first hydro-drip system

first post but not my last.. haha. a friend of mine gave me a great video on how to set up a homemade drip irrigation setup. it took me about a month to gather up everything i needed. made some alternate choices tho and now i have a couple questions that a video can't answer.

first off, i was unable to find a flood table with the size and price that i needed, so i opted for a underbed container. does a clear container matter for roots? should a put a layer of clay pellets on the bottom? maybe paint it?

second, i'm confused on how long i should water. the drip emitters i have are 2 gph. so if i water for 10-15 min i should average 1/2 a gallon for the time its on. is that to much?

I would go with a dark container where no light can penetrate the tub. This way, algae will not be able to form in your water. As for your watering cycle, I don't know since I'm also looking for that answer myself.

-PEACE

just trying out some decent bag seeds first. i have it set for 3 feedings at 5 minutes per feed during the daylight hours. after letting it drip on a piece of rockwool for 10 minutes it was extremely wet and didn't dry out enough between feedings. so we'll see how it goes. might be to much.

i also worked on the budding room some. i have to cut down the container to about 6-8 inches high. it was the best fitting container i could find. max out the space you know.. i'm not sure if i'm going to go drip irrigation or go ebb n flow. i have the parts for both.

Based on the pics of your setup, I'd wager the video in question is "I Grow Chronic!", also known as the Green Man video or the Mr. Green video. That's the video that got me into hydroponic gardening; it holds a special place in my heart

The underbed container made me laugh, because that's the exact same container I'm currently growing in! Wal-Mart, $6.49 + tax, right? One thing I'd recommend based on the pics of your veg room - and please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be a dick - you should clean up all that miscellaneous debris underneath your table. It just looks like it's dying to get in your way. It also looks a bit dusty or dirty - I'm guessing this is out in a garage somewhere - a sign that there wasn't a lot of pre-cleaning happening before you set the room up for veg. If it's possible remove your growing kit from the room and give it a good once over with some bleach water. Trust me, the last thing you want is for your girls to get some sort of infection just from common household bacteria whose presence could have been easily remedied early on. Again, just trying to be helpful.

Maybe I missed it, but what are you using as a resivoir in your veg room? I've been using that same tote, with a drip system, and I use a 5 gallon bucket as my resivoir. The tote is filled with hydroton and I grow my plants in rockwool set in mesh pots. The timers I use are inexpensive, analog timers with a minimum 30-minute on/off cycle. Up until recently I'd been watering about five times a day for thirty minutes each; a recent post in this forum has led me to drop my watering schedule to three times daily, thirty minutes each. I've already noticed a marked improvement in my plants; the root systems have grown quite a bit in the last four or five days since I altered the feeding schedule.

Also, I've got my drippers dialed in so that they drip once every 1.5-2 seconds, although I have to inspect the drip rate every so often, as occasional salt buildup in the drip emitters tends to effect the flow of water to the plants. One thing I've found useful when unable to effectively slow the drip rate is to add an inline drip emitter and adjust it so that it's also taking up some of the water flow; this way less water makes it to the end of the line.

This weekend I'm taking the whole thing apart temporarily and I'll be spray painting the rubbermaid tote black - only on the outside - since even with the hydroton filling the container I'm still getting enough light at the bottom where water sits to cause problems with algea. I'd rather fix the problem now than have do deal with root problems later on.

As for your flowering room... I'm jealous that you have an HID and I don't! Have you thought about using a tote with holes in the lid with a bubbler or aeroponics system installed? I can't really tell how big the flowering room is; how many plants do you plan to flower at once?

