Aqua 12 site ebb and flow system

RockinRobot · Apr 10, 2017

Ganjagrower1 said:
Ok so tell me if this is normal but I have some stretch and I am on a 24 hour light cycle.
Also I am trying to understand my ec. I started at 1.6 and now I am at 1.8 and I haven't added anything but ph down. Is that what is raising the ec. Over a couple of days.
? Now when I add water back to I also mix nutrients with that add back water.

Your EC is rising because the plants are drinking more water than nutrients. 1.5 EC is way too hot for young plants. Hell I burn my plants in flower if I go above 1.2.

You should be as about .5 to .75 EC at this stage. You know you're feeding correctly when EC stays constant as water level drops. If EC rises lower feeding if it drops then plants are eating more and you can raise EC slowly.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 10, 2017

RockinRobot said:
Your EC is rising because the plants are drinking more water than nutrients. 1.5 EC is way too hot for young plants. Hell I burn my plants in flower if I go above 1.2.

You should be as about .5 to .75 EC at this stage. You know you're feeding correctly when EC stays constant as water level drops. If EC rises lower feeding if it drops then plants are eating more and you can raise EC slowly.

So should I add back plain water to drop it down.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 11, 2017

Ok so I did an add of fresh water and I got it to drop down to 1.6. I know you are going to say that is high but they seem to be doing fine. I will try to get it down a little bit more over the next couple of days. Now they are a week into where they are now. I hope to get a good root system established by the time I flip.
What is the optimum length of time I should veg for. I know if all depends on height. I only have 8 ft I am dealing with. Like that is short. Lol. I don't know exactly how many weeks I am going to veg for. That will depend on how tall they get in the next week or so.

Dollar · Apr 11, 2017

Ganjagrower1 said:
Ok so I did an add of fresh water and I got it to drop down to 1.6. I know you are going to say that is high but they seem to be doing fine. I will try to get it down a little bit more over the next couple of days. Now they are a week into where they are now. I hope to get a good root system established by the time I flip.
What is the optimum length of time I should veg for. I know if all depends on height. I only have 8 ft I am dealing with. Like that is short. Lol. I don't know exactly how many weeks I am going to veg for. That will depend on how tall they get in the next week or so.

Do what works for you. Every grower has a dif environment, temps, humidity levels, co2 or no co2, dif systems, dif nutes, additives and dif strains. If I listened to 90% of the people who post on icmag my grows would be shit. I veg my clones at 1.4ec and 2 weeks later theyre up to 2.0 ec. In flower I take em as high as 2.4ec. If the ec rises in the rez I top off with plain ro to keep em at whatever ec I think is correct for that time in the plants growth or flower stage. If the ec decreases I add back nutrients with topping of the rez. I`d like to provide a magic number for ec levels but that wouldn't be helping you at all cause I have no idea about all the things Ive mentioned above that are all critical in determining how you feed. Look at your plants and adjust according to their needs.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 11, 2017

Dollar said:
Do what works for you. Every grower has a dif environment, temps, humidity levels, co2 or no co2, dif systems, dif nutes, additives and dif strains. If I listened to 90% of the people who post on icmag my grows would be shit. I veg my clones at 1.4ec and 2 weeks later theyre up to 2.0 ec. In flower I take em as high as 2.4ec. If the ec rises in the rez I top off with plain ro to keep em at whatever ec I think is correct for that time in the plants growth or flower stage. If the ec decreases I add back nutrients with topping of the rez. I`d like to provide a magic number for ec levels but that wouldn't be helping you at all cause I have no idea about all the things Ive mentioned above that are all critical in determining how you feed. Look at your plants and adjust according to their needs.

Thanks for the info. I didn't know to much about them using more water then nutrients. I am glad I am getting more knowledge everyday.
How often do you do a res. Change out.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 11, 2017

Ok here is a shot a day 7 of veg.

Sunset sherbert
Ogre og
Fire og
Gorilla glue #4

They are all looking really healthy and green.
Ec. 1.6
Ph 5.8

Dollar · Apr 11, 2017

Ganjagrower1 said:
Ok here is a shot a day 7 of veg.

