CAP ebb and grow failures

Hello RIU. Prior to getting the CAP system I enjoyed great success for years flooding tables, growing in coco, organics, Hempy style coco buckets and DWC. I hear nothing but stories of great success using cap system...how easy it is etc.

Ive now done 5 runs in this system, one of which was actually smokable. Plants just won't grow. I've ran GH's full line, lucas formula, both with and withouit H2O2, both with and without hygrozyme, with and without superthrive. I've had the ppm's at 300, 1100, and everywher in between. Allowing 4-5 days to see if they perk up. I use botanicare cal mag. I'm starting to believe I've been cursed to never grow healthy plants again. I hate the oxy and lorazipam which I am forced to take when I have no mj.

I have a blue lab guardian tri-meter which tells me the water is ALWAYS 65-67*, PH is ALWAYS 5-6-5.9. The temps in my 5x5 room are ALWAYS 72-80. RH is ALWAYS 45-55. 1000w w/XXL magnum hood, 6in elicent fan exhausting from top of room, 4in vortex exhausting from light hood. 45liter airpump in res as well.


I have bright white roots poking out the bottom of buckets, and dumped out upper hydroton to expose RW cubes which were dryish with many bright white roots coming out of them(gently refilled).

Water level, ppms, and PH rarely change. I feel like they are not eating or drinking but after 2 months I guess they would be dead if they weren't.


I will try to get some decent pictures but honestly, I'm quite embarassed to put them up.


PLEASE, what am I missing? Is there a foolproof...make that a complete idiot proof formula for nutes.


PS, I read through 200+pages of CAP thread and seems I'm the only one that can't get the system too work.

The last pic is same strain, it was the runt. I put it in soil and it now looks better than the 2 month hydro plants.

GUSH is the strain.

the system is great. i have been growing with it for about a year now with success. my first run was not so good though and i had to address some problems the system is prone to.

1) i removed the res from the grow room to help from light getting to the res water.

2) i removed the control bucket from the grow room as well because it is the one bucket that always has traces of water in it and when under or near lights can heat and stagnate the water quickly and will contaminate the res water with nasties.

3) i raised the 2 gal plant sites 2" above the control bucket so that the sites would fully drain back to the control bucket. this was a huge deal with the system because the water remaining in the system would stagnate under the intense light causing the roots to rot when they reached the water in the bucket and sit in the nastyness. this would usually become apparent in mid flower (see pic below, i use 2x4's to make a platform for the sites to sit on to raise them up.)

just these 3 things will save you allot of failure i promise. i still run it this way to date with no issues. there are better grow systems out there but this one is one of the cheapest and is quite effective when dialed in, there are a few of us on here using them and are usually pretty willing to help in any way.

could you snap some pics of the roots? i notice you have a few sitting on some sort of board but they need to be higher than that.

Thank you for your response. Res is outside room and no smell or signs of nasties in buckets. Roots just hit bottom a couple days ago. I'll raise up a couple buckets and see if they do better than others.

is there water sitting in the buckets after flooding? and what nutes are you using? looks like you may have a def among other problems. what is your flood schedule like (how frequent and duration of flood). they look pretty droopy deffinetly looks like you may have root problems but i still bet on the sitting water in the pots shit created lots of problems with mine. also are you in flower or veg?

Buckets on those systems are a crappy design too. Try using something to wedge under them so they tilt to the side that the drain in on. If you notice now all of the water doesn't drain out of the bucket and your roots just sit in that stagnant water as it heats up during the dark cycle or between feedings. Use a chip of wood or something. You want something like a 1/2" think to wedge under there. You'll see afterward that all of the water is draining out of the buckets. This helps a lot as well as the stuff that Doc said. Best of luck man.

Phil does that screw up their nitrogen up take?

this is what my roots looked like after raising the pots and before they would not get even close to this produced.

Out of the bottom is one half in root with 6 -1/8 in roots off the side of it, same color as shown. thank you for the help.

Coho said:

Phil does that screw up their nitrogen up take?

Click to expand...

Don't see how it could. All you are doing is tilting the bucket a little.

2 months in veg. Started with Gh full line, I've now got lucas formula + cal/mag for the last 10 days. started floods at twice daily, then 3times after a week. when that wasn't working I went every 3 hours. im now at every 4 hours. EC=1.6.

I had roots like yours one round, the second round in system. Got over a pound and a half of hashplant from 6 buckets and 1k. Chasin the dragon ever since.

From everything I have seen you water 3 times during light cycle and that's it. No need to water any more then that. Now that you mention that your plants are yellowing and looks like it might be overwatering.

Lights are always on at this point. I went 3 times a day from the start and this is what happened. Then I started playing with more flood times.

Raised a few buckets so no standing water. Floods back to 3 times a day(every 8 hours, lights on 24).

Is 1.6 EC too much? Lucas + botanicare cal/mag.

Don't quite get why after 2 months only 1 buchet has 1 root coming out of the bottom. I believe it is a root prob as well, but they are all bright white?

Why are your lights on 24/7? Plants need sleep. After clones root you should really go 18/6.

Ive vegged 24/7 for 8 years without problems. Maybe this system needs to sleep. I'm willing to try anything at this point. Vegged plants in RW cubes 24/7 and they grew beautiful for 2 weeks...until I put them in CAP system.

Stems are all purple if that means anything. The same strain in soil stem is green.

I read you flood x3 time during lights on but how long do you flood? Right off it looks like a p and k def.
Are those pics of plants geting the lucas formula? Do you re-use your hydro tron? If so what do you clean
It with? You got good rood color! And you say your ph dont swing much?