One more thing: When looking for a hydroponics bed for an ebb/flow or drip system, you might save some serious cash simply by cruising back behind any local supermarkets/department stores which have a floral department. Many stores recieve potted plants in 3'x3' or 4'x4' sturdy, black plastic bins which are PERFECT for hydro applications. When they're emptied they are left outside to be picked up by recycling or waste disposal trucks. All you have to do is clean them, drill or cut holes for your drains, install drain fittings, and congrats, you've just spent approximately ten bucks on parts and aquarium silicone versus 60-150 for a brand name bed!

yeah, thats the video that inspired me to go hydro instead of soil. both the veg and flowering areas are in seperate closets. i don't have alot of space so the debris you speak of are a couple of storage containers under the boards i'm using as a table. i covered everying under it with plastic incase there is a leak or something worse. i had to prop the corners of the getto flood table to ensure the runoff goes down the drain. i'm using a 18 gallon container from wally world as the resivoir. i had to get a more powerful pump since i need to move water 5 feet so i picked up a rio+ 1700 water pump. for the drip side of things i'm using a dig 12 zone drip head that is totally customizable. choose which lines to use.. came with alot of stuff.. stakes, plugs etc. the lights in the veg are 4 foot flourecents. the ballast was only 5 bucks at walmart so i maxed out the area by cramming 3 into the space. each has a cool white and a warm white bulb.

i'm using the same tote for the resivoir in the flowering area. i can use the pump i orginally had in the veg since its within the overhead height. i have a 6 zone drip head for it also. i'm finally going to be able to use the 600 watt hps light that i bought last fall. woohoo.. haha

i will definatly check out the back area of the floral department. they are just getting it set up with spring just around the corner.

day 5 and things are going well. good root development. 5 minute waterings seem to be ok. hopefully in 2 weeks i'll see a nice growth spurt.

Your schedule should do fine, i run an ebb and flow that runs 15 minutes every 2 hours in light, 5 tubes on a 200GPH pump. that's like a 40 GPH dripper. so i doubt you're doing too much.

thats a nice little system

day 11 and things are going great. both plants have a good root system started. raised the lights a little today and worked on the flowering closet. i read some other topics and went to radioshack and picked up a 4 inch cooling fan for my 600w hps. had to modify some sheetmetal and fabbed up a mounting bracket for the fan to attached to the supernova reflector. only a couple more things to do. fresh air intake and co2. but i still have at least a month before i can clone and sex them. pray for girls..

wow.. just finished transplanting to larger containers with clean hydroton. this is my first experience using hydroton and its extremely dirty. multiple rinses needed. last thing i need is a clogged dripper.

Your girls are looking nice Fizz!

Hydroton can be a bitch right out of the bag, for sure. I take the bag outside, use a screwdriver to jab about twenty or thirty holes in the bottom of the bag (not too close together, don't want it to rip), and stick the end of my garden hose into the top of the bag. I duct-tape the top of the bag tightly around the hose, turn the water on, and let it fill with water and drain out the bottom. After about five minutes or so the water is running clear. You might have to jostle the bag a bit though, get those stones to roll around a bit to make sure you get all the dust off. Then I dump the rocks into a 5-gallon bucket with a bunch of paper towels in the bottom. I'll leave the bucket out in the sun and usually overnight. That pretty much gets rid of the moisture, then I can store them without having to worry about mold or anything like that.

hey i have a few questions relating to this, and i've seen that video hahah

im going to be doing a drip system with just a small amount of rockwool and hyrotron per plant and plants hang over the res and drip back into it. ive heard having a bubbler is good just to circulate the water, but would the dripping do enough? my container has 2 rows and 5 holes per row, i think its around 10-15 gallons

also since im going to be using a small amount of rockwool (no bigger than 2x2) and the plastic mesh container that the hydrotron sits in is like 3x5, should i water more frequently since it will dry out faster? i heard some one say 2 mins every hour was good but that sounds like too much

and im going with lowryder #2 so i think my little (totes do u call them?) mesh containers/pots will be big enough

thats kind of what i'm running now in my flowering area. i can have up to 4 rubbermade totes flowering at a time with 4 plants per tote. if you go small (lowryder is a good strain for this) i think you'll be ok with smaller rockwool, but if you want plants taller you'll have to transplant them into 4 x4 or bigger. bigger roots = bigger plant. i'm shooting for 2-3 ft finish height so i have 4 x 4 cubes in 6 inch net baskets filled with hydroton.
as for your other questions. your right on having bubbles (air) in your res. more air to your roots once they grow out into the tote. it will act like a bubbler once they do and you may need to cut your feedings back to keep from nutrient burn. i do 5 min feedings 3 times a day. most timers go every 15 min, but they make ones that can do by the min. make things alot easier to adjust later on. usually run around $20.

yeah i just bought the same one you have. my room is all set up and waiting for seeds. i decided to just use all 8 settings and do 10 mins every 3 hours. its going to be about 90+ and very dry everyday of summer where i live so i think ill be ok. hope they live! ha

where and how can i get the zone drip head, drippers i need for the drip system i see that home depot has alot of things you can use for this but its all made for hooking up to a regular hose pipe...

