First Hydro Grow: Flood and Drain/600W HPS

So as the title says this will be my first tomato ;] hydro grow. I'm hoping to use this thread for any questions I come up with (that I can't figure out through searches). The plan is a flood and drain table.. Here's a basic run down of what I have to work with.

Grow area: roughly 8' High, 14' Long and 9' Wide.

Lights: Two 600W Lumatek Electronic Ballasts with 600W HPS light bulbs and Adjust-A-Wing reflectors.

I got a 4'x8' Gro-Tray with 70 gallon Botanicare Res.

6"x24" Active Can-Lite Filter

Sunleaves water Pump and Air Stone

4" Dustshroom intake filter

6" Active Air Inline Fan for Outake

4'x8' Cocotek Grow mat

48 6" Hugo Gro-Blocks.

Nutes: General Hydroponics Flora Grow/Micro/Bloom and Diamond Nectar

That's it so far. Probably going to get a small MH light or shop lights for veg. I'm not sure on what grow style to go with, I've never done any Scrog or LST so I don't want to get to deep over my head where I become counter productive. I definitely want to go for best yield. So far RIU is my favorite place to go for information, this community seems really inviting and helpful . Any and all suggestions are welcome and I look forward to sharing progress with everyone

With that big a tray, you don't need to do scrog or lst. Just do a sea of green. If you want to grow 48 plants in there, you don't want them to get too big as individuals anyway. 48-60 ounces once you get it dialed.

that's what I was thinking, SOG definitely seems like the way to go. Is that a 4'x8' tray in the pic? how often is your table being flooded? and thanks for the help! =]

no, mine is 3 x 6 which is plenty to handle. I just bought a 100 gallon stock tank from a farm supply store for 65 bucks. way cheaper than botanicare . But you have a pretty nice setup going so far.

I just thought about your 9 foot wide space. The top of your tray is probably 5 inches wider than the bottom (mine is) so you will have barely two feet of clearance on either side. Close quarters! I hope you are thin. lol.

I would suggest a bigger air pump. One stone in 70 gallons isn't much. I have 4 stones in 75 gallons.

I flood about 3 or 4 times during lights on.

yeah, after buying the res i was told there are way cheaper tanks out there, oh well lol. we're definitely going to have to situate the tray in a good spot so we have room to work. as far as the air stone.. I was told as long as the stone is kept next to the pump is should bring enough oxygen through to the table, not sure if it was BS but the guy at my hydro store said that. but throwing in a few more wouldn't hurt i guess. Do you top or FIM doing SOG?

neither. You lollipop, trimming away all the lower side branches. It helps to use a strain that likes this treatment. Fortunately, many do.

You plan to use clones, right? I basically alternate from seed large plants and then a couple sogs of clones from the originals and start over again.

yeah, clones will be the cheapest way, until i plan to change the strain up

Maybe someone can answer this real quick.. with a 70 gallon res you're not going to put a whole 70 gallons of water are you? I mean how much water do you actually NEED to put in it

That res in my picture was 50 gallons, and I had to keep it absolutely full and the pump still sucked air flooding it. So 75 gallons is comfortable. Your table might need the full volume of your 70 gallons. Depends on how deep you flood too.

as an update. The frame of the grow area is up and the dry wall is hung. the intake has also been cut in the wall with the ducting ready.
anyone have good knowledge on uploading "grow related" pictures online, because i'm iffy on posting pics (call me paranoid) lol.

First thing is to replace those adjusta wing reflectors in favor of large air cooled hoods,the open bat wing design of those open type reflectors cause assloads of problems.

Plants will stretch from having the light far enough away where foliage wont fry from bulb heat,air cooled allows you to let the plants touch the reflectors glass for short periods without burning,i keep my air cooled reflectors less than 1 inch away .

Heat build up in the room is another issue as well,the hotter the room temps the more overall health problems plants experience.

You allreay spent a fat wad dont skimp on reflectors & get the biggest air cooled models ya can.

First thing is to replace those adjusta wing reflectors in favor of large air cooled hoods,the open bat wing design of those open type reflectors cause assloads of problems.

Plants will stretch from having the light far enough away where foliage wont fry from bulb heat,air cooled allows you to let the plants touch the reflectors glass for short periods without burning,i keep my air cooled reflectors less than 1 inch away .

Heat build up in the room is another issue as well,the hotter the room temps the more overall health problems plants experience.

You allreay spent a fat wad dont skimp on reflectors & get the biggest air cooled models ya can.

Hi Dear,
This is very nice post man an informational mystery inside the post. Thanks for sharing such a nice post

I use a 85 gallon reservoir for 4 x 10. Your res should be large enough, you'll just be topping off more often. I second the idea of more air stones. I also use 4. 2 pumps. I'm in the process of figuring out the amount of optimal veg time for under 50 plants. If you're doing a perpetual, 40 flowering, 50 vegging, plus mothers will put you just under 100 plants. Just something to keep in mind.

Currently I'm vegging for 5 weeks and lsting.

my buddy had a coupe of xxxl Ocho hoods he wanted to sell me, I might hit him up for them.

I was also told that with only two 600W lights I should only put about 24 in instead of 48..

as an update: the room has been coming along slowly, i'm hoping to get some pictures up real soon. the mylar has been hung (that stuff is a pain in the ass), and the floor was painted white to help with reflectiveness and with hopes to keep it more clean. If the floor is dry i'm going to set up the filter and get a picture update

Alright.. so I finally got a few pictures of the room. We recieved the clones on sunday, but three of them looked really bad, so i'm thinking they will be replaced by friday. how can you sell a clone if it doesnt have a single root? anywho.. here's a few started pics.


















within the next few days we will give the plants their first feeding. should we go quarter or half strength?

So.. It's been awhile and I haven't really posted anything in this thread. I have an excuse though. A new job has me working 6 days a week and driving 160 miles a day to get there and back. I just haven't had time.. but I got some new pictures and things are going really good. We're in week 3 of flowering I believe lol.

here are some things we've added:

-400W HPS light to go between our sixers.
-water cooling system, temps were too high and almost lost crop
-a veg tent
-EZ Cloner


here are some updated pictures: sorry if quality sucks