Spider Farmer Self Watering (wick) System - Anyone Use? Hot Tips?

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budrock61

Well-Known Member
Been hand watering plastic pots for almost 10 years. Now running up to 36 plants at a time, so the hand watering is gettin old!

Thinking about testing this system out in a 5x5 tent: Four 5 gallon fabric pots, Roots Organic Original soil, pre-load bottom 1/3 of soil with my bloom mix dry amendments.

Anyone out there have experience with this system? Any tips?

https://www.spider-farmer.com/products/self-water-4kit-2kit/


Spider farmer auto watering wick system anyone use hot tips
 
I run wick bases with soil grows. Mine are the AC infin with no rez. I allow roots to grow into the bases for better yield. I feed through mine using same solution as my hydro grows...which is Jacks 321. I also put airstones in m y bases to add oxygenation...careful though it can cause ph issues.
 
conor c said:
Looks more like a gravity fed style thing to me kinda like a auto pot cos a wick system usually uses rope string or cappilary matting instead of those pipes and the plant draws what it needs Vs using gravity power
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Yes, gravity feed. Each base has wicks that run under the fabric pots. The bases are automatically watered from the rez, water level controlled by the small round box
 
budrock61 said:
Yes, gravity feed. Each base has wicks that run under the fabric pots. The bases are automatically watered from the rez, water level controlled by the small round box
Click to expand...
Hopefully it works out well for you


@Star Dog uses auto pots there similar to those from what I remember you gotta feed light or you get nute build up easy maybe he knows a bit that can relate to those
 
Are you planning to feed through them...or just water?
If water only it's easy...just set them on the bases after first set of true leaves and watch them grow.
Feeding through them works great but can get tricky with buildup like @conor c said.
 
driver77 said:
Are you planning to feed through them...or just water?
If water only it's easy...just set them on the bases after first set of true leaves and watch them grow.
Feeding through them works great but can get tricky with buildup like @conor c said.
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In a perfect world I'd just pre-load the pots with dry bloom nutes in the bottom third, and use ph'd plain water only. But you know how that goes lol.

I have experience with top dress dry nutes, but never done the pre-load thing, which I'm sure will take some tweaking to dial in. I figure if there's deficiencies, I can add nutes to the water in the individual bases, or nute up the rez. Either way, not sure how the wicks will handle nutes, especially organic nutes...
 
Organics not so well....they tend to clog. Not saying it can't be done but it adds another layer of possible issues.
I use salts with good results with wicks.
 
driver77 said:
Organics not so well....they tend to clog. Not saying it can't be done but it adds another layer of possible issues.
I use salts with good results with wicks.
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Good to know. Seeing as my soil will be loaded with organic nutes, I'll probably just stick to clean salts for deficiencies.
 
Can u top water with that system? I assume u can? I use SIPS and don’t usually put anything except plain water in the res.
 
driver77 said:
Organics not so well....they tend to clog. Not saying it can't be done but it adds another layer of possible issues.
I use salts with good results with wicks.
Click to expand...
I am using organics in autopots and have no issues. Not sure hwy people state this as the olny issue I could see is a particle getting stuck in the valkve area of the pots. As far as clogging the lines, maybe the older pots, but the newer pots use larger tubing, larger on off valves and a different spicket off the reservoir. I believe it may be user error as well, but for me no issues.
I do top feed and tray feed. I shut off the flow to my pots a couple hours prior to avoid any runoff getting into valve area, then once I know thios isn't happening, I will feed through the valve entrance, continue to leave the flow off until I see the trays have gotten back to their normal level before starting the flow back up.
I have one swick set up and I do the same, except I do add nutes to her water tray and allow her to drink this way, she also gets top fed. Again no issues when feeding microbes and bacteria versus chemicals that wipe these out.
 
Fladawg01 said:
I am using organics in autopots and have no issues. Not sure hwy people state this as the olny issue I could see is a particle getting stuck in the valkve area of the pots. As far as clogging the lines, maybe the older pots, but the newer pots use larger tubing, larger on off valves and a different spicket off the reservoir. I believe it may be user error as well, but for me no issues.
I do top feed and tray feed. I shut off the flow to my pots a couple hours prior to avoid any runoff getting into valve area, then once I know thios isn't happening, I will feed through the valve entrance, continue to leave the flow off until I see the trays have gotten back to their normal level before starting the flow back up.
I have one swick set up and I do the same, except I do add nutes to her water tray and allow her to drink this way, she also gets top fed. Again no issues when feeding microbes and bacteria versus chemicals that wipe these out.
Click to expand...
I was referring to the wicks getting clogged but I guess stuck valves and stuff are where the other complaints come from with organics in hydro. Also there are problems with sediment build up or just stuff dropping out of solution with organics. As I said it can be made to work but you are open to issues that wouldn't be there without organics.
Salt based nutrients don't kill microbes if that's what you meant at the end there.
 
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budrock61 said:
Similar system, but this uses rope instead of soil as the wick.

I see you are a soil layering maniac lol. Any experience with Roots Organic Original soil?

Roots Organic Original
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Yep , i have. I used 707 before , worked well with dry fertilizer. But , i couldn’t get it locally so i went with Recipe 420.

However , i still use Roots Organics Terp Tea Bloom.
( during later stages ) . But have been testing Recipe 420 dry fertilizer ( general and Ultra Bloom ) which i really like.

IMG_8697.jpegIMG_8698.jpeg
 
Budzbuddha said:
Yep , i have. I used 707 before , worked well with dry fertilizer. But , i couldn’t get it locally so i went with Recipe 420.

However , i still use Roots Organics Terp Tea Bloom.
( during later stages ) . But have been testing Recipe 420 dry fertilizer ( general and Ultra Bloom ) which i really like.
Click to expand...

Good to know. Friend of mine runs 707 or Original with that terp tea for commercial grows, loves it.

I've been running various Down To Earth drys for years now, mostly with Detroit Nutrient Co soil which is similar to FFOF but with more perlite.

Been wanting to run crab meal for awhile now, but the smell is too fkn gnarly for indoor top dress. Figure if I layer it, smell won't be an issue. So yeah, I just browsed thru your FFOF Simple Method thread, good stuff man, thx!
 
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