Instead of using hydroton, I was going to use coco coir for a similar setup. Anyone else concur? Good idea?

Use extreme care dripfeeding RW. It is very easy to overwater. A cube with a seedling in it will need dampened about 1x/day for a minute or two.

Once there's roots out of the bottom of the cube, it can be nested in a pot of pellets and fed with a drip ring:

You can buy or DIY drip rings, just some flexible tubing with a bunch of 1mm holes and a tee fitting. Drip rings allow you to water the pellets around the RW cube without watering the cube. A single-point emitter will only wet a column of pellets but a drip ring will wet nearly the entire pot, giving much more hospitibly damp pellets for the roots to form in. Pellets can be watered much more frequently than RW. You could start with about 5 drip feeds/lights-on for a few mins at a time.

Drip systems require frequent cleaning of the drip emitters with plain water & a toothbrush. Failing to do so will result in drippers clogged with a crust of nute salts.

sloeginfizz said:

wow.. just finished transplanting to larger containers with clean hydroton. this is my first experience using hydroton and its extremely dirty. multiple rinses needed. last thing i need is a clogged dripper.

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Hey man. I work at a Hydroponics store here in NJ. You can run a constant feeding cycle like me for your drip irrigation. Unfortunately, no matter what you do, you will always have a little algae somewhere, but minimal growth it is the key.

My feeding cycle is currently at 1400 ppm on a 24 hour feed cycle, 2 hours off when I change my solution every 10 days.

Looks like in your most recent pics that you have a ppm too high for the plants in its current stage. I noticed this due to the fact that your tips are yellow. It's fine, but if your pH takes a spike, 1, you will get major failure from lockup, and 2, if you keep overdoing the ppms (nutrient content), you might have some problems later.

Your setup looks good, just trust me when i tell you, when you get a little more money, get away from using the Rubbermaid containers. They leak too much light no matter how well you cover them, and also they flex causing leaks. They are not for holding water, but are GREAT to use for your first run through. Its what I used, but it causes you to have to check more variables.

Light exposure, pH, leaks, and Algae all come with the Rubbermaid setups. Lookin good kid.

Lebrish151 said:

Hey man. I work at a Hydroponics store here in NJ. You can run a constant feeding cycle like me for your drip irrigation. Unfortunately, no matter what you do, you will always have a little algae somewhere, but minimal growth it is the key.

My feeding cycle is currently at 1400 ppm on a 24 hour feed cycle, 2 hours off when I change my solution every 10 days.

Looks like in your most recent pics that you have a ppm too high for the plants in its current stage. I noticed this due to the fact that your tips are yellow. It's fine, but if your pH takes a spike, 1, you will get major failure from lockup, and 2, if you keep overdoing the ppms (nutrient content), you might have some problems later.

Your setup looks good, just trust me when i tell you, when you get a little more money, get away from using the Rubbermaid containers. They leak too much light no matter how well you cover them, and also they flex causing leaks. They are not for holding water, but are GREAT to use for your first run through. Its what I used, but it causes you to have to check more variables.

Light exposure, pH, leaks, and Algae all come with the Rubbermaid setups. Lookin good kid.

Click to expand...

I am convinced that the secret to drip is the running water. Running water setups seem to crank out the production. The roots and the plants just love heavily oxygenated, flowing water. By running water setups I mean drip, aero and ntf. My drip tables produce far bigger buds than my ebb and grow hands down.

As for cheap totes, they don't hold up well when plants get really big and heavy. There are totes called superboxes that are sold at Lowes that are very heavy duty, light proof and have a flat, inset top that is perfect for drip.

Having said all of that, your setup is fine for the first time. Learn, learn, learn.

If you are concerned about algae pick up some 35% hydrogen peroxide at your hydroponics store. Use very sparingly.