Top feed drain to waste hugo thread (post yours here)

I run a seven plant perpetual garden with rockwool croutons in 18" diameter containers 9" deep. Top flood and drain.
I used EC 2.0 every four hours for quite a few years, also every six hours for a couple years. More frequent watering had more stable pH and EC.

For the last year it has been EC of 0.6 through 1.4 depending on bud development. Frequency is changed as well, no more breakfast. First water is six hours after lights on then again at lights out.
So far the average is close to the same with yields, pH wandering is minor, another year or so will give enough information so new changes can be made.
The plants are amazingly resilient and take the extremes in stride.

I am on the fourth generation budroom, I tend to change things up on a regular basis. Sometimes this hurts and the time I lost an entire room I was sure glad I had a day job. Five years since I quit my day job, I am more conservative now and have rebuilt a smaller version of my test area. I can kill plants one at a time there instead of all of them.

When bottom fed the containers would build up a salt layer on top of the media. Looking back, a part of the problem was the EC of 2.0, but having the nutrients wet the media then drain down concentrated the nutrient salts in the top inch.

Covered media and a longer full soak would have involved too many changes to the system so a self flushing top flood and drain with 70% runoff was simpler in my case.

There are so many ways to correctly get a harvest I am reluctant to advocate any particular style other than blurple is not the color preferred by informed plants.
I trust PetFlora and I are in complete agreement on that point.

I have some Hugos on the way I am planning on trying in a DTW setup. I see wildly varying ECs used. 2.4 seems crazy high to me, but I've always run recirculating before. I tend to run 1.4-1.6 in bottom feed ebb and flow(2 gallons of rockwool croutons - feeding 1-2x daily with occasional top feed before rez change to clear out salts) and 1.6-2.1 with nft.

Any other EC recommendations for hybrids? How much runoff should I be shooting for?

thanks

PetFlora; said:

tried top feeding with hydro halo rings. I found it cumbersome

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Same thing, They clog up constantly. Also, the ones I tried had 1/2" hose barbs. Don't know what they were thinking.

Now using 1/4". Cheap and easy. A simple quick connect Y works for distribution.

How do you guys manage your res with nutrients for example, do you have an air pump constantly aerating it 24/7 or a pump that stirs the solution? I'm in the process of setting up my flower room to be automated.

The biggest issue I'm encountering is all conflicting information about managing a nutrient res and water res and what process is efficient with producing oxygen to the water and the dissolved oxygen etc. So I would greatly appreciate any help thanks in advance!

A water pump at the bottom of res with a pipe going up above the surface and then splashing back onto the top of the water Will aerate a res better than air pumps IME. Too much constant air bubbles in the res messes with your PH. An air pump is better than nothing though for sure. Luck'n'Lite JBo

Input EC is going to vary wildly based on environment and lighting.

When I ran old 1000w hoods w/ CO2, I would top out around 1.6 EC in mid flower. Now I run Gavitas and my hungriest strain isn't happy with anything under 1.9.

It took me a while to get comfortable feeding so high, but when enviro. and lights are at full power they absolutely need the extra nutrients as well.

Keeping the rock wool well irrigated at all times also allows you to feed higher since no salt is building up. I think some growers get away with feeding low and allowing the media to dry between feedings, which effectively increases EC in the root zone anyway; however, it's not ideal.

Londinium said:

A water pump at the bottom of res with a pipe going up above the surface and then splashing back onto the top of the water Will aerate a res better than air pumps IME. Too much constant air bubbles in the res messes with your PH. An air pump is better than nothing though for sure. Luck'n'Lite JBo

Click to expand...

Same thing, Anti siphon fitting sprays down into the reservoir giving aeration.

hey guys

interesting thread

imo theres no need to stack 4' cube on 6'. the 6' is enough by itself. 18 per table doing one buds, with a haze its great, with indica i think it need veg time .. before indica stretch less and less time.
however it makes thing easier since you can make a well established root mass in the 4' before putting it in top of the 6'
with clone straight in the 6', its more tricky not to overwater it at the beginning

for me, theres no need to soak the cube before use
i find it counterproductive, especially in DTW ( you can use them in ebb flood system but its not optimal. if you do yes, it better to flush the wool and throw away the drain because it will fuck with the reservoir water)

and yes anything over 2.0 ms is too much in the past i tried to go like 2.5/2.6 or even more and yes your bud will finish full of salts
good looking etc .. but very disappointing on the smoke test

im doing some test right now, and 3/4 of the plants show signs of overwatering

like i told in another post, the key is to water the dry cube 2/3 minutes, and wait till the plant drink half of it ... and at the end of stretch if you done well you must see a good root ball down the cube. now you can water till runoff.

i think using a scale and weight the cube before and after can greatly help ...

exemple the dry cube weight 250 gram before watering, the first time you transplant the tiny plant after giving 2 minutes of drip it will weight 380/400. you must no water until it weight more than 320 grams
wet dry cycles seems to be very important

Londium you mentioned growing in a loose Rockwool medium called Mapito. Did you multi feed and how did you go about it? I have a loose Rockwool medium from a company called Growpito and coming from coco DTW to this medium was different and I ruined my last grow because of ignorance.

From everything I've read, rockwool does best when allowed to dry to a certain extent rather than how DTW for coco works. Do you have watering schedules for veg/flower and lights on/off?

i would ay it depends the size of your container
dutch commercial growers use big crate of mapito so at the beginning you have to be careful not to give too much water

if you use small pot for big plants you dont have risks to overwater

at this point coco= rockwool IMO

Yes rockwool is the best medium ever but can be sensitive
And even a bitch if the rules are not respected
I used the Hugo cube in the jungle boys method for some times, with crop steering method, dryback etc..
Even had the delta t sm150t
Excellent moisture meter to understand the rockwool specificity and learn to water at the right times
Recently I changed for a next gen method still using the Hugo but in bed with what I called «*nft drip «* setup
Allow to multifeed faster
Roots are protected from lights
Growth is amazing
Here’s a 17 days plant in veg since the dome .. see by yourself