I just made my own 10 x 3 foot table Its made from 2x6 sides and a plywood bottom w/ pond liner. Its pretty bad ass. I got 3 1000W lights down the length of it. I want roots to totally fill the space. How many plants should I go with? I'm doing the screen of green so I won't need many. Also, should I just put the rooted clones in large rockwool cubes and fill the entire rest of the table with hydrotons? I will have pics up soon. I built a room for it and have all of the duct work done. The lights are air cooled. I think a 50 gallon resevoir will be necessary for this. Any one have any tips on my media or anything else? I need it. I grow perrennials for a living but this will be my first hydro grow.
I dont think mixing perlite in is going to save you much money at all unless you have large chunk perlite and not the fine grained shit... hydroton is pretty cheap..
How many plants you ask? it depends on how long u are going to veg before flowering.. 3 1,000 watt lights seems like a lot of light, so you will probably want to veg them a bit so they can fill up the space first... You should take some pictures.... When I did ebb and flow I used pots with the hydroton and the rockwool cubes planted inside of that, as if the hydroton were dirt.. You may run into problems planting them all in the hydroton and not using individual pots.. I just think they can establish their root and support system better if you have them individually potted, and that way if you need to move them around or even clean your tray out or do anything, you can, if they are all in there growing with one root-mass, you wont be able to.
Go ebb and grow.. With the ebb and flow once you plant them in the hydroton bed theres no moving them around.. No rotating or anything. Ebb and flow i would suggest a large SOG type of grow.. Lots of plants but smaller in size. If you go that route stick with 2 1000 watters, and with your spare cash invest in eye hortilux bulbs and a nice CO2 set up.. You wont regret it