Aerated, no-drain flood table design - please help

[Cereals]

I'm considering a new design and am wondering if I can get some input:

I'd like to keep my plants in 6"-7" tall tubs, which will be filled 1"-2" with water/nutes. The plants would be in coco croutons inside smaller smart pots.

So far this is just bottom-feeding, nothing new. What I want to add to the mix is an air line or two going into the container, maybe with airstones as well? I have heard airstones might not be necessary... These will run every ?? so often?

Anyway, once the water reaches a certain low point, the tub will be replenished with fresh nutes/water mix.

That's about it, really.

I posted something similar in the Coco forum a while back and didn't get much response, so I figured I'd ask here - surely someone has attempted something similar - maybe not with the exact medium/setup, but with a similar aerated flood table design?

I think in theory it should work really well?

 

[Coconutz]

Why not just do it right?

 

[Cereals]

Why not just do it right?

nigga please

 

[ceosam]

this is either a mini RDWC system or I am not understanding you correctly..

 

[Born Loser]

If Im seeing it right, this was a common setup sold in headshops around here in the late 80s and early 90s. An ebb and flow tray, with pots in it, sitting in 1-2" of water with bubblers.
For those (like me) that have used hempys, no drains, bottom feeds, etc...it should work fine. People will bitch and moan about pH, EC levels, etc...but I tossed those to the side and my plants are loving it.
Why not just run small hempys w/ 100% chips? Shits money. I think you saw that little yogurt tub chip hempy I posted. I bet its gonna yield 3/4 oz in 2 handfuls of chips.
Basically I guess that's what youre doing..The hempy just contains it all, yours will have roots growing out into the bottom tub I guess..
Ive tried it all since the 80s and its all led me back to this: simplicity.
Your asking this question on a forum and time where people chase dreams of miles of hoses, lines, mag drive pumps, hundreds of gallons of water, timers/controllers, monitors on their phones...LOL

 

[Skunkpassion]

If I'm understanding correctly, a friend does this exact thing with fantastic results..

Just a flood table with his pots sitting in it... Keeps the flood table constantly flooded with airstones..

Plants take what they want when they want...

 

[Cereals]

@ceosam: Nope, no recirculation, unless you count moving the water around inside the tub/tray/flood table No external reservoir.

@Born Loser & @Skunkpassion - yep you got it

@Born Loser - that's very interesting to hear that similar rigs were for sale back in the day. I've also stopped checking my EC or pHing water/nutes, as well as bottom feeding - no problems and things have never looked better. I have also considered some sort of hempy setup. The main reason I'm leaning towards this instead is because it gives me more control over everything. Coco chips are the shit though either way - for sure. I won't ever use the fine stuff again.

I hear you about simplicity - I am a huge proponent of KISS - not simple on an unintelligent level, but simple in regards to not overcomplicating every aspect of the operation. In my opinion it doesn't get simpler than dumping water into the tub! I'm too lazy to even water each individual plant or build these hempy dodads But the bottom-feeding alone isn't quite perfect in my experience - there is room for improvement. I think the addition of the airstones will take bottom-feeding to the next level!

I also would like to stay away from using plastic as much as possible. I will soon be using a stainless steel tub and pots hand-made from coco matting. I am also sure that the pots will perform pretty similarly to smart pots, so I'm trying to get that down. The stainless steel will also allow me easily to ground my entire grow and test out the fancy new(ish) electrically-grounded-plant-grow method if I want - I think. Still need to run that by an electrician type Is grounding a metal tub filled with conductive water safe?

@Skunkpassion: does your friend run the airstones 100% of the time?

I didn't post it above, but I've also been thinking that I could make some sort of frame to elevate the smart pots out of the tubs a few inches - so as the roots grow out through the smart pots, they can kind of hang down and throw a bit of DWC into the mix as well. Then as the girls drink the water in the tub and/or it evaporates below the level of the elevated smart pots, I think it will draw the roots down into the tub. This way I can create a HUGE rootmass by drawing the roots out on a cycle, while still making sure that the old roots stay wet.

