Water in the Bottom of Ebb and Grow Buckets

[laidbackgreen]

Gotta a quick question for ya bucket people. How do you eliminate the left over water in the buckets. I put 2x4's underneath my buckets but then the controller did not fill my buckets enought. So I put two sets of 2x4's stacked on top of each other and put the controller on that. Now the buckets fill to about an 1 1/2 inches from the top of the buckets. But leaving 2 inches in the bottom after drain cycle.

Help Please.

Thanks LBG

 

[Rastafarian]

with 2x4s the buckets should still fill up enough. It should only be 2inches less full with the 2x4's

 

[laidbackgreen]

with 2x4s the buckets should still fill up enough. It should only be 2inches less full with the 2x4's

Aye. It is filling up fine it is the draining part that is leaving 2 inches of water in the bottom of the buckets.

 

[Rastafarian]

yeah but if you have 2x4s under them, there should not be 2 inches of water in the buckets.

 

[laidbackgreen]

yeah but if you have 2x4s under them, there should not be 2 inches of water in the buckets.

The controller sits 3 inches off of the floor while the buckets are 1.5 inches.

I just got done doing a fill and drain cycle. I had my rez filled to 55 gallons when it was done draining there was like 35-40 gallons in the rez. I have 21 buckets going so there is like a little less than a gallon of water in each bucket leftover.

Do I need to have the buckets higher than the controller? I did try this but it doesn't seem to fill the buckets enough during the fill cycle. I even had them on the same surface and that was not full enough.

Hope this makes it clear for someone.

Thanks, LBG.

 

[OgreSeeker]

Don't fret. All multi-flow / ebb&grow buckets have a couple inches of standing water in the lower bucket after the drain cycle. It's not a problem.

 

[globel]

cut 2 inches of PVC pipe. The large 4" pipe. and stick it inside under the linner. The water will be plenty high and the roots will hang above the water. I dont do this with my eff and grow buckets but my fried dose. The roots will grab onto 2 inch spacer pipe eventualy.

 

[Rastafarian]

You buckets should be 2in. higher than your control bucket if you are using 2x4's. Some people don’t worry about it, but ive personally seen a difference in raising the buckets. I would even venture and say that I have 10% more root growth. Good luck.

 

[laidbackgreen]

You buckets should be 2in. higher than your control bucket if you are using 2x4's. Some people don’t worry about it, but ive personally seen a difference in raising the buckets. I would even venture and say that I have 10% more root growth. Good luck.

Actually 2x4's are 1.5 inches thick by 3.25 inches wide. Go figure.

How much higher are your buckets than the controller and how much water is left in the bottom Rastafarian? Thanks.


Anywho... I knew it was all about the gravity just didn't know if there was some "trick" I was overlooking. I just put the buckets even with the controller for now. Once they take off I think I am going to lower the controller and have the buckets 1.5 inches above the controller.

We will see how it goes. Thanks everyone for replying.

Peace. LBG

 

[Abja Roots]

So you had your controller raised 3" above the ground and the buckets on 2 x 4's so 1.5"" off the ground.

I keep my controller on the floor and raised my buckets up on 2X4's actually I think they're 3X6's if they make those.

As I stated in a previous post. The ones that were raised higher up experienced larger root growth than the ones on the outside that were not raised up and sat in a larger volume of water.

Perhaps that could have been remedied by watering more often to remove the oxygen depleted water. Not sure. Originally only watering 3 times a day until around week 5 when I bumped it up to 6 times a day.

Good Luck

I love my system by the way. My only thing is I wonder if using 5 gallon base bucket with a net pot interior bucket would make bigger plants. I'm thinking bigger roots = bigger plant. Not sure how that would work with this controller. I'd also run less plants in that system with the same size Resi. Not much space in these little buckets for roots.

 

[cateros]

Don't fret. All multi-flow / ebb&grow buckets have a couple inches of standing water in the lower bucket after the drain cycle. It's not a problem.

Actually not true active aqua has a bucket system that uses a bottom fill hose on a tee with a net drain fixture in the bottom of the fill bucket.

 

[youngtrader9689]

yea that water in the bottom is harmful . ever heard of root rot. but it also depends on the temp of ur water and the o2 content