Coco - Top Drip vs. Flood and Drain

MoPho · Aug 28, 2015

I have always grown in Rockwool cubes (flood and drain). Just recently started using Coco, I have to say I like the stuff. But my biggest question now is which method would be better, Flood and Drain or Top Drip? What are the pros and cons of each?

Right now I am doing top drip recirculating (not dtw).

Ziggaro · Aug 28, 2015

I'd say top drip overall for ease of setup and the ability to wash out salts.
Bottom feeding is nice for establishing roots and preventing the medium from getting too wet. Once my roots are established I'd set up the drippers, though.

Crusader Rabbit · Aug 28, 2015

If you get some sort of water borne pathogen with flood and drain, then all your plants sharing that system will become infected.

Until fusarium took down my grow room, I had great success using one gallon pots in flood and drain tubs. With small containers it's really easy to pick up entire plants to inspect them or rearrange the containers to best fit plants into the space, since each container doesn't have its own feed line. Salt build-up in the upper layers of coco is a big issue though which keeps roots from utilizing the entire container. As surface moisture is evaporated from the coco under hot lights, the salts get left behind. Once I rigged a small watering wand hooked up to a faucet (wand taken from a pressurized sprayer, and using a coiled air hose for water) it was a simple matter to give them a good top watering once a week that flushed the salts back down through the media. I've been told that I shouldn't do this, but the plants thrived with a profusion of roots growing up out of the coco.

ThePizzaMan · Aug 28, 2015

Both will yield awesome and are easy. I personally find F&D easier...but to each is own.

TpM

MoPho · Aug 30, 2015

ThePizzaMan said:
Both will yield awesome and are easy. I personally find F&D easier...but to each is own.

TpM

Have you had experience with both? In your opinion, which one is a better producer if all other conditions are identical?

Might do a side by side on my next run.

dansbuds · Aug 30, 2015

Mopho , how stable has your PH been with the recirc ??? i've read coco recirc can make the PH fluctuation a PIA . i've always wanted to try it , but my DTW system is working flawlessly , so i just stick with that . still curious though .

MoPho · Aug 30, 2015

I mix/add my nutes at the beginning of the week and ph it to 5.4-5.6. Midweek I top off with water that comes out of the tap at 8.0. This brings it up to 5.8-6.0. Then do it all again at the beginning of the next week. I don't change out the res until the next run.

IMO a wider range of ph gives the plants a better chance of absorbing more nutrients than setting it at one target. I understand a lot of people are saying best ph is 5.8, but I honestly don't believe in the one size fit all theory. While 5.8 (or whatever) is a good general target, I think it can vary of strain to strain and environmental conditions can come into play. By letting the ph fluctuate a bit it helps certain nutes being locked out while overfeeding on others. Just my $.02

MoPho · Aug 30, 2015

*can vary from strain to strain
*By letting the ph fluctuate a bit it help prevent certain nutes being locked out while overfeeding on others.

dansbuds · Sep 1, 2015

MoPho said:
I mix/add my nutes at the beginning of the week and ph it to 5.4-5.6. Midweek I top off with water that comes out of the tap at 8.0. This brings it up to 5.8-6.0. Then do it all again at the beginning of the next week. I don't change out the res until the next run.

IMO a wider range of ph gives the plants a better chance of absorbing more nutrients than setting it at one target. I understand a lot of people are saying best ph is 5.8, but I honestly don't believe in the one size fit all theory. While 5.8 (or whatever) is a good general target, I think it can vary of strain to strain and environmental conditions can come into play. By letting the ph fluctuate a bit it helps certain nutes being locked out while overfeeding on others. Just my $.02

you top off with plain water ? dropping the EC of your mix .
from 5.5 how high does it get by the mid week top off ?
i know about PH swing , i've been growing in coco for a couple years now .

i use 18 gallon rez's . i mix my nutes in flower to 6.2 & by the time i need to refill the rez 4 to 5 days later my PH will drop to 5.6 & the EC will pretty much stay where i set it . . when its damn near empty i'll refill it to my desired EC at 6.2 PH again .

& yes my nutes drop the PH , not raise it . i use protekt as a PH up & it'll drop by a point or 2 each day . i change out the rez's completely when i start the leaching , i feed with plain water for the last 2 weeks .

