Not too sure?

hello fellow icmaggers! So here is my situation, I want to run 12 plants in flower and 12 plants in veg for a perpetual harvest. See I have a bubblecloner going right now and it works great, but where im stuck is I cant veg 12 plants for a month in an 18 gallon rubbermade, then transfer them to the ebb&grow buckets with the amount of roots they will have because of the roots getting tangled together. Im using a closet that is 4x4x8 for my veg/clone/mother room and the bedroom its attatched to for flowering. I am thinking about using a DIY ez cloner idea off of here, except only put 4 in each tub to let the roots grow out when vegitating, then transfer them to the buckets since there will be more room available for the roots. It sounds like a decent idea to me, but I would like to get some input from all of the experienced growers out there! This will be my 3rd grow doing hydro, so im looking to change from DWC to Ebb&Grow for the ease of use.

Thanks in advance and keep it green!!
Dnutz:

edit: mods, I meant to put this in the regular Hydro forum, would you mind moving it?

Hi Dnutz,
So you're looking for a veg system that will allow and easy transition to flower. I'd suggest some sort of hydro system that uses pots and hydroton. Then, you'll merely have to up-pot into the Ebb & Grow pots. The easiest to set up would be either a small drip irrigation system or a small E&F tray. I use two small E&F trays to veg in 5" square pots and then into 2 gallon pots of hydroton to flower.

Are you going to buy a new Ebb and Gro? I just built a DIY system and have gained a few insights if you're interested.
ET

Hey thanks ET. I recently took clones out of my bubblecloner and dumped out the hydroton into a bucket lid basket (not sure what they are called but its a lid with a basket all fit out) and I held the clone in place in the middle of the netpot and filled in with hydroton, they seemed to be okay with it, which is where I figured that if I vegged in aeroponics for a month and took the plant out and did this same thing and put them into the ebb&grow buckets they should be fine theoretically.

And with the ebb&grow situation, I am an electrician, but really dont want to build my own unit when I can just buy a way better premade unit for $500 bucks. It just seems easier and thats not asking too much for what the package includes imho.

Dnutz,
I don't know about that...

If you veg in an aeroponics netpot, you still risk damaging the roots getting them out of the net pot to put into the E&F bucket. That's why I suggested a system that uses a pot. Anyway...that's what I do.

On the E&G, I wasn't necessarily implying that you should build your own. It's that I know people (and I'm experiencing it myself) that are finding the large pot E&F to be problematic. The factory system doesn't drain completely and leaves water at the bottom (as reported by an ICM member). Both flood and drain are really slow with 1/2" tubing and people find that with those two problems, they are having to use H2O2 or some other root enzyme to prevent root rot. I'm converting my system to a top drip irrigation system to reduce the res size and increase aeration.

I just wanted to point out a few of these issues. Do your research and good luck with whatever you do.
ET

What do you think about using neoprene colars instead of baskets? I have never used them, would they hold up a vegging plant for a month? If I did it that way I could simply transfer the whole plant with roots to the buckets in theory.

About the e&G, wow im glad you told me that! Maybe just buying the controller bucket and the res would be a good idea and do the buckets and tubing myself! Are other members using 3/4" inner diameter tube? What size pots are you talking about that are the problematic ones? 5 gallon or 3 gallon?

Hi Dnutz,
I don't have any experience with neoprene collars. I can tell you one option that fits in with what people are doing.

Veg on a net pot that's big enough to fit right on top of the Ebb&Gro 2 gallon bucket. Then just continue the grow into bloom with the net pot on an E&F schedule. Less hydroton to clean and no hassle with re-potting. Plant stays in the same netpot.

On the E&G system. The guy whose having difficulties with almost 2" of water remaining in his Ebb and Gro buckets is using the standard 2 gallon buckets. He's in his first run and is going to convert his system to dwc. GuerillaAK. He has a thread but I don't have the link.

Some use 1/2" tubing which comes standard. Ogre, in his controller tutorial uses and recommends 3/4". I used 1/2" and really wished I'd used 3/4" due to slow fill and drain.

Here's an E&F thread that has all sorts of info and variations.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=99681

I just wanted to alert you to a few problems people are haing. It isn't a perfect system.
Cheers,
ET