The only question is - will refilling the tub when the water gets to about 1 inch deep be enough to keep things fresh? Or am I gonna see nasty-ass roots? This would be open air of course.

 

[Skunkpassion]

To be honest mate he don't use the airstones anymore, to much of a pain for him...

Just pours his mix in and leaves it, few days later will go and repeat..

Problem with airstones was maintaining his water level...

 

[Born Loser]

Looking forward to seein what you come up with...

 

[FlowerFarmer]

I've ran what I called "shallow water culture" trays with much success. Just aerated botanicare flood tables. Rather then just pots of hydroton I did use net cups and a foam board lid.

Just ensure you feed a little weaker with no external res to help buffer things a bit. Even mixed a just little too strong you'll see larger swings in EC and pH as water volume is depleted. This can lead to an excess of nutes/super low pH running for a period before you accomplish a top off.

More Water = more stability in desired perimeters



(this is assuming you'd be keeping the table flooded /aerated. If you just meant filling the tray with just enough so that the plants consume the solution quickly.. well I'd just feed weak and be prepared to combat eventual salt/accumulation through either top watering periodically or using dripclean.)

Just my 2c.

 

[Cereals]

@Skunkpassion: Thanks for the response. I'm starting to think I'm just going to need a deeper tub/tray in general - so I can keep a proper amount of water and also so I can raise the plants off the tray bottom a few inches and still have room to work with.

@Born Loser: I will do a big write-up with what I find after 1 or 2 runs

@FlowerFarmer: Awesome, thanks so much for the response. This thread is shaping up to have some great info in it! I've heard to run a lower EC with bottom-feeding as well, and have been running what I would consider pretty low levels already - I don't have the experience to say that it is key, but what you are saying makes mucho sense logically. My last run I didn't even break 1.5 EC in peak flower, they were getting like .8-.9 EC during veg, and I was seeing all lush green growth, no deficiencies. If you see this thread again and have a minute to respond - what approximate EC range would you recommend?

If anyone else has anything useful to add, feel free to chime in!

 

[SRGB]

Cereals:

If anyone else has anything useful to add, feel free to chime in!


Hi, Cereals.

One of the important points that we found during experiments with Square Root® Brand Garden Bags (SRBGB`s) and Drain-To-No-Waste methods was accurately calculating how much water or nutrient solution was actually uptaken by the specimen over a 24-48hr. period, within that garden`s environment. That amount can vary based on the totoal volume of media present, the medium`s water-holding capacity, temperatures and dehumidification of the garden, evaporation rate of exposed water or solution, specimen mass, and other factors that might affect the volume of moisture available over a given period. `Air stones`, etc., were not really required for oxygen, as the roots would be exposed to the environmental air flow of the garden itself.

While coco coir might work well, an inert medium such as perlite or pumice might provide thorough drainage of the container, permitting the gardener to better calculate the available water that would drain froma top-feed through the media and out into the external basin.

The process can be done by bottom-feeding alone, or pouring water into only the external basin.

However, with a well-draining medium, top-feeding might insure adequate moisture at the internal root zone, until the root mass grew through the SRBGB into the external reservoir. The root tips appear to be the most important part of the root mass requiring moisture. The run-off from top-feeding would accumulate to the desired level (1 to 2 inches, approximately) in the external basin - after thorough drainage - providing the `bottom-feeding` portion of the method

SRBGB`s were designed specifically for root growth through the walls and bottoms of the SRBGB - and further continued growth into larger SRBGB`s filled with medium, or an external basin (reservoir) containing water or nutrient solution.

These might be helpful:

Square Root® Brand Garden Bag - Drain-To-No-Waste [Methods]

Square Root® Brand Garden Bag - Low-Tech Gardening [Methods]

The Float Valve Auto Watering Thread

Please post here or PM us if you would like for us to remove this post from your thread.

Kind regards,
/SRGB/