Dialing in ebb and flow

Renfro said:

If using net pots in flood and drain I highly recommend a panda film cover for the tray, this will help prevent air pruning of the roots. I prefer to use regular 6 inch square pots, the hydrofarm white ones when growing a SoG in flood and drain.

With LECA I always had the best luck with a flood every 4 hours when the lights are on, none when lights are off. Flood only long enough to reach full depth (deeper is better for more roots).

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Thanks Renfro. I've seen a few of your other posts while searching for ebb and flow related info that were pretty helpful. I'm going to grab a few of the square pots for future clones. I have a couple 4" ones for some vegetables and I like the way they fit better than the netpots. It makes sense that they would also block light out of the root zone. This is definitely a bit of trial and error getting the environment set up correctly. Couple quick questions for ya..

What do you do for res changes/top offs?

What do you do for clones / when do you place them into the ebb and flow system? I started these seeds in a little dwc system then switched them over.

Adosbulc said:

What do you do for res changes/top offs?

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I have a float valve on the reservoir with a solenoid valve on a timer, this allows the system to automatically top off during the middle of the dark period when all the water is guaranteed to be in the reservoir. I add nutrients periodically to maintain PPM. I typically run the nutrients for the whole cycle.

Adosbulc said:

What do you do for clones

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I root them in rapid rooters, once really well rooted (usually about 20 days) I pot them and send to flower.

Renfro said:

I have a float valve on the reservoir with a solenoid valve on a timer, this allows the system to automatically top off during the middle of the dark period when all the water is guaranteed to be in the reservoir. I add nutrients periodically to maintain PPM. I typically run the nutrients for the whole cycle.

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I need a top-off setup like that! What solenoid did you choose and where did you purchase the solenoid? I am confused with all of the options I've seen such as AC vs. DC, 12V vs. 24V etc. etc.

Rip Roller said:

I need a top-off setup like that! What solenoid did you choose and where did you purchase the solenoid? I am confused with all of the options I've seen such as AC vs. DC, 12V vs. 24V etc. etc.

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Note, it only works in one direction, hook it up backwards and it won't shut off.

I used to use a float valve on my res hooked up to an RO machine but never thought to add a timer to it. I just relied on the fact my plants would drink more in the feed than the RO would supply in the same time Fortunately I never had any accidents! The float wasn't right at the top of the res either but still.. I was lucky. I've moved since and my tap water is decent so it's one less thing to worry about.

Second not using net pots on a flood table. Just square pot and fill it so there is no space between. I've never had anything produce more than a simple f+d table SOG. If you have light on the table you'll get algae growing, but if you have full coverage no worries, you'll have roots growing out of the bottom of the pots but all good. Even if not, your canopy will cover it eventually. Its far better than using a cover, as it makes it easier to move plants around if you need to even the canopy.

As for res changes, you should be aiming not to do them at all. If you are vegging and flowering in the same space then you'd obviously change the res when you flip the switch but other than that and unless you have any issues causing an emergency change, you should keep your res the whole way through and top off. That said, that's the aim. If you find your pH and ppm's are swinging you know you aren't quite dialed and you might think to change out. It must cost an absolute fortune to keep ditching nutrients for no reason! Easy tip: The bigger your res the better. Small res means rapid swings and constant maintenance. Big res means you can go away for a few days and not stress!

I haven't checked in on the forum in a few days, work has been pretty busy. There's been some steady growth with all the plants and they're looking pretty good. I removed one of the plants that had insanely weird and twisted growth from the get go. I did a full res change a week ago and topped the reservoir up today @5 gallons of water with 50% nutes and a 3% h202 solution at 3ml/L to fight off a little algae growth. The res is only filled up to the 10 gallon marker, and the plants drank 2 gallons or so in 7 days. The light is causing some algae, but I'm hoping everything should be alright until I'm able to rearrange the setup. The plan this weekend is to take some cuttings of the tomatoes and basil, repot the peppers and sunflowers, take some clones of the BW & GGC, remove them all from the tent to a separate space, let the 'mothers' veg for a week, then flip to find out sex.

I agree with not using net pots the way I am right now. I think with the light proofed lid they would work pretty well, especially in a sog.. but after observing how this whole setup works and operates over the last few weeks I think the square pots would work the best. As stupid as it sounds it really didn't occur to me that I would be able to keep a reservoir going for a long period of time and without a chiller. Ive been PHing my res down to 5.6/5.7 then let it drift up to 6.1 or so over a few days. I'll just keep topping it up like this for a couple weeks then probably change the nutes, bleach the container and clean the pump & filters. In the future I'd like to use a larger reservoir, but for now its about as large as it can be and still fit under the table in a 4x2 tent

Not sure if anyone is still following or reading this thread, but I thought I would provide an update..

Ebb and flow was by far the easiest hydroponic setup I have ever done. I checked the PH/PPM almost every day, but really only had to adjust the res PH every few days, if at all. I was giving a 5 gallon bucket mixed at 80% nute strength (PPM of res around 1200) every 3-6 days depending upon how much they were drinking. I think I lost a little bit of weight because the roots were exposed and algae grew on the surface, but in general I'm very happy with the grow. The buds are the frostiest ive ever personally grown, and it smells amazing. I managed to take clones so I have female plants ready to go outside this summer. Next grow in the tent I'll be using 3 gallon black pots to avoid this algae issue, and will do a bit more training to utilize the light better. But anyways..

Yesterday I chopped the top 90% of the GGC. Trichomes were almost all cloudy with some amber popping up here and there, maybe 1-2%. The black wine trichomes are about 50% clear 50% cloudy, so it might go another 2 weeks or so.

Hey dude, that is fantastic news. You got it dialed in and now your plants look freakin' amazing. I'm sure it feels great.

So, looking back, what do you now think your initial problem was and what turned out to be the correct fix?

Yeah I'm definitely excited to try it after it cures. Super stoked. I think my problem was just inexperience with ebb and flow.. Trying to quickly understand the best pot sizes, depth, how big of a reservoir, flood cycles, nutrient level, pump and tubing sizes, just the whole set up all at once. It wasn't super hard, but until you get your feet wet there are just a ton of little steps to figure out.
Aside from that, adjusting my my table set up so no nutrient water is exposed to light will be fixed for next grow-I've known this for a while but it wasn't worth rebuilding it mid grow. Also on my last couple grows I've either mainlined for 8-16 tops or scrogged; this time I topped a couple times and let it grow it just to see what it would do. I'm happy with the results but the other training techniques would have given me more bud. Oh yeah, I also grew a huge tomatoes plant that gave a few lbs of cherry tomatoes, some basil, sweat peas and more. Was fun growing that inside too.


Are you growing now?

Very cool. I'm growing just a little at the moment. I have one plant that is about 3 weeks into flower and a small mother plant that she came from. It's a rather small operation as I am in a non-legal state.

For the algae on the exposed parts of the table, are you going to do anything with it or just let it ride? If it is not that much I have found it to not be not much of an issue with the plant. But, I do hate looking at it when the rest of my setup is tidy.

Do you have a decent slope to your flood table? Is any standing water left after your drain cycle? If so, your only true solution will be to cover all of the exposed parts with something.....which has its own set of issues. I have mine propped up quite a bit because I love the flexibility of an uncovered table. 99% of the water drains away......but algae still loves to party on that remaining 1%