Smart pots questions

[Smokesteve]

Hello all after recent near-disaster with the zinc deficiency caused by over-watering / plants not draining drying quickly enough. I'm switching to some version of a smart pot, not quite sure what the best thing is, that starts my questions best suggestion for smart pots / air pot type or brand .
question 2 size, I grow normally in 5-gallon Home Depot style buckets so I want to basically be the same as that I think that would be around a 7 gallon smart pot and any other general advice involving this type of pot for growing thank you in advance

[Potted]

Yea Steve, 7gal. Smart pot = 5gal. Bucket lol

[Smokesteve]

Check some of the responses below. Lol

[Canuck147]

Some fabric pots are definitely not as advertised - but - I have found Geopot to be exactly what they say they are. 5 gallon Geopot with handles is what you want.

[JerryMawuana]

I have 3 gallon geopots for my 6 foot tent. My plants are doing amazing!

[Mr.furley]

I to use geopots with great results make sure that you have handles. I have used Viziosun with no real complaints you can just tell it's different material.
size will be determined by the space you have to grow.

[KingKush]

I drilled some holes in my buckets, and have been enjoying it ever since. Not just drainage holes but about 50 extra holes on the sides and bottom. Fairly large ones too, 3/16" or 1/4"

Trying it out convinced me it was good. All my grows on here have been in the same 5gal buckets. The only reason I would switch would be for a larger container size to put in more soil per plant. Otherwise, things are great with the home made holey Swiss cheese buckets!

[Chefbjy]

Bigger the pot, bigger the plant 😉.

[D.A.A.S.69]

It's hard to beat a 5gallon bucket, if you got plenty of holes in it like KingKush does, we always used to put 2-3inches of rocks in the bottom of them first.though. That was before we knew about perlite, lol
I've tried a bunch of different fabric type pots an Smartpots, and I ain't found one yet that holds what it's supposed to. If they say 3gallon, mine are more like 1and a half gallons. They damn sure ain't 3gallons.
I got some 2gallon fabric pots from Amazon,
And I got some 1gallon Smartpots, that's bigger than the 2gallon ones, They don't hold enough soil , but maybe for some Daisies, lol.
From now on we gonna be making our own, hell, it can't be that hard, if you got a sewing machine, can it. Looks to me like old blue jeans would work ok. Idk.
You'd figure that they would have a universal size one day though, just for dumasses, like me.

[Toker1]

So there are “gallons” and then there are nursery “trade gallons” which are approximately equal to 0.71 of a regular gallon.
so your approximation is close to correct.
8.5 is actual so you might want to go a bit bigger on that smart pot. I would get the 10 gallon if I were you, can always underfull it.

[hycheese]

I bought some 3 gallon Phat Sacks which were rated in nursery gallons 3x0.7 = 2.1 gallons in hopes of keeping my current grow smaller.

[changeofpace2014]

I drilled some holes in my buckets, and have been enjoying it ever since. Not just drainage holes but about 50 extra holes on the sides and bottom. Fairly large ones too, 3/16" or 1/4"

Trying it out convinced me it was good. All my grows on here have been in the same 5gal buckets. The only reason I would switch would be for a larger container size to put in more soil per plant. Otherwise, things are great with the home made holey Swiss cheese buckets!

I was considering that approach but with a layer of woven weed guard on the inside, but my wife offered to sew them for me / us. That is how I ended up with the 4 gallon actually about 4.5 g.