don’t freak out it takes a minute for them to find the water and some can look downright shitty before they do but once they find the water the green right up and fly straight
if you’re going to use netting I would highly suggest you look at the new bungee nets they are so much easier to work with and you don’t have to replace them every run I will be running two of these in every tent from now on it just made my life so much easier
I bought some mini octo’s. My roots hit the res and now the roots look brown and dead and the plant looks awful… octos don’t seem to like me
It really doesn’t matter much the roots in the sleeve will be fine ten to one they grow well
They have been on a downward spiral for a few weeks now, despite having roots in the water. Luckily I have a backup mother plant of the one in the Octo… I’ll try lowering my nute concentration
somethings sounds off there what kind of media do you have in the sleeve and what are you feeding them??? if they have been in there several weeks and still going downhill they’re not going to recover I can tell you that something here as major wrong
I see some of my roots in the reservoirs are colored but I think that’s coming from the nutrients or the water or the bucket itself I notice whenever I do a harvest and dump out the reservoirs there is a brown kind of funk to them there’s no smell I havent had any problems and no rot and no suffering plants
every now and then I’ll get a plant that just doesn’t want to grow in the mini pot or a regular Octopot for that matter in fact here recently I’ve had two that just would not grow no matter what I did I even watered over the top in both of their cases and it still didn’t help. they sat along several others of the exact same cut that were thriving
sometimes I attribute it to not having good enough roots before I stab them into the sleeve but most recently I had two ice cream cake cuts that just died within two days of planting them into the big pot and to be honest I don’t know why
what you’ve got to be careful about is water logging the roots as you know roots need a dry time also. depending upon the mix you’re using in the sleeve and how high water level you have in the Reservoir you can create a super soggy wet sleeve that nothing will grow well in I think that may have been what happened to the ice cream cakes I recently lost
I have also noticed at least with my soil which isn’t really soil that it’s super super dry when I put it in the sleeve i’m thinking that if the plant coming from a Dixie cup doesn’t have a decent root system all the way to the bottom and covering the sides that when I place it in that super dry soil it instantly wicks away all the moisture out of the Dixie cup dirt and if there’s not enough roots for them to reach down to the soil that is wet below they could go limp and die . both of the ice cream cakes that I’ve lost in the last two weeks wilted against their stocks went dormant almost immediately and within two days we’re pretty much dead That is absolutely 100% a root issue
don’t give up on the little pots it may take you a little experimenting to get it right but once you do the growth rate in them is pretty spectacular i’ve got three ice cream cake for wedding cake and for Tahoe that are just getting a hold and about to explode. The hard part of getting them started in them is over and I can already tell that they’re going to be beasts that only need defoliation and Reservoir fills.
for me the two keys are making sure when I come out of the Dixie cup that I’ve got good roots not wimpy barely showing roots but a good root system with certainly several on the bottom covering the bottom dirt , and Setting the water level no higher than halfway up the net pot. I am putting my mix in the nut pot not using hidrotic like I did the first run
I just zoomed in on your picture and I know you wont like this but they’re just fine they’re all thirsty and starting to stave and have pretty poor body posture lol but what that tells me is the roots have to find water and they will and it’ll happen real soon I’m betting three or four days you’ll see the leafs pick up from their look and leaf and color you’re just fine they’re going to kick ass just watch and see
I hope you run the cakes and Tahoe in the mini pots
I see you’re on an auto feed system I sure would like to run that but I just can’t because I’m so entrenched in giving good dry backs after every Rez draining which means I would have to turn off the Rez and controller for a few days at a time. I also couldn’t faster fill my big feeders and slow or fill my slow eaters .
i’ll be watching this to see how the auto fill system works and see if it works flawlessly for you . if it does maybe I’ll have to amend my ways and build one
I ran water farm set ups for ages and they all used a razz in a controller so I’m familiar with how it works but that was top drip Hydro Which is a different animal
You’ve convinced me to just stay the course in my seven-gallon airpots haha. Swear to gawd, between the octopots grows I’ve read and the SIPs thread that I follow, I’m like,”Yeaaahhhhh, no. I think I’ll just stick to the way I’ve been growing for years, no need to change anything up…” haha.
Thanks for the great info, as always. I never would have even tried these had I not seen you do it already several times over.
This particular run concerns me because the roots coming from the small organic soil nursery pots are so sad and weak. Barely any I would call healthy roots. They may take a little bit longer than future runs. Compared to the plants in veg now that have been grown in Promix and salts from the start, their roots are exploding like ramen noodles in the cup. When those bad boys get transplanted I just KNOW they will have an easier time adjusting.
i’ve got 20 big air pots out in my storage shed you couldn’t pay me enough money to ever water those damn things again
The growth weight in the bottom feeders is far superior also
when done right after the transplant shock which the pit is about to see it’s a thing of beauty
Hey I suppose it’s not for everyone just for us lazy asses you want to grow kick ass fat buds
I don’t understand what you mean
are you saying that the ones that are giving you trouble were transplanted into them with poor roots they had poor roots when you place them in the auto parts???
