100% Perlite Hempy

[MegaSuiter]

Never said I had any success in Perlite. I stated I have had successful grows. Prior. This is my first go with straight Perlite.

 

[MegaSuiter]

I am looking to find this out. Perlite has a neutral pH, is lighter than most if not all mediums, makes little to no mess. Seems straight forward to me.
Also. I never meant to come off offensive.

 

[MegaSuiter]

Also. Hempy is considering passive hydro. If you aren't aware of Hempy buckets. Look into them. Pretty neat stuff.

 

[Bannacis]

I remember years ago in Hightimes there was a grow system called phototron. it was a self contained hydroponic system.
The medium was straight perlite, it used florescent lighting.
My buddy managed to get one recently...lol
It worked ok, but there were always issues with the perlite.
It would algae up, or you would get root rot. I'm sure there is a trick to it.
You will need to find the right nutrients that will work with straight perlite. since there is no buffer... prolly synthetics,
Organics prolly not work. since your feeding the plant and not the soil.

 

[xenon730]

isn't the only difference between this and the regular hempy system less vermiculite?

 

[MegaSuiter]

Well
Originally I believe Hempy is Coco and perlite. To avoid algae I'll be using h2O2 ever watering. I defiantly thought the top layer of perlite was going to get green, but nothing so far

 

[Seamaiden]

straight perlite in a hempy...
the roots will support the plant with a little time but you'll have to watch it as it matures because the entire bucket will want to fall over when it drys out a bit
i'd use the stakes also
you may also want to run your nutrients at a ph of 5.3 because of the minimal cec

fwiw

I was going to post my experience, but then I saw one of the replies above and got the fuckits. 5.2-5.5 worked a treat for me in the perlite hempy tubs. Until the root aphids came and threw a bitch party.

 

[MegaSuiter]

Did you find a way to manage the root aphids? Lady bugs have always worked for me

 

[Seamaiden]

Lady bugs for root aphids? I wish. No, not that grow, because I didn't realize they were RAs, I thought they were some kind of funky super fungus gnat. Took another indoor run to wrap my head around it and figure out how to kill them (which lead to losing all those genetics).

 

[MegaSuiter]

5.3-5.5ph recommended throughout the whole grow?

 

[MegaSuiter]

Also. I thought nitrogen intake is limited under 5.5?

 

[Seamaiden]

It's what worked for me. I decided to treat it like hydro instead of coco coir. I should say that initially I treated it like coir, and the plants weren't doing well. So I did some reading and decided that since the perlite seems to be rather inert, I should treat it like hydro and drop the pH. It's been years, so I'd have to go back in the way back machine to find what spurred me to go to hydro pH ranges.... maybe I can find you one of those charts that shows ranges for different media. Gimme some time.

 

[Seamaiden]

Ta dah! Thanks to @Texas Kid for this. And you're correct based on this chart. But, like I said, I went with what the plants were telling me.

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/ph-charts-for-soil-and-hydro.6990/

 

[MegaSuiter]

I seen you posts about perlite that goes back to '10. Defiantly know you know your stuff about perlite.
Thanks!

 

[Sativied]

I grow most of my plants in perlite, also with house and garden. I don't measure ph or ec but ph is roughly 5.5 - 6.7. EC 1.2-1.8 depending on plant and pot size. It frankly does not matter that much.

I usually use wires to keep my plants down instead of up so can't help you there. Maybe ductape the bamboo to the outside of the pots. And yes, it gets green sometimes. I call it mojito growing. Never had pests with perlite and it's imo the easiest way to grow.

Like seamaiden said, treat it like hydro. That's why I use it. I prefer NFT but small perlite bottles allow me to grow many small plants without roots getting entangled in a tray (need to be able to remove males and some females) while still getting mediumless hydro-like results.

O haze:

 

[MegaSuiter]

Planet Perlite!
I thought about duct taping the bamboo to the outside of the buckets last night.

 

[MegaSuiter]

A lot of support guys! House and garden FTW!
Thanks a lot. Keep it up.

 

[Saint Skinny]

Wouldn't it be easier if we just ignored the BS. Or quietly mutter "thanks for nothing" to ourselves instead of... whatever is going on... anyway heres my $0.02

I would try mixing in some vermiculite next round and do a side by side. I've never grown in straight perlite but when I first started hydro I was going to try the same thing. I researched my ass off and found most people using perlite as a main ingredient for the medium usually mix 50-50 perlite/vermiculite. I think vermiculite would hold water better, providing more weight and support but thats just off the top of my head. I would've done the 50/50 Until I realized I could build a DWC for the price of an air pump since that was the only thing I didn't already own. After my first plant in DWC with only a dual outlet wally world o2 pump, I turned into a hydro-head.

I use gnat nix and I like it, at first I considered the gnats as a little extra protien but I got sick of them following the co2 trail into my facehole.

As for the top turning green, im assuming it's the same thing as with rockwool, it's just kinda there. It may not be a good thing but it happens. Cover your top with panda film or whatever happens to be handy and presto! No light, no algae. I'm pretty sure that alot of potted plants have algae on the media surface, but being dark it's harder to see. I just noticed the perlite on the top of my mix (one of the plants w/o gnat nix. GN seems to reflect light and help with the algae) was turning a green tint.

 

[jewsh808]

Just had some gnat problems in 1 gallon hempy/ perlite containers...it was staying too wet!...found tons of gnats ...any tips for the next round?

 

[Saint Skinny]

Just had some gnat problems in 1 gallon hempy/ perlite containers...it was staying too wet!...found tons of gnats ...any tips for the next round?

Gnat nix will keep the population way down. I just watered in some Insect Frass Tea and they hated it, so that's another option. But I've used gnat nix for years, they may technically still be there, but looking at my sticky traps (which I keep around to monitor the population) you can tell there's no gnat orgy going on in any of my pots. Even using the air pots, which I expected to be gnat-gnat city trick lol