1 hour flood/drain time> Help

i did some math and with the pump i bought it will take about 23 min to fill my trey. on the other hand it also takes 40 min to drain. so thats just about over an hour of wettness. i have read that you should submerge the roots for no more than an hour.. should i use it or buy a more power-full pump?

its a ebb and flow system, and do you think if i airate the solition enough it would be fine.

Here is what i made so far just the hydro guts. ill make the light fixtures later

it should take five to fill and 3 to drain. Lol, that is the gold standard. Mine takes 2 min to fill max and the sam or so to drain but I flood 15 minutes because that is the timer increment. The solution is constantly aerated by the movement but I put an aisrtone in their anyway to help and it works. If I were you I would get a bigger pump, one where it can fill in five minutes if your timer can go that low, however will pump overkill at 15. If you are stuck with an hour, man for the love of god put an airtsone in their and leave the flood times fat apart and rockwool will never worl in that system. Nice builf. I have a turbogarden (a present fir crishtmas), a 3x3 botanicare, and a cement tray that I made into a flood table. I use huge pumos cuz they are about as cheap, around 300 to 500 gph and I wondered if a smalled one would work, now I see why not! gl.

thanks man i just had no idea about the flood times,, how much you think a 210 pump would cost?

go to harbor freight. Type in water pumps. They should have cheap. Wait, better yet go to eBay. They have aquarium water pumps for like 20 - 25 dollars from 300 to 500 or so gph with shipping. I got one from their and one from harbor freight and no complaints. eBa prob cheaper. What is your medium.

The thing is that the plants will live with your hour long flood but the will thrive literally two to three times faster and bigger with shorter floods. The longer they are without water the better the growth.

I was flooding reccled tire media mulch, rubber chips, once an hour and growth was good then I switched to every 2 hours and growth doubled overnight!


Also our drain is too slow. What gives? Does it not just go back down the spout? Work on that.

Medium- i was thinking hydroton clay pebbles, but i was going to start the seeds off in rockwool until they had enough roots

I endded up buying a 260 GPH for $24.50 +$9.50 for shipping. i hate shipping fees

Ok well let me explain what i was trying to do. i wanted this to be compleatly indepednt and only need me to add nutes
or change water . so i decided at the time to make a constant drain so i would not have to be there to unpinch the hose or something to get the water to drain. since my pump is so weak i had to make the drain smaller in-order for the trey to flood. the current pump i have (-) the constant drain took 20 mins to fill up. so after the flood trey is filled up i am left with my tiny 1/4 inch outlet as a drain that took 40 min to empty. note i did not actually test this it was all just math that gave me those figures.

If you have a better drain/flood outlet let me know

dont let the pictures fool you that trey is a 20 gallon 4 foot long 8 inch deep monster

First thing you need to do is hook up our pump. It is not going to work like ou think it is I am betting. Do this right now and make sure that the pump you have will not work. Cuz if it is over 100 it might.

Remember ou will not be flooding the hole tray. That will break and you dont want it that high. It reall depends on pot size. Look at ebb fittings, pro models. Notice they are two in the bag and two sizes. THe small one is the inlet. The tall one is the putlet, The overflow. You postion this at the height ou want it to flood. When the inlet pumps up to this height it will all fall down and keep even witht he height of the overflow. Next when the pump shuts off all the watt will rush right out of the inlet back the way it came.

I think buddy you are maybe looking at this all wrong. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FLOOD THAT ENTIRE STERLITE TRAY WITH WATER! It will crack. Maybe 3-4 inches up the tray at most. Try out your current pump pronto and maybe you can cancel the order on the 30 dollar one if it works. Trust me, ou need to plug it all in. Flood only three inchs and google ebb and flow tables and look at the inlet and overflow designs. Their are nice schematic drawings in moveing pena ll over the net. google dude.


I could be all wrong. You could have it all right, just hate to see some tray size oversight lead ou astray. Practicality and actually getting dirty are best when dealing with first time hydroponics. I also think I ahve seen that tray, so gl if you got itall, I am not attempting to be rude here dude.


edit: wow I see that is a four footer. Well for my three by three I flooded 12 gallons up to get 2-3 inchs. To give you some idea. Gl. The pic did fool me even tho I read that post, lol.

well its hard to explain what i am doing. lets see if you go back to the pics above you can see bars running across the top of the trey. those will hold a plank that i will cut holes in and drop net pots filled with expanded clay pebbles. the whole trey needs to be filled with (water/nutes) because there is already a 2 inch high diffrence frome one side to the other. i built the trey on a incline so the water would drain better.

and what do you mean will break. i have tested the trey full and picked it up on one side and rested the other on a table. and in my cab ther is supports runnging underneath it.

Dude, your numbers make no sense.

I have 4x4 trays and 2x4 trays, and they both drain in about five minutes after the pump stops running.

I have a 400GPH in my 4x4 tray, and it floods it in ten minutes.

I have a 630 in my top 2x4 tray (it's up high, so I needed the extra power), and it floods it in five minutes.

I have a 185 for my bottom 2x4 tray, and it takes about 15 minutes (when the tray is completely empty).

Remember, when you have plants in there, the amount of water needed is not as great.

I used hydroton and flood them all every two hours (except my 4x4 when the lights are out).

First pic is my dual 2x4s in my veg tent, second is my 4x4 in my flower tent:

_save your $$_
keep the pump that you have
test it again this time with the clay balls in it - they will displace enuff water were as you will not need to use as much water as compared to when it was empty
increse the gap between flood times - allowing the roots to airate longer due to the lenth of the flood and drain time
keep in mind that you can grow a plant form seed to harvest with its root system fully submerged under water with no drain at all
just put an air stone in the rez and you'll be fine _ save you $$_
i see nothing wrong with keeping the pump you have
*the main and only reason why we drain in a flood and drain system is to oxygenate the root system*
just tweek you system so that the root sysem is getting plenty of oxygen the more the better- you cant go wrong with to much oxygen
so have longer drain times and gaps before the next flood as long as the roots dont dry out your fine, add an airstone to the rez water is good at holding oxygen for a log time

Bob Smith said:

Dude, your numbers make no sense.

I have 4x4 trays and 2x4 trays, and they both drain in about five minutes after the pump stops running.

I have a 400GPH in my 4x4 tray, and it floods it in ten minutes.

I have a 630 in my top 2x4 tray (it's up high, so I needed the extra power), and it floods it in five minutes.

I have a 185 for my bottom 2x4 tray, and it takes about 15 minutes (when the tray is completely empty).

Remember, when you have plants in there, the amount of water needed is not as great.

I used hydroton and flood them all every two hours (except my 4x4 when the lights are out).

First pic is my dual 2x4s in my veg tent, second is my 4x4 in my flower tent:

View attachment 654555View attachment 654556

Click to expand...

two words "twenty gallons"

RyanTheRhino said:

two words "twenty gallons"

Click to expand...

Eight words:

"I don't understand what you're implying by that"

i was high when i wrote that i forgot what it means lol. um i think i meant i had a small pump for a 20 gallon trey.

i changed the fitings on my trey to hold a 1/2 ID tube at both my overflow and inlet/outlet they are larger than my previousfittings. now just wating for the pump to get here. i tried filling it up but the pump is def to small.