Few question about ebb & flow in rockwool

[coxnox]

Hi guyz,
i just started hydro in a ebb & flow system with rockwool in 6L pot., and have a few question about it....i try to keep everything simple, my feed is base(AB) + silicate + very little epsom in end of veg + stretch, i never change rez untill i have to, that why i avoid every additives as they make my solution go bad....i learned this when growing in coco dtw, but here in a recirculate system it's even worse.
Actually i flow 2 times a day and 1time at night, but as soon as flower will build up i will avoid the night flow.
EC is 1.6 with 0.7 tap water so 0.9 of nutes.
PH is 5.8
temp is around 25°
hr is around 60
1st: my ec dont moove at all.....not even 0.1....in coco i was used to read the drain to know if i had to adjust my feed or not. how do you do guyz ?
2nd: how yu know how muc flow par day yu need to put ? i weight the pot and if it's too light i add a flow untill i get what i want....how yu guyz do ?
3rd: what your rez temp ? mine is 16°C without heater and 22 with, the heater is set on 18 but it doesn't stop beforte 22, is that too much ? 16 better ?
4th: how long should i flow the table . i do 20min, so 10min to fill the table and 10min extra bonus ^^ how yu guyz do ?

a few pictures:

 

[dimodz]

yeah show has starts then

 

[Bush Dr]

Rez @22-24*C

 

[Bush Dr]

Why are you flooding for so long?

 

[coxnox]

Why are you flooding for so long?

it's my first time with ebb&flow so i dont know how long i should flow....it's take allmost ten minute to flow the table to the maximum point, and my container are a little high, when the table is full it reach only 1/4 of the height of the container...si i thought i give them a little time to suck some solution ^^

 

[HASHCAM]

Picking up the container is a simple observation, keep it simple, flood at 1/4 height is normally perfect. I would say once you have the flood height then drain straight away, only thing is your container is small in volume of medium that they can contain. Epsom salt aka mgs can be added at increase to ec at .1 works well. what do you think?

on rockwell once container is fully rooted you may notice a ph drop, but you flood every day so this should remain similar not much drift. temp above 20c or a little higher

if you can get higher tide this can be useful sometimes.
plants look healthy though, not much to worry about.

 

[DARKSIDER]

Dont mind me peeking along best of luck m8.

 

[madalasatori]

Ebb and flow, old school!

 

[Hiddenjems]

Ebb and flow, old school!

I’ve run everything there is from soil to true high pressure aeroponic. Nothing beats my flood tables with containers of hydroton.

It’s just so consistently good at producing big crops of killer flowers.


I do flood different than most. I use small containers filled with expanded clay pebbles, but I flood every 45 minutes for 5 minutes. This gets great big white spaghetti roots all over the table. They can really get the right mix of nutes and oxygen that way. It’s basically nft at that point.

 

[coxnox]

Picking up the container is a simple observation, keep it simple, flood at 1/4 height is normally perfect. I would say once you have the flood height then drain straight away, only thing is your container is small in volume of medium that they can contain. Epsom salt aka mgs can be added at increase to ec at .1 works well. what do you think?

on rockwell once container is fully rooted you may notice a ph drop, but you flood every day so this should remain similar not much drift. temp above 20c or a little higher

if you can get higher tide this can be useful sometimes.
plants look healthy though, not much to worry about.

i only used epsom one time (during stretch) this run and didn't notice any mag deficiency....so i think i will use it only if needed.

 

[alpo]

I’ve run everything there is from soil to true high pressure aeroponic. Nothing beats my flood tables with containers of hydroton.

It’s just so consistently good at producing big crops of killer flowers.


I do flood different than most. I use small containers filled with expanded clay pebbles, but I flood every 45 minutes for 5 minutes. This gets great big white spaghetti roots all over the table. They can really get the right mix of nutes and oxygen that way. It’s basically nft at that point.

when do you give the first feeding of the day?

 

[Hiddenjems]

when do you give the first feeding of the day?

The table floods when the lights come on every 45 minutes until dark. If I need to keep humidity up I keep flooding and draining through the night. If not, I don’t flood after dark more than 2x. Just enough to keep exposed roots healthy.

 

[wickytokes]

I’ve run everything there is from soil to true high pressure aeroponic. Nothing beats my flood tables with containers of hydroton.

It’s just so consistently good at producing big crops of killer flowers.


I do flood different than most. I use small containers filled with expanded clay pebbles, but I flood every 45 minutes for 5 minutes. This gets great big white spaghetti roots all over the table. They can really get the right mix of nutes and oxygen that way. It’s basically nft at that point.

How would you say the yield and growth rate compared to NFT?

 

[coxnox]

How would you say the yield and growth rate compared to NFT?

you can get allmost the same yield in any system, there is no best system...there is a system that can perform well in your situation....for exemple nft and aero if yu have high temp is far from ideal, with ebb and flow you loose height, ......every system have is good and bad things.

 

[sushi]

I used to run ebb and flow with coco/perlite. I tried to make my flood and drain total time 15 minutes. I flooded once a day at first then twice after a few weeks then three times a day 4 weeks on. I highly recommend RO water if growing hydro. I have charts somewhere but eventually I just made my res, all add backs were the same feed as the res. Every two weeks I changed out water and cleaned the res and everything. I don't recall my temps. Probably around 65F. After keeping records for a run or two I was able to dial my feed in for the strains I was running then.

 

[gr866]

Ebb and flow, old school!

Hope you don't mind my posting some pic of my setup.
Old school but it works great. I have been growing in coco/perlite, DTW, for about 10 years and just switched to ebb and flow.
Using Hydroton I run 6 cycles in flower, takes about 20 min. to fill the buckets and I let them absorb solution for 25 min. then drain. So 45 min. on and 1.25 hours off.

6 weeks veg time and now in the 4th week of flower.

5 of the 6 plants are very Indica dominate, low and compact.

The root system is strong.

I use RO water and change my reservoir every 2.5 to 3 weeks. I also use the Torus pH Perfect pods, really stabilizes the pH in the system, mine maintains around 5.9 to 6.1 consistently, mostly 6.0 to 6.1, I love it. The pH Perfect and Hydro Guard allows me to extend the reservoir up to three weeks with no issues.

 

[gr866]

I also place a copper screen over the drains to prevent root intrusion, works very will.

The bottom of the buckets without the screen, no roots in the drain at all.

The roots in the bottom of the buckets, can see there is no damage to the roots from the screens


Have changed from the normal fill from the bottom and going with a waterfall method that was recommended by a friend. I used it when growing in the coco/perlite. It adds extra oxygen as it flows over the roots and fills the buckets from the top instead of from the bottom and the solution from the reservoir has air stones in the bottom of the rez.
The reservoir and pump setup.

The Orbit 8 port manifold. Old pic.

The Rainbird emitters used in the pots.

 

[madalasatori]

Nice gr866! What size pots you use?

 

[gr866]

5 gallon

 

[Hiddenjems]

you can get allmost the same yield in any system, there is no best system...there is a system that can perform well in your situation....for exemple nft and aero if yu have high temp is far from ideal, with ebb and flow you loose height, ......every system have is good and bad things.

One of the big reasons I run tables instead of dwc is temperature. With flood and drain I don’t need chillers. For dwc id need several chillers and even more electric.