Sunset sherbert
Ogre og
Fire og
Gorilla glue #4

They are all looking really healthy and green.
Ec. 1.6
Ph 5.8

From the pic your plants look good! I wouldn't be changing anything youre doing until the plants tell you something needs to change. To answer your question above I do fresh nute change once a week. I know growers who never change out nutes. They just add nutes or fresh water depending on what the plants tell them. I tried that once and it didn't go well. I`ll stick to weekly change outs.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 11, 2017

Dollar said:
From the pic your plants look good! I wouldn't be changing anything youre doing until the plants tell you something needs to change. To answer your question above I do fresh nute change once a week. I know growers who never change out nutes. They just add nutes or fresh water depending on what the plants tell them. I tried that once and it didn't go well. I`ll stick to weekly change outs.

Thanks for all the info.
This is my first ebb and flow run. I started out with dwc. Buckets in hydro with indifidual air stones per bucket. That got a little difficult when you have to do water change outs. So I figured with this setup I wouldn't have to do that just one res.

Got a question do you top your plants. And if so how long do you usually wait.

Dollar · Apr 11, 2017

Ganjagrower1 said:
Thanks for all the info.
This is my first ebb and flow run. I started out with dwc. Buckets in hydro with indifidual air stones per bucket. That got a little difficult when you have to do water change outs. So I figured with this setup I wouldn't have to do that just one res.

Got a question do you top your plants. And if so how long do you usually wait.

I top the plants once when I move them from the cloning area to the veg area. I veg my plants for six weeks but only because I don't grow that many plants and I have to fill horizontal space to cover a flower room that's 4x larger than my veg space.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 11, 2017

Dollar said:
I top the plants once when I move them from the cloning area to the veg area. I veg my plants for six weeks but only because I don't grow that many plants and I have to fill horizontal space to cover a flower room that's 4x larger than my veg space.

I know you mentioned about the roots clogging the drains at the bottom. I am only a week in and I already see some roots coming out the holes. I hope I don't run into problems later on.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 12, 2017

Ok here is day 8 of veg. They are started to really take off now. Fire og has a little stretch in between nodes. But they are all pretty much the same size in heighth. I am still waiting to see the ec. Drop from the nutrient uptake.

Dollar · Apr 12, 2017

Ganjagrower1 said:
Ok here is day 8 of veg. They are started to really take off now. Fire og has a little stretch in between nodes. But they are all pretty much the same size in heighth. I am still waiting to see the ec. Drop from the nutrient uptake.

You may never see the ec drop. Rarely ever happens for me. The roots will def clog the fill/drain holes on the bottom. The most important thing Im going to tell you is buy these root control discs. They will save your plants!!! I used them for the first time last run and THEY WORK! Previously the only way I could save plants from dying around week 5 in flower cause the clogged fill/drain holes was to pull the plants out week 3 of flower and pull all the roots out of the fill/drain hole and clean the screen. What a pain in the ass. These root control discs save all the hassle. The roots cannot penetrate them. They allow nutrient solution through but not the roots. Brilliant!

http://autopot-usa.com/products/easy2grow/product/85-root-control-discs-square

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 12, 2017

Dollar said:
You may never see the ec drop. Rarely ever happens for me. The roots will def clog the fill/drain holes on the bottom. The most important thing Im going to tell you is buy these root control discs. They will save your plants!!! I used them for the first time last run and THEY WORK! Previously the only way I could save plants from dying around week 5 in flower cause the clogged fill/drain holes was to pull the plants out week 3 of flower and pull all the roots out of the fill/drain hole and clean the screen. What a pain in the ass. These root control discs save all the hassle. The roots cannot penetrate them. They allow nutrient solution through but not the roots. Brilliant!

http://autopot-usa.com/products/easy2grow/product/85-root-control-discs-square

At the bottom of the buckets the drains at the bottom have a screen over the top of them. I am sure you are talking about adding something else on top of that.

Dollar · Apr 13, 2017

Ganjagrower1 said:
At the bottom of the buckets the drains at the bottom have a screen over the top of them. I am sure you are talking about adding something else on top of that.