MoPho · Sep 1, 2015

What's your starting EC? Mine is about 1.2 and the ph is around 5.6 when I start/mix my nutes. In my case, both EC and ph is pretty stable so when I top off midweek with plain water it lowers my EC and raises my ph.

I might try it your way on my next run. Starting at a higher ph and just it swing lower for an entire week w/o topping off with plain water.

mowood3479 · Sep 1, 2015

My vote is for top feed multiple times a day in root bound containers

GonjaLove · Sep 1, 2015

MoPho said:
I mix/add my nutes at the beginning of the week and ph it to 5.4-5.6. Midweek I top off with water that comes out of the tap at 8.0. This brings it up to 5.8-6.0. Then do it all again at the beginning of the next week. I don't change out the res until the next run.

IMO a wider range of ph gives the plants a better chance of absorbing more nutrients than setting it at one target. I understand a lot of people are saying best ph is 5.8, but I honestly don't believe in the one size fit all theory. While 5.8 (or whatever) is a good general target, I think it can vary of strain to strain and environmental conditions can come into play. By letting the ph fluctuate a bit it helps certain nutes being locked out while overfeeding on others. Just my $.02

I had some super lemon haze beans I popped a year or so ago. There are vids on YouTube for just about every world of seeds bean. I've always run steady 5.8 pH across the board. Well their vids state to keep the pH at 5.5...so I decided to do a side by side. I used clones from a super fuckin amazing mother that I still keep around. One 5.5 the other 5.8. Everything was basically the same in the end. Same quality...the 5.5 had an extra 6 or so grams but that could have been from anything. I will say the 5.8 plant had much lighter green color than the 5.5. I think as long as you stay in the 5.5 - 6.0 range you're cool.

dansbuds · Sep 1, 2015

MoPho said:
What's your starting EC? Mine is about 1.2 and the ph is around 5.6 when I start/mix my nutes. In my case, both EC and ph is pretty stable so when I top off midweek with plain water it lowers my EC and raises my ph.

I might try it your way on my next run. Starting at a higher ph and just it swing lower for an entire week w/o topping off with plain water.

in flower my EC starts off at 1.2 & peek is usually 1.4 or 1.5 depending on the strain .
yeah i was curious as to why a plain water top off . & why you would drop the EC like that ?

Snow Crash · Sep 1, 2015

My vote is for a drip system over a flood and drain for all of the reasons already provided. Ebb/Flow has really taken a dip the last year. Seems like everyone is doing drip systems right now.

MoPho · Sep 1, 2015

dansbuds said:
in flower my EC starts off at 1.2 & peek is usually 1.4 or 1.5 depending on the strain .
yeah i was curious as to why a plain water top off . & why you would drop the EC like that ?

For several reasons to prevent nute burns and salt build up. Also if I don't top off by midweek there isn't enough water in the res to flood up to the level I would like in my table.

I have done it both ways when I used to use rockwool and to be honest (other than burning some lower leaves), there was no big difference in the final product.

dansbuds · Sep 2, 2015

i hear ya ! like a mid week flush :tiphat:

MoPho · Sep 2, 2015

Not sure how true this might be, but I was thinking with top drip the concentration of water/nutes is in one spot. Even though coco will wick it throughout the container, wouldn't this cause the roots to grow in one major spot? With flooding the entire medium gets a more even coverage, no?

Asslover · Sep 2, 2015

Top feed drip to waste is the way to go! Theirs no down side to it. No adding back or adjusting ph, set & forget. My

dansbuds · Sep 2, 2015

MoPho said:
Not sure how true this might be, but I was thinking with top drip the concentration of water/nutes is in one spot. Even though coco will wick it throughout the container, wouldn't this cause the roots to grow in one major spot? With flooding the entire medium gets a more even coverage, no?

Depends on your drippers .

I use blackhole hydro drip rings , they have 6 drip points on the bottom , your feeding all the way around the stem of the plant . its one of the best delivery systems i've found for even distribution .

http://www.horticulturesource.com/p...v9BGPDRmeasTn3rUklTmz0bSAZq1TOuvp_xoCN_Dw_wcB

even when i used the drip baskets , i'd put 4 per 3 gallon pot for even distribution . but that was a PIA to set up , clean & make sure there were no clogs .

MoPho · Sep 2, 2015

@DB what nutes are you using? Veg+Bloom? Right now I am using Maxibloom, simple and decent, but I feel the weight is a bit lacking with it.

Coco - Top Drip vs. Flood and Drain

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