Hi All, I've been growing in recirculating DWC, NFT, and soil but this time we're trying Ebb and Flow and I need some advice. We're going to have TWO 4 x 8 foot Ebb and Flow tables side by side to make an 8 x 8 grow with 24 plants. Each table will have 12 plants.. I was originally thinking of having the plants in 4x4 inch rockwool cubes and putting them directly into hydroton but the way it looks, we're gonna need a shit ton hydroton to fill up both these trays and its not cheap. The hydro guy says that hydroton alone wont hold water for too long and the roots will dry out.. He suggested that we should mix hydroton and rockwool croutons together as the medium. Something about all that rockwool makes me nervous though. I dont know if Im going to be running into PH issues or having it fall apart and get stuck in my pumps. Maybe someone with experience can chime in on this one.. Another suggestion was to mix hydroton and Coco. I know coco retains alot of water and in a 4x8 foot tray Im worried that it may retain too much water and cause the roots to rot. Next suggestion was to have each plant in 4x4 rockwool cubes then put into individual net pots filled with hydroton and just place those pots straight into the grow tray.. But where are the roots gonna go? Wont they push out of the netpots and be exposed in the trays? Thanks!
Hey Jolly. I've never done Ebb and Flow before but I browse this place a lot and no one else took a crack at this so.. ahem... I've seen other ebb and flows where people go from netpots w/hydroton (in a veg chamber), to a flood table filled w hydroton. Its true that they dry out fairly quickly, but that just means you have to run your pumps more frequently. Thats why you should mix in the hydroton? You said hydroton drains too fast and coco too slow. Then you mention a mix... I think you were onto something... But really I don't know what the 'optimal' flood times are, so I can't suggest a mix ratio. I suggest looking into mixing perlite or lava rocks into coir, as those both drain well and are cheaper than hydroton.
you wont get rot in coco bro. unless you put them in pots that are way oversized and you water the heck out of them. coco is the best. far superior to store bought dirt (which isn't dirt at all) and better than hydroton or rockwool in my opinion. rockwool is nasty, and getting rid of it is just a nightmare. unless you don't care about the earth. coco is a natural substrate. coconuts fall. decompose. and turn in to new earth. anyway, i water daily in coco. you could do a top feed system if you don't want to hand water. just make a manifold for your lines. many people call it drip, but it's not dripping when it comes out, unless your pump sucks. you want to use coco. how many lights are you planning on?
No, I was planning on having it flow back into the res when the pumps turn off (and when it overflows). We're either going to do 4 1000 watters or 600 watters in XXXL Magnum hoods.
u cant do recirc with coco, its to dirty. with ebb and flow u want the aeration hydroton creates, ive seen people veg in grodan then place on top of a hydroton bed to grow into during flower.
Hmmm.. Maybe hydroton is the way to go then.. I can put the plants in 6 inch or larger rockwool cubes then put that into net pots and line them up in the grow tray. I can then surround the pots with more hydroton. Hopefully the large netpots will take up alot of space so that I dont have to use so much hydroton to fill the trays.
ive seen many plants done in coco in a recirculating system...more than once. it does require the use of panty hose. well, not panty hose, but the small footies that are often used at shoe stores to try on a shoe...you know. wal mart sells them very cheap and in a 100 pack as well. they go over the top of a 6 or 7 inch square pot very well. coco is a far superior medium to anything. it retains moisture and nutes. you don't want your roots to get too dry ever, not all of them completely, that's the whole thing. however, if you still want to use ebb and flow and hydroton, then go with 'ebb and grow' its a great system utilizing bigger buckets that run from a master resevoir. many people use them. i have a friend that has one and just helped him trim. i have to say, i was surprised by how well it worked. the quality was super. I can tell right away when a full hydroponic system is dialed in, and his was. the only thing i don't like about rcirculating is you have to conastantly monitor your resevoir and do add backs, so you're workin on it anyway. nothing is totally automated. but you never know when doing add backs what to add. let's say your PPM ( i use EC actually) goes down by 300 ppm after 2 days. what do you add? how do you know what that 300 ppm was made of. maybe they used no calcium or magnesium hardly, and it was mostly nitrogen. if you keep adding more general and not specific, you can run into problems due to imbalanced ratios. and ratios and content are everything. you can't just add more of your fert solution if they used one thing more than something else....so run to waste ensures you get the same amount every time, then when you see deficiencies, you can adjust. yes you can do the same in a recirculating system, just alot more work on the chemistry or content of the water. but yes, you can use coco to reply to the last statement. whatever you do, good luck.
Thanks Mingled. Honestly, I never mess with adding more nutes once i have it dialed in with a reservoir change. Those PPM's will fluctuate due to water evaporation, absorption, and also dilution when you top your reservoir off with fresh water. After about 10 days I just drain the reservoir and do a complete water change. Since I already have the tables/trays all setup and plumbed I really cant turn back and switch to the ebb and grow system at the moment but I'll definitely consider it for future grows. I'll run some water tests with the hydroton and if it looks like it gets too dry I'll mix something into the medium that retains more water whether it be coco, rockwool croutons, or maybe even shred some sponges and mix it in.. i dunno.. this is gonna be interesting.