculite mixed together and thrown into the bucket - I don’t mess with hydroten anymore for the resevoir area. This way the roots grow all the way to the bottom and hole at the 2/3" mark you have for overflow makes a fully usable water resevoir for the plant, contained in the bucket itself.
Maybe im dense lol (would not be the first time I’ve been told that hahahahaha). Splain it to me! Hehe
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Haha, yep! Thanks for the picture @LedZeppelin , dense I is! 
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That’s what I need to understand. Drawings!
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@LedZeppelin I water around the jiffy pellet like any other seedling for the first couple weeks.
Edit - I don’t wait to put into its final pot FYI, once she’s above ground, into the medium she goes.
However - I am sure to give a healthy watering (more a rinse of the materials) to saturate and do an initial resevoir fill.
This way, as you gently water (top) daily (couple weeks), you have the resevoir ready (being refreshed as you daily top water) to go so when the root hits the resevoir there is no lapse in watering.
At that point you can physically tell (by plant growth & vigor) that it’s hit the resevoir and its game on. 
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Mr. Kratky has a (new) youtube channel and channel name:
Formerly (dakineapproaches)
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A couple more good channels that feature Kratky style, as well as others some times.
MHP Gardener This guy is great.
Mike Vanduzee Excellent resource, great guy.
JebGardener (already mentioned above) Entertaining, interesting videos. Good music, haha.
@nefrella Just in case; Hempy styles incorporate a reservoir in the container. It holds a certain amount of fertilizer solution. Traditionally, you water the hempy each day (at least) until you “flush” out the volume that the res holds, thus refreshing the res/solution/oxygen. This can be automated too, to a degree.
The whole container can be perlite, vermiculite, and I’ve seen coco or a coco/perlite mix as well. You’d want the res area to be filled with something like perlite, ideally though. That way it doesn’t “hold”/absorb the liquid and it’s more like a res, which can be “flushed” out.
For an active version of this system, sort of, MHP gardener does bato buckets, with pure perlite. It runs on solar, pretty much continuously I think. Very “simple” type setup.
Edit: Sorry, maybe you already know all this, and I misundertood your question.
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When I ran perlite the top was always green.
Also, I always had the best luck if I waited a week or two to fill the res, so the roots have to reach down to the bottom and get big and strong haha. Filling the res from the get go felt like major overwatering to me, and I am an overwatering machine.
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