Hahahah, I feel that @minitiger! But for me, there’s even more simplicity to the octopot situation if they end up working. I’m just on a quest to have the simplest grows possible. My water-only soil was doing me great, and I’ll go back to it in a flash, but I’ve got to try these octos first.
The SIPs grows on here are amazing. I thought about that for a while too, but damn, soooo many additives and shit for all that living soil. Too much ‘stuff’ for me.
Two weeks from now you’re gonna wonder why you ever grew any other way mark my words
Yes. These first trial plants were grown in my water-only soil, little 4" pots. Roots on them are always weak looking from the outside. Since then I’ve been growing in Promix and salts and the roots look banging, but won’t be transplanting those for another month.
I know at some point I’m gonna have to switch to an easier method than,”Lifting seven-gallon pots out of and back into the tents every time I wanna water,” but for now, I’m good. I don’t like the Learning Curves haha…
Yeah. To me, SIPs feel like they defeat the purpose of growing organically, which in my mind is just “minimal inputs.” Or whatever. I mean, I’ve had the same five-pound boxes of kelp and alfalfa and shit for yeeeeearrrrrs, just sitting in my garage, barely ever use them. Aloe, coconut, whatever, I barely ever use any of that stuff.
But I understand the urge to try something new. I was tempted by those Octopots and the SIPs thing, too, for a while, but honestly, the way I grow is pretty fucking simple haha, I don’t see a need to change it up. I hope your plants work out, though! haha.
I think they will.
Used these my last solo cup start.
They allow you to pull the whole root ball out of solo cup and water from bottom and sides. Roots easily peek through. Less guessing where the roots are in development before planting in Octopup.
When ready to plant, dump the bag into the hole and you’re done.
so I’ve said it a bunch of times the whole key is the timing of the transplant
you Gotta have nice healthy white roots all over the soil when you stick them in these pots
you’re basically asking them to go a week or so without any nutrients and if they don’t have a good root system they won’t they’ll stall n die .
you don’t want them route bound and circling the bottom of the container but you want them all the way down to the bottom of the container and healthy
One done that way and using the turbo method to water the first time I’ve seen some of them start to crank in only five or six days
placed in with poor root systems it takes a couple of weeks and sometimes you have to water once or twice over the top but I have learned those plants never recover 100% and I’ve learned now that when I place them if they don’t kick ass like the ones I’m about to show you I just yank them and replace them so much better to kick myself back a week then to run for three months with something that’s not going to produce well
these have been in the mini pots for just under two weeks they were small in Dixie cups but had good roots like I’m talking about
Not ready
almost ready
This one which was at almost ready status was placed about four or five days ago you can see it’s struggling but not hanging her leaves yet she will just be fine in a few days
once they takeoff all you Gotta do is step back and get out of the way
@5 weeks
Y’all are overcomplicating it… I think SIPs are the superior organic method once you get them going.
I think y’all’s current water only mix would probably work great in SIPs, so you’re really not doing anything different than you already are, other than watering them a little bit differently. You still have to dump pots and amend the soil every round, no getting around that with either method. Hell, definitely eaiser than dragging pots outta the tent 
Setup your mix, couple gallons tap water down the tube, top dress twice or three times with Craft Blend and compost, right at flip, then every two three weeks after that… easy pz… There’s no more special additives, other than what you choose to use… don’t over complicate it.
Haha, I’m not really trying to convince y’all to change your methods either, do whatever works for you. I’m just giving you my perspective having grown organic smart pots, blumats, coco w salts, etc… I don’t think it gets any easier than SIPs with good dirt and water.
Keep in mind that I’m poor as SHIT right now haha. There’s absolutely no way I can switch anything up and buy new stuff to grow with. At all. No way I can be sure to keep enough things around for the occasional top dress or anything like that, either, even though I have plenty of stuff. For now.
I’m living one 40-dollar Uber Eats day at a time at the moment haha. I have to be really, really frugal, which isn’t a lifestyle that has ever suited me. I love spending money.
I’m not criticizing SIPs at all, though; I’ve seen your grows haha. But I will say that I watered with coconut on February 11, wrote that down in my notebook and was surprised to see that that was the only thing I’d added to my water for the duration.
I thought I’d done more… haha. But the plants turned out great,even though I’d done basically nothing but watered them this whole round, so…
Anyway, yeah, I definitely know SIPs work, but I’m fine with how I grow haha.
This right here is the rub. That sounds like a lot of work, or at least time required in the tent. And I still want to run 9 unique plants per tent.
But your SIP grows are my benchmark for healthy grows. I’ll eventually get there, but like you, I am (we) need to experiment with the other arenas a bit first.
Yeah I like my ‘top off the box with water once a day’ routine.
Or better yet, the ‘top off the reservoir once a week’ routine 
Those SIP results have had me thinking about it for sure tho!
I haven’t been able to hunt down any mini-octopots yet tho. Where you guys getting them at? Is amazon just sold out? I’ve been tempted to grab the real-deal’s but that seems like a LOT of coco to run those. I’m use to 1/2 gallon fabrics at most over here 
or does everyone run Promix?
