[pecker88]

I recently started 8 SWC in my indoor winter grow. Two 5 gal. buckets, stacked with the inner bucket having a net pot secured to the bottom.

I used a 50/50 mix of ProMix Ultimate Organic, and ProMix Ultimate; I also added a large scoop of coarse perlite. That ProMix is all I could find at Home Depot, I personally think $55 for 4 cu ft of ProMix HP at the local hydro shop is nuts. That's the only place in town that carries it, so I the ProMix options at Home Depot had to work.

After 3-4 weeks, all my tomato leaves were curled under, like claws. For some reason my Jalapeno and Habanero look great. Anyway, I dumped 1 container out to see whats going on and the mix in the bottom 1/3 of the bucket was so wet I could ring water out of it with my hand. The roots of the transplanted tom had barely expanded at all, simply because anywhere they went was saturated.

So, after reading and reading here, I decided to try 2 of the buckets with Raybo's 3:2:1 mix of peat, micro bark and perlite. I found some micro bark at a local hardware store. Some of the pieces are larger then 1/2" but again, "pine bark fines" are not available here.
So far, its only been 2 days since I changed to the 3:2:1 so it's difficult to tell if the plants are doing better, time will tell.

The lesson: There are a lot of physics going on in a SWC. I'm convinced that it takes a perfect mix that wicks water, but not too much. The mix is your only method of controlling how much water is available to the plant. You can't stop watering, as the wicking chamber has to be constantly submerged. So, I'm hoping that the 3:2:1 mix will slow down the wicking action due to the lessened ammount of peat and more non-wicking particles (bark). I also slightly lowered the water level in the reservoir.