What's your favourite hydro set up and why?

[darwinsbulldog]

title says it all, just wondering what the general census is on this? for me i'm a huge fan of the DWC and UC set ups. big tokes has got a great tutorial on how to set one up, as well pete moss has a sick UC -esque set up i'm hopefully going to replicate for myself.

darwin

 

[arrg]

someone elses. Less work for me.

 

[Humboldtkush]

I like top feeding drip system drain to res. It very simple and doesn't require alot of human work for that aspect of it. Although this shouldn't deter you from spending all the time possible with your plants.

 

[darwinsbulldog]

lol that's fair slack arrg but i get ya haha. and yeah i've seen the drip system drain to res at a hydro store near by, the guy rants about it every time i walk through the door telling me it can be left on its own for weeks at a time without you needing to do anything. yeah i'm the kinda guy that loves tending to the field each day so no matter what method i'd always be keeping tabs on it.

 

[Humboldtkush]

Yeah true right now im doing a small hand water operation in roots organic soilless medium. I like it but its very labor intensive but then again who said it would be easy? Right now im definitely looking into a DWC and a vertical grow

 

[darwinsbulldog]

yeah definitely suss out EC mate it's one of the easiest to set up, and is really portable etc if you need to move it around.

 

[High Country]

Ebb/flow SOG. So simple.

 

[darwinsbulldog]

wow they're looking nice high country! let me know when you've got photos just before harvest i'd love to see them! i'll stay tuned on my little sog anyway

 

[Humboldtkush]

For an ebb and flow what can you use a medium? Is it only hydroton?

 

[darwinsbulldog]

i'm fairly sure high country uses hydroton, and that's mainly what i see when browsing ebb/flow grows. i think it's probably the best because they need a great deal of drainage as well as a medium that won't soak up and hold a huge amount of the water. you can probably use porous volcanic rocks and i think even rockwool is used in some designs. whatever gets the job done

 

[Scrogerman]

Ive been considering sticking in a Powerhead in with my 70ltr rubbermaid(for 2 plants)DWC,
Making it a sort of DWC/UC combo. What ever happened to peeps using Powerheads? DWC with Current or Flow sounds appealing to me, so does my BubbleFlow Idea, which is a DWC/Deep Trough NFT Hybrid! DWC is the fastest most explosive form of hydro to date imo, but there is always room for improvement! G'Luck!

 

[GuerrillaRed]

DWCs Ridiculously easy and huge results.

 

[opt1c]

for large trees with low plant counts under current setups... mpb buckets or whatever seem like they'd take a long time to make compared to the under 30mins it takes to setup an uc system and sourcing parts can b a pain

if plant count isn't an issue trays of small plants with min veg time running a recirculating drip or ebb&flow... bato buckets r nice if u have the space but they grow larger plants the res in the bottom gives one great piece of mind so its a tradeoff

 

[High Country]

For an ebb and flow what can you use a medium? Is it only hydroton?

I just put the clones straight into hydroton, 4 per sq/ft.

 

[High Country]

I just put the clones straight into hydroton, 4 per sq/ft.

One more thing, if your using hydroton for the medium buy 50 litre bags. Poke a shit load of holes in the bottom of the bag with a screwdriver or something.

Open up the top with knife or scissors. Get out the garden hose and flood them. When the water runs clear you can use them.

 

[250wscrogger]

I'm about to grab an aerojet 8 tray with 32 sites... SOG/AERO...

I've been a soil guy for 3 years so I figured it was time to start doing some hydro.

 

[High Country]

For ebb/flow large rockwool cubes work just as well.

 

[darwinsbulldog]

I'm about to grab an aerojet 8 tray with 32 sites... SOG/AERO...

I've been a soil guy for 3 years so I figured it was time to start doing some hydro.

you'll have to link me a photo of your setup if you ever upload them i'd be interested to see what that looks like!

 

[dtfsux]

I am a big fan of E&F tables with hydroton medium.

Next go around, I am going to go buckets, probably E&F, maybe DTW. Either hydroton or coco medium.


For E&F you can use hydroton, coco, rockwool. There may be more, those are what I have seen used

 

[Lazyman]

I've done lots:

Top drip recirculating buckets with soil
Buckets in an Ebb and Grow with hydroton and soil
E&F tray tables of hydroton, coco, and soil
Pots of soil on the ground handwatered

and am currently doing top drip with Tropf Blumat automatic autowaterers in soil. Easiest of them all is the Blumats, every plant can determine it's own water needs, vs every other system the force-waters plants. It also requires no power, pumps or timers, and you can feed from the reservoir. I can even show you how to fertigate without a reservoir at all.

See my 16kw grow in my sig for details, but I won't use anything else until I find something better.