Drip system

Some drip emitters clog more easily than otehrs. this is why i'd recommend diy'ing soemthing like that rather than the kits. unless you get really elaborate with it, automated watering won't be as good as hand watering, but the differences can be so small that the utility of them far outweight the slight waste or if slightly less effective and evenly watering the substrate. You'll definitely wasate more water despite the claims by every drip kit that it saves money.. Every pot need different volumes of water, so one-size fits all wastes water.. sure you can spend 5-10mins trying to adjust certain drippers to tailor it to the pot, but that is a temporary fix and requies nonstop maintenance which kinda defeats teh whole idea of saving time with an automated system, lol. just make sure it spreads the water out "enough." The shape of the pot and the way water will absorb outward in a cone from the watering point at the top means it will spread out quite well on its own but you still have to make sure it spreads out "enouigh" to ensure the whole thing gets wet in a consistent manner. I have little sprinklers with 8 small jets of water coming out and a small spot of my topsoil but since no roots grow there, Just an inch down it's properly wet. Unless that's perfect, it's another reason why you use more water with an automated system.. to make up for any poor distribution of water. Medium -- as long as it has proper aeration and drainage properties you are fine. How frequently you do it depends on the size of the plant and the size of the pot. you always want some minimum dryback or else you waterlog roots trying to force a square peg through a round hole (L=W=D). I.E. Don't try to give 3 fertigations a day to a tiny plant in a big pot or some substrate with zero perlite etc. coco 33% perlite sphagnum peat moss 50% perlite (or similar, doesn't have to be perlite) The varying amounts add up to the same gas/water mixture per volume in the pot because sphagnum peat oss holds 150% more water per volume than coco, so it needs more drainage/aeration amendments.