A wick system is the simplest passive hydroponic or self-watering arrangement: a cotton, nylon or felt cord runs from a reservoir up into the growing medium, and capillary action moves solution to the roots as they dry the medium out. Self-watering pots with a reservoir in the base work on the same idea.
In practice
Wicks suit small plants, seedlings, herbs and light-drinking setups, and they need a light, airy medium such as a peat-perlite or coco-perlite mix. Large cannabis plants in peak flower can use several litres per day, more than most wicks deliver, so plants may wilt in hot weather. Salts accumulate at the surface because water moves only upward; flush the medium from the top occasionally. Use synthetic wicks; cotton can rot.
Don't confuse with
- Bottom watering: water is placed in a tray and soaks up through the pot base; no wick.
- Ceramic sensor watering: a valve that opens on demand from a gravity-fed line.
A seedling is a young cannabis plant from emergence of the cotyledons until it has several sets of true leaves, typically the first 2-3 weeks.Running a large volume of low-EC water or mild solution through the medium to wash out accumulated salts; it treats the medium, not the plant, and suits any stage.Bottom watering lets a pot absorb water or solution from a tray beneath it, so the medium wets from the base upward by capillary action.Ceramic sensor watering uses a porous ceramic cone in the medium that opens a small valve when the soil dries, feeding water from a gravity-fed reservoir on demand.The Kratky method is a passive hydroponic system with no pumps: plants sit above a container of solution, and a growing air gap forms as the level drops.A reservoir is the tank that holds a system's water or nutrient solution, the place where pH, EC, temperature and oxygen are measured and adjusted.
