New ebb/gro style multiflow bucket system by Sentinel

[ItsGrowTime]

How does it keep the roots from growing directly into the drain and clogging? I like the ability to completely drain but it's also a nice vortex for roots to grow into and back the system up.

I'd add ball valves between the buckets so they can be isolated.

 

[GorillaGrower]

im just not sure any of these features actually grows bigger buds

im just not sure any of these features actually grows bigger buds

They still are not designing these systems with air inlets on each bucket, bubbling in the controller is not as effective as bubbling in the root ball.

neither bubbling in the resivoir or bubbling in each bucket is needed with an ebb n grow. just the water flowing back into the res is all that is needed.

the little that sits int he bottom does not need to drain out.. Im not sure why everyone freaks out about this. the roots dont just die or develop rot because they sit in nutrient water that changes every 4 hrs.. thats called dwc.. now its a problem? doesnt makes sense.

I dont reall like the digital timer either.. why add complexity to somethign that is so simple.. ON OFF why make it harder than a simple mechanical spa timer. its just another manual to have personally.

the diy switches are perfectly fine.. they dont work when people dont clean them when they get filled with crap. its the same argument for ezclones not working.. those same people dont clean it properly per directions.

what is a leak detector going to do? tell you that you need to get home and clean shit up? sounds lame to me.. your going to have leaks.. dont do hydro unless its in a basementn or garage.. otherwise your asking for damage.

at 590 its seems expensive but these ebb n grow systems when compared to a table and every thing involved are a decent value.

its just that you really can make everything there for 200. save the rest.. to some thats not only thrifty.. but actually fun. otherwise your buying time and that DOES have relevant value.

 

[superultramega]

its just that you really can make everything there for 200. save the rest.. to some thats not only thrifty.. but actually fun. otherwise your buying time and that DOES have relevant value.

I designed a similar system many years ago and priced out the parts as I, to date, have fabricated all of my grow systems. It was a little more than that for the components. Granted I only got as far as a Grainger catalog so you could likely find them cheaper than that. I think for a couple hundred bucks even I would let them assemble the controller. I don't make my own lights.

My only point was they seem to have priced this reasonably which isn't always the case in hydro gear.

Also, you're totally correct, no aeration is needed in the buckets. The draining of the buckets draws in oxygen. That is the entire purpose of an E&F system. I aerate my res, but mostly that just keeps is agitated. The overflows dropping back into the res every four hours provides all the oxygen I really need considering it's and E&F. Plenty of DO for those roots at the bottom of the buckets sitting in the residual soln. My current tables leave about 1cm and those bottom roots look great when they come out after harvest.

 

[superultramega]

so are you guys using one of these systems filling your buckets up with hydroton?

 

[iSmokeTrees]

I don't know if anyone else noticed but it only comes with 6 pots. That is kinda lame! I wonder if this is the normal Sentinel timer or a new timer made for this unit

 

[ripvanstinkle]

really lame when a 12 bucket C.A.P. is $399. They do look cool though. Think I will go with C.A.P., anyone know what improvements were made with them?

 

[BowlPacks]

really lame when a 12 bucket C.A.P. is $399. They do look cool though. Think I will go with C.A.P., anyone know what improvements were made with them?

Those systems have gone up, bro! Im pretty sure thet are about the same price. These MEF's look SICK. However, all my buddies that did side by sides with their old water-farms say that the farms out produce ebb and flow buckets!

EDIT-Yeah bro, they are $599 now.
http://www.discount-hydro.com/productdisp.php?navid=4&pid=18

 

[morrisgreenberg]

plantlighting.com has them for $399 or you can check out ebay for the CAP, one thing i like that is brilliant is the buckets are up on a pedestal for better drainage, i do disagree with a drain directly in the roots, it will clog and allow for slower drainage which will kill the vacuum effect of o2 into the root zone on drain cycles

 

[Zer0Ry0k0]

ah, didn't realize it emptied the buckets regularly.... are the buckets raised? the pic makes it hard to see that if they are.

 

[WonkaBuds]

any updates?

 

[BerndV]

Anyone tried one of these yet?

 

[BerndV]

bump

 

[BerndV]

Apparently not?

 

[Ymir]

I bought this early last year and finally got around to setting it up. First time ebb and flow for me. I got sunleaves rocks (dyna-rok II) to use with it. They were a pain to wash out and after using 100s of gallons of water ended up having to settle with what I had, seems they just create more dust/sand every time you shuffle them around and you're always going to end up having sediment in your system for the first week or two.

I'm in week 2 after a res change and my ppms are slowly rising still (started at 620 now I'm at 660).

Anyway the system itself seems to work well, the tubing and all that stuff wasn't too hard to install, the only difficult part was using the tape on some of the connections as per instructions as I'd never used the stuff before. Only other small thing was getting the fittings to "face" the right direction while being as tight as I felt they should be but I was able to loosen them slightly to line them up when needed (was very afraid of overtightening, using a 12 pot system you aren't left with much for extras). I had 0 leaks the first run and none since.

My 1 complaint with this is the state of the art controller doesn't have an option to program separate flood times for night time. You only have the option of day only or full 24 hour operation at 1 set interval. You can set the drain time (time between floods) and the hold time (time the pots stay flooded before drain). I have low humidity and haven't really found a good setting yet and not sure what I should do exactly.

I had it going ok flooding every 2hr 45 min in "daytime", holding for 15 mins. Once the plants started growing a bit I figured they could go longer since they'd have a better root mass and access to the lower rocks that never dried out before. It was going ok but they were slightly droopy when the lights would first come on even though the rocks were only dried out on the top layer, they weren't soaked underneath but they were moist. I was ok with that and ended up changing from 18/6 lighting to 20/4 figuring they would be ok without watering at "night" if I gave them only 4 hours of dark. I also changed the hold time to only 5 minutes since it takes 7 mins to drain and figured they didn't need to be soaked that long while being watered 24/7 fairly frequently compared to other reports.

Today I checked them and they were completely drooped, my temps got a bit hotter than usual and apparently the roots aren't good enough to get water from the bottom areas yet. So now I'm setting it to 24/7 flooding and holding for 9 minutes. I just don't know if it's going to be ok to flood that often 24/7 when I go to 12/12 lighting. I have pretty low humidity at this time of year (down to 25% sometimes) so do you think I'm ok flooding that often even at 12/12 or should I figure out a method to maybe turn the whole unit off for some times during the dark cycle with a separate timer? I think if you cut the power from the controller and turn it back on it automatically starts a flood cycle so that *might* work to use different night timings.

 

[mojave green]

i just bought one of these from greners:

it was super easy to set up. uses 3/4" tubing. $475.95.

 

[Ymir]

i just bought one of these from greners:
it was super easy to set up. uses 3/4" tubing. $475.95.

This is a thread about the Sentinel, so why advertise a different product if you have nothing to add to the subject of the thread?

 

[ICbuds]

@mojave I want to get one of those Superflows. I read through the breaking bud thread on
t h c f a r m e r and saw the system in action. Looks awesome.

 

[Ymir]

After a couple grows I regret paying all this money for a bunch of plastic that I could've made myself, oh well. The biggest gripe I have is the #1 reason I went with those over others is because it had a root screen which was supposed to keep roots out of the lines and avoid all the work dismantling everything to clean it every time. However, the roots get all into the filter, which can't be removed unless you remove the tubing, so you have to completely dismantle it every time.