Self-watering Hydro versus ham water medium in pots

[Smpbaby]

Hey what's up fellow He's!
So I'm thinking about going to a timed watering system versus the way I'm doing it now which is using a potting medium and smart pots making nutrients and hand pumping the nutrients to each pot as needed personally I like doing hand watering but there are times where it's just not convenient and because of that hours kid go by before they are watered as they normally are on time timer system seems to be the quick fix for that but I have to change overall growing medium and then worry about plugs and backups and micro orbs getting into the mix slime build-up and so on so forth any suggestions any advice any stories good or bad will be appreciated thank you you all will be helping me make up my mind so hope to get some response peace out good vibes awais SNP m m g

 

[Aqua Man]

Dirt is probably the lowest maintenance. Hydro takes quite a bit of monitoring and the more equipment the more monitoring, maintenance and time you will spend.

I guess it depends on your goals.

 

[BloodShot]

Maybe not your thing, but I made the switch to auto pots recently from fabric pots.
Like you I was tired of watering and felt that the auto pots would be a good move since I had heard nothing but good things about them.
I have mixed about two reservoirs so far and I'm loving the simplicity of the system and the fact that I can go quite some time just using four pots and checking ph, water levels etc every other day. If I wanted to go away for a week I could and not worry about the ladies being watered.
Years ago I did some growing and used a homemade aeroponics type system which I feel is similar to the auto pot system with air domes inside pots and I believe it is the best method of growing I have ever done in which i was totally blown away from the rapid healthy growth which made my switch easier to justify today.
I realize it's a big switch, but I wish I had of did it sooner it's that simple and the growth is like an explosion.
I don't have to cart 5 gallon pots to the tub any more to water and that's a good thing in my book.
It was this or a DWC set up of some sort but that seems like a little too much effort and I am getting lazy I guess.
And to think I was debating for some time about switching to totally organic growing again, maybe some day but this system just makes things a bit easier to me atm.
Good luck in your choice.

 

[cemchris]

Dirt is probably the lowest maintenance. Hydro takes quite a bit of monitoring and the more equipment the more monitoring, maintenance and time you will spend.

I guess it depends on your goals.

Granted soil is pretty low maintenance but hydro can pretty much be the same once you get the hang of it. You just have to have expectations vs reality. Sterile, pure salts, and DTW. Only maintenance is the plants. Now going off commercial bottled nutes or organic this and that and recircing yeah def high maintenance.

But when it comes to when the room is done I don't think it gets any more low maintenance then rockwool. Unstake dripper and throw the 1 cube away into a trash bag. Tables are clean. Floor is clean. Room is cleaned and flipped in like 30 mins top to bottom. Hands are clean. Back doesn't hurt :D

 

[cemchris]

The main thing about timed watering vs hand watering is the schedule. Plants adapt to it and explode.