How often should I flood?

[Bgreenheadband]

I am a first time grower, and have recently moved 9 plants (white,chem d, cheese, jack's cleaner) to the CAP ebb and grow buckets, under 5 600 HPS lights, after being in veg for two months on tables.

I set up the system to flood every four hours for 15 mins.

Some of my plants; the bigger ones, seem to be drooping a bit here and there......I watered them just using a gallon water jub with water from the res, and it seemed to help.

Should I increase the amount of floods, to every 3 hours? Or just up the flood time to a half hour?


A side note would be, the root structures were VERY big before putting them in the buckets......I literally had to almost smush them down into the buckets (I did this very gingerly)

Thanks in advance for any help I can get!

 

[hydr1]

I use two half hour floods...one right before lights on and one right before lights off

 

[Squire5683]

Ive been using my CAP system for about a year, I have a 48 site system, its a little slow, so I flood 1/2hr every 4 hrs. Every 4 hours is good, just look and see how much time it takes for buckets to completely fill.

AHHH... just finished reading.... You should be good with 15 mins every 4 hrs... Theyre just in a little shock right now. What kind of medium did they come out of, what kind of nutes were they in. What medium are you using, and what nutes?

Theyll bounce back, just make them happy with the same environment they came from.

Good luck

 

[brightskies]

I have 7 fairly large plants under two 1K in the E & G and I'm watering every 3 hours during lights on for 15 minutes. I have rockwool cubes in hydroton. The rockwool is above the high tide line and never gets wet.

I would say the more waterings the better, assuming your plants are healthy and stay healthy (and your rockwool is not in the flood zone). The key benefit to the E&G is the air exchange during each flood and drain, bringing fresh oxygen to the root zone each time.

Under and over watering often look similar. If they perked up after watering then you know they were under-watered.

 

[Fuoco Pines]

I had been told and was hoping to use every six hours for 15 minutes....


I will give more feedback when i have some...

 

[Bgreenheadband]

thanks for the replies....but i was just basically asking if I should increase the flood time.....or the amount of floods....so more than every four hours but still for 15mins a time, or if i should keep it at 15 mins a flood..but flood every 3 hours or so.....

 

[brightskies]

If the problem is indeed that your hydroton is drying out, then you want to increase the frequency of your waterings to every 3 hours. The hydroton won't hold any additional moisture if you soak it longer.

There would be 15 minutes less time between waterings if you went to a 30 minute flood. Or, one hour less time between waterings if you changed the frequency to every 3 hours instead of four hours.

There is nothing written in stone though. There are so many different factors involved in different gardens.

 

[brightskies]

No one answer is right. The "right" answer is the one that grows you some some good weed. They may all be right.

In researching this e&g system, I simply saw more people watering every 3 hours (lights on) than not. And I saw some people with incredible harvests watering that way too.

I had a successful crop doing so, but I can only tell my experience.

 

[Squire5683]

I agree with BS... Watch your plants. We still dont know what your growing with or what they came from... Are you in hydroton, or rockwool cubes, or? I have people in each... I am in total hydroton and do 30 mins every 4hrs, but I have 48 sites... I have others that do 6" rockwool cubes that do 30mins every 12 hrs... Everything is different.... Could you describe your setup?

 

[Bgreenheadband]

I agree with BS... Watch your plants. We still dont know what your growing with or what they came from... Are you in hydroton, or rockwool cubes, or? I have people in each... I am in total hydroton and do 30 mins every 4hrs, but I have 48 sites... I have others that do 6" rockwool cubes that do 30mins every 12 hrs... Everything is different.... Could you describe your setup?

Sorry...some info

Strains: White, chem d, jack's cleaner,cheese

Started in Ez cloner, then into hydroton in 5" net pots on tables. then put the net pots in the 3 gal buckets filled with sun leaves rocks..

Using Canna, Vega A,B, Cannazym, rhyzotonic

 

[Bgreenheadband]

I have since switched to every three hours and the plants havnt drooped...but they are still on 24 hours of light, so I am doing it every three hours all day.

But I am going to flip them soon so I need to figure out what I am going to do then, and if I should feed during the dark cycle

 

[guambomb813]

I use two half hour floods...one right before lights on and one right before lights off

Are you running rockwool? Ive always run straight hydroton in ebb n flow 5 gallon buckets. 2 floods per day especially in veg would be far from optimum for my setup..