Yes sir! The roots will grow into that screen and block nutes from getting into the bucket to feed the plants thus causing the plant to die rapidly. Take the root control disc in link above and place in between the inner and outer bucket directly over the screen. I wish I woulda found those control discs years ago and saved me a massive amount of work pulling plants and roots from blocked fill/drains. The only drawback to this system is this issue and the root control discs solve it. I buy the round ones cause my 2 gals are round. Your 5 gals are square so if you decide to purchase make sure youre getting ones large enough to cover the space of the bottom of your buckets.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 13, 2017

Dollar said:
Yes sir! The roots will grow into that screen and block nutes from getting into the bucket to feed the plants thus causing the plant to die rapidly. Take the root control disc in link above and place in between the inner and outer bucket directly over the screen. I wish I woulda found those control discs years ago and saved me a massive amount of work pulling plants and roots from blocked fill/drains. The only drawback to this system is this issue and the root control discs solve it. I buy the round ones cause my 2 gals are round. Your 5 gals are square so if you decide to purchase make sure youre getting ones large enough to cover the space of the bottom of your buckets.

I am going to check with my local hydro store to see if they carry anything like this. Hopefully they have exactly what I need. It is always something. I just can't go a week without having to put money out. But that is ok with the pay off in the end.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 13, 2017

Ok here is day 9 of veg. As you can see I am still feeding at 1.6. Ec. And the ph is steady at 5.7.
I like to keep it right between 5.2 and 6.2.
All that I have read over the years is 5.8 is optimum for hydro because plants uptake everything at that ph. Correct me if I am wrong. I need all the knowledge I can get.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 13, 2017

Dollar said:
You may never see the ec drop. Rarely ever happens for me. The roots will def clog the fill/drain holes on the bottom. The most important thing Im going to tell you is buy these root control discs. They will save your plants!!! I used them for the first time last run and THEY WORK! Previously the only way I could save plants from dying around week 5 in flower cause the clogged fill/drain holes was to pull the plants out week 3 of flower and pull all the roots out of the fill/drain hole and clean the screen. What a pain in the ass. These root control discs save all the hassle. The roots cannot penetrate them. They allow nutrient solution through but not the roots. Brilliant!

http://autopot-usa.com/products/easy2grow/product/85-root-control-discs-square

So I went down to the local hydro store and of course I had to order them. They said it should be less then a week. I should be good till then. I am doing a quarter turn so I see the roots and I can make sure they don't get in the bottom.

Now these root mats they are harmful to the roots are they. Because from what the hydro store guy said is they are copper and the roots don't grow to it they grow away. I don't know I guess I will see.

Dollar · Apr 13, 2017

Ganjagrower1 said:
So I went down to the local hydro store and of course I had to order them. They said it should be less then a week. I should be good till then. I am doing a quarter turn so I see the roots and I can make sure they don't get in the bottom.

Now these root mats they are harmful to the roots are they. Because from what the hydro store guy said is they are copper and the roots don't grow to it they grow away. I don't know I guess I will see.

They are not harmful to the roots at all. They just dont allow the roots to penetrate through. The space in between the upper and lower bucket will be filled with roots but none of them will be in the screen. Look at my album V+B. That's the run I used the root discs. The plants were not affected. They were super healthy. To answer your question about PH, I let it swing between 5.3 and 6.3. I used to be anal about keeping it at exactly 5.8. My opinion is that swinging the PH is much more effective at least in my experience. Either way the plants will come out awesome.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 14, 2017

Dollar said:
They are not harmful to the roots at all. They just dont allow the roots to penetrate through. The space in between the upper and lower bucket will be filled with roots but none of them will be in the screen. Look at my album V+B. That's the run I used the root discs. The plants were not affected. They were super healthy. To answer your question about PH, I let it swing between 5.3 and 6.3. I used to be anal about keeping it at exactly 5.8. My opinion is that swinging the PH is much more effective at least in my experience. Either way the plants will come out awesome.

I haven't had a ph swing to where it goes from that low to up high yet. I am sure I will get more of that later on in growth.

Ganjagrower1 · Apr 14, 2017

Dollar said:
They are not harmful to the roots at all. They just dont allow the roots to penetrate through. The space in between the upper and lower bucket will be filled with roots but none of them will be in the screen. Look at my album V+B. That's the run I used the root discs. The plants were not affected. They were super healthy. To answer your question about PH, I let it swing between 5.3 and 6.3. I used to be anal about keeping it at exactly 5.8. My opinion is that swinging the PH is much more effective at least in my experience. Either way the plants will come out awesome.

I am not sure if I ever asked or you answered. How often do you flood and drain. During veg. And during flower. I know you have used this before so anything you can tell me that will help would be much appreciated.

Aqua 12 site ebb and flow system

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