Werner Heisenburg
Brother from another mother.
Hey WH! Glad your asking questions! I'd love to see someone else try this.
The wicks. Well I consider the rockwool that I filled the net pot with part of the wick system. I've no doubt that’s the major source of water transfer to the soil. The wicks themselves are nylon rope cut into 28" lengths. The rope was a small diameter, 1/4" I believe so I tied four bundles of 4 together. I pulled about 6" of each wick thru openings in the bottom of the net pot,then O stuffed the pot with the rock wool.The wicks are placed every 90degrees around the pot. I taped the to the sides on the container so that they would remain vertical as I filled the container with soil. The AIT is on the bottom middle and not near the wicks.
I saw this system somewhere else, although it didn't use the wicks, just the rockwool. I figured with a container as large and deep, the extra wicking would help.
Next time, I'll use larger diameter rope but other than that, it seems to be working fine.
The res is fill to just touch the bottom of the plant container, about 4 gallons of water. I drilled a sight hole/over flow hole at 4" up from the bottom.
I use no nutes in the water, this is an all, organic grow. I'm sure just about any soil mix would work. I do believe that using 20-30% coco coir aids in water absorption and retention. Adding the clay pebbles to the surface as much has worked great. the surface stays moist but not wet, it never dries out. I watered it today for the first time in over a over a week, it took 3/4" of a gallon to top up the res.
Thanks pops for the insite. Makes sense to me now.
And more questions, lol. Well just one more.. Are you concerned about the roots getting water logged, root rot, slime, Pythium, assuming the roots make it through the rockwool??. I figure most of the airation comes from the AIT, super oxygenated soil, but would that aeration offset the few roots that do make it into the res bucket and is not receiving oxygenated res water?.
Oh, and are you adding hydro style ph water to the res, like 5.8, or the typical soil ph of around 6.2??. Or are you not adjusting the res water and running ALL natural??.