Here's one I haven't seen before!

[naturalhi]

I'm flowering with foxfarm soil and nutes, here's the kicker; as an experiment I put about 2-3inches of perlite in the bottom of 4' kiddy pool then filled the rest with fox farm and flowering plants.

So far the water stays in the soil not in the perlite which is what is supposed to happen as per the experiment! what do you think will happen?

 

[Stoney Bud]

I'm flowering with foxfarm soil and nutes, here's the kicker; as an experiment I put about 2-3inches of perlite in the bottom of 4' kiddy pool then filled the rest with fox farm and flowering plants. So far the water stays in the soil not in the perlite which is what is supposed to happen as per the experiment! what do you think will happen?

Cool experiment man! You have a hybrid soilless media, passive semi-hydroponic grow going. Damn, that's a mouthful.

Your plants will do very nicely if you follow a few guidelines.

1. Make sure your soil/media mix has time to get almost dry before watering again. In this type of system, it's real easy to get root rot going if you over water.

2. Adjust you nutrients to about a 1/4 strength soil mix until you get a "feel" for how your plants are handling the strength. Watch them very close for a few days. At the first sign of under or over feeding, alter your nutrients accordingly by using either water only if your over feeding, for a few days or by increasing the amount of nutrient by small amounts and water only slightly for a few days. This will allow the plants to do a real quick turn around if needed.

3. Be very careful in a shallow system like this that you don't do anything to "flex" the root area of the plants. The roots will tear easy in this type of system.

Good luck to you man. If you could take a pic of your experiment, I'd sure enjoy seeing it. You could put it in the Journal area as your grow!

 

[naturalhi]

1. Yes

2.Shouldn't have to woory about nutes for a while with Ocean forest, burt I check it every lite period!

3. You must think I'm tuff,............move a pool full of dirt? HA!!!

I thought it interesting that the water avoids the perlite, too cool!!!

 

[Stoney Bud]

Also, the roots will grow down into and encompass the perilite as well as the soil. You'll have to supply a hydroponic nute of some kind when the plants have re-rooted into their new home. If you kept them in a 24/7 lighting regimen for a couple of weeks with a good rooting hormone added to your water, it would make them root and stabilize in the new home before putting them into flower. The difference may add some bud weight because the transplant shock will have ended and the plant would be rooted well and growing as well as possible.

I'm looking forward to watching this grow!

 

[Stoney Bud]

1. Yes

2.Shouldn't have to woory about nutes for a while with Ocean forest, burt I check it every lite period!

3. You must think I'm tuff,............move a pool full of dirt? HA!!!

I thought it interesting that the water avoids the perlite, too cool!!!

Ha! Don't laugh too hard! I've seen people "scoot" the soft type containers while cleaning the house! This guys wife said she sat on the floor and scooted "the thing" in some every day when she mopped the floor. She said it moved back real easy, she just had to scoot the dirt around a little while she pulled it back out.

This was a sand, hydroponic NFT bed in black plastic sheeting in the guys house. I told him I never saw that done inside before.

Pretty cool set up once his wife was familar with what it did, and what could hurt it. He just never thought to explain it to her.

Hahahahaha, you never know...

Cats like to use this type of system also. If you have them, you might want to keep them outta there!

 

[naturalhi]

well it won't go too far, it's locked in a 5x5 room? when does a closet become a room?

As to the nutes you don't suppose fox farm Tiger & Big Bloom would work do you, that's what I have from last grow

 

[GanjaGuru]

I forsee problems neighbor.
You have no drainage. What the plant needs in the way of nutes it will uptake, the rest will collect down at the bottom.
This isn't bad as long as the roots stay out of the perlite, but once they hit those concentrated nutes it doesn't need things will likely go haywire.
I have seen kiddy-pool grow before. Indoor as hydro set-ups (no soil/perlite), and outdoors also, but outdoors the kiddie pool had holes punched in the bottom of drainage.
With no drainage I don't see how you can keep from overwatering.

 

[Stoney Bud]

well it won't go too far, it's locked in a 5x5 room? when does a closet become a room?

As to the nutes you don't suppose fox farm Tiger & Big Bloom would work do you, that's what I have from last grow

Ha! I guess it's not going to walk off then is it?

I've never used either of the nutes you have, so I can't give you advice on them.

Make sure you water only enough to dampen the soil. No drainage is needed in this type of grow or any other closed system grow if you water wisely. Lots of people over water. That's why you would need drainage. Leave a small area open near on edge where you can stick your finger to the bottom. Prior to watering, check to make sure the perilite at the bottom isn't wet. If it is, don't water. This will force the roots to develop into the perilite. This is what you want. That's exactly why I suggested that you let them re-root into their new home.

Once the roots are established into the perilite, then unless you go nuts with the nutrients, you won't have any problem with leftover nutes.

You may want to rethink your method after this flowering period <if> you have problems with it. Over watering will be your worst problem if you don't watch what you're doing very carefully.

 

[naturalhi]

Hi guru hows it going, yeah well the dye is cast this time, since this is all I have to do with my time, well being married that isn't entirely true!!!, anyways I'll do what I can to get by, with ya'lls help!

Oh I deffinately have a better idea just don't have cash to spare, fixed in come you know, next time I'll buy a 5' pool to set this one in on top of 2" concrete stepping stones, did you know concrete blocks wick water? I didn't 'til I set seedlings on them in the pool with water 2" deep! Anywho I've a plan to use nylon rope, holey 4' pool, no verm, and a thompson type valve to keep water level constant. and add nutes as needed!

Now there's another thing that ya'll will tell me I did wrong and that's I have 21 plants in the pool, yeah thats too many too close but I just couldn't make myself choose you lived and died they're all so cute!!!! Plus they have 9 sisters in 3gal. pots all around, no verm just soil and drain trays all doing great so far. Stoney you wanted pics, well I haven't been able to find a driver to make my camera work with XP and I'm loath to install Windows 2K on a sub partition just so my cam will download pics, maybe after harvest I'll be able to afford a new cam!

 

[naturalhi]

Stoney, An up date on this process; the kush are under fed but the sativas are flourishing! kush must dig deeper for nutes than sativa!