 

[hydr1]

Yeah I miss read the post but either way I just said I flood twice a day for a half hour each time. Yes I use rockwool and hydroton needs much more flooding. Either way if the plants can use more ...give it to them. They will telll you if they lay down or if the roots dry out.

 

[guambomb813]

The more DO in the water the more often you can flood. In my current setup I have (2) 5 Gallon buckets stacked in each other with the top one being used as a net pot, I then raised it an addition 1.5" To allow for more root mass to grow but mainly so I could add air stones in the nutrient that would normally be sitting stagnant at the bottom, I also now play with my controller bucket height and keep the water level in each bucket to replicate the function of DWC, and I can now flood more often but I don't push it since I'm constantly bubbling.

 

[hydr1]

I have since switched to every three hours and the plants havnt drooped...but they are still on 24 hours of light, so I am doing it every three hours all day.

But I am going to flip them soon so I need to figure out what I am going to do then, and if I should feed during the dark cycle

Your still gonna need to flood at least twice during a dark cycle. Hydrton holds nothin.

I wanna see pics..where they at bro.

 

[guambomb813]

Yeah I miss read the post but either way I just said I flood twice a day for a half hour each time. Yes I use rockwool and hydroton needs much more flooding. Either way if the plants can use more ...give it to them. They will telll you if they lay down or if the roots dry out.

For sure, no better monitor then your girls.

EDIT: not literally but you know what i mean.

 

[brightskies]

I never flood at night with hydroton and the plants make it through just fine.

 

[!!!]

I flood 12 times a day, 15 min each flood. My medium is hydroton. I start clones/seeds in 1.5" rockwool cubes and when roots come out the bottom, I move the cubes to pots of hydrodon. The flood should not touch the hydroton cube (it's peak is right beneath the cube.) If your cube isn't constantly soaked, then you should be able to keep the flood going 24/7 with no rot.

I'm starting to use rockshale and will probably keep this as my medium replacing hydroton. It doesn't roll on the floor and it's half the price.

 

[DHF]

Wow.....so many conflicting answers on something that`s pretty much been written in stone since these manufactured setups showed up online well over a decade ago........

Rule of thumb has ALWAYS been with the lil 2 1/2 gal buckets that feed cycles were every 3 hrs lights ON and NO feed lights off.......that 15 min cycle is from old "pin type" timers on the original controller buckets cuz that was the minimum setting and yas couldn`t set em but in 15 min intervals....

The larger DIY 5 gal buckets like I ran for over 5 yrs take more juice but less feeds although I still fed every 4 hrs as fast as I could blast 75-90 gals of juice into 36 buckets and then suck it back out at lightning speed ta pull as much O2 back down through the lava rock medium........

You gotta be careful using different mediums cuz some hold onto nutes and get ph outta whack.....Hydroton and lava are fairly inert , don`t hold and store nutes , and are time tested.......

I never liked Rockwool cuz shit`s hardta dispose of and will store residual salts.....Guambomb.....You`re really not runnin "ebb and flow" buckets but rather a "Hybrid SWC setup" with lower levels of aerated juice in the bottom buckets and flushing/exchanging feed twice a day..........sounds sweet....watch bottom container juice temps.........

BGH.......Be careful with those big rootmasses still in veg , cuz they`ll double once flipped till after stretch and clog yer lil feed/drainlines for most certainly crop failure......

Been seein it more and more here lately with folks usin them lil bitty buckets and veggin WAY to long before the flip.....

Oh.......!!!.......You`re blazin new territory and I`ve never heard such with ebb and flow buckets ....Good luck with that......

Ya`ll take care........DHF.........

 

[guambomb813]

Really I see it more ebb n flow then any other system, but maybe not? 2 Floods per day? Maybe you read wrong when I was commenting on someone elses post about they flood only twice per day I was saying if I flooded only 2 times per day it was far from optimum. But yeah it's not traditional but Im still experimenting with this new setup and its just pvc platform lifting it up and theres room for airstone without extra hoist so i can remove anything easily if needed. But the main reason I guess I figure it more of a ebb n flow is now I am able to flood and drain it more often, used to do every 3-4 hours but now I can flood every hour-1.5 hours.
When I compared it to the dwc I was talking in terms of how high I adjust the water when it's "drain" and lowering it as they grow to allow for kinda the same effect but doesn't have the same effect as dwc with the big 5 gallon full of hydroton blocking some of the bubble effect. Can you explain to me what makes it not really ebb n flow?

-.-