Alien flood & drain system

MuckyDucky said:

What kind of medium are you using? I believe you are flooding too often....maybe try 1 time every 2 hours maximum instead. When the unit has drained the plants receive a huge benefit from the oxygen/nute combination as the evaporation takes place. My CAP system instructions says to flood only 3 or 4 times a day but I flood 5 times including 1 time at night. I am also using hydroton for my medium, my plants get huge and they grow and mature super fast.

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Evening,I'm using all clay pebbles, I'm flooding half hourly now because it only takes 5 mins to completely flood + drain with this system ,u think hourly would be better ?

bazoomer said:

Evening,I'm using all clay pebbles, I'm flooding half hourly now because it only takes 5 mins to completely flood + drain with this system ,u think hourly would be better ?

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Hi, You have fairly large pots with clay pellets right.... 3 gal or more? From what I understand the roots get a big nute benefit as evaporation takes place. I have 3 gal pots with clay pellets and I have tried flooding every 3 hrs, 4 hrs and 5 hrs. The plants seemed healthy with all flood times but at 5 hr between floods I did not use as much solution and and the PPM stayed much more within range when the solution level dropped. When I flooded every 3 hrs the ppm tended to rise a lot as the solution got lower.

You should be able to flood every hr with absolutely no risk to your plants... Like I said I flood every 5 hrs with great results. Really though.. it is what works well for you. 1 flood per hr would be a good place to start IMHO. Good luck with your system. I love mine. I would never go back to soil again.

MuckyDucky said:

Hi, You have fairly large pots with clay pellets right.... 3 gal or more? From what I understand the roots get a big nute benefit as evaporation takes place. I have 3 gal pots with clay pellets and I have tried flooding every 3 hrs, 4 hrs and 5 hrs. The plants seemed healthy with all flood times but at 5 hr between floods I did not use as much solution and and the PPM stayed much more within range when the solution level dropped. When I flooded every 3 hrs the ppm tended to rise a lot as the solution got lower.

You should be able to flood every hr with absolutely no risk to your plants... Like I said I flood every 5 hrs with great results. Really though.. it is what works well for you. 1 flood per hr would be a good place to start IMHO. Good luck with your system. I love mine. I would never go back to soil again.

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Cheers MD,i will see how it goes once an hour.I am using 11ltr pots ,so yes ,quite big.thanks for you're advice m8.

Call these ebb n gro setups in the US. I us my own and put a thread up on how to build your own for around $100 on the site few years ago. These should flood roughly 4 times a day. 2 lights on 2 lights off every 6 hours. You can drown the plants eventually.

System like this one I built an use ...

FilthyFletch said:

Call these ebb n gro setups in the US. I us my own and put a thread up on how to build your own for around $100 on the site few years ago. These should flood roughly 4 times a day. 2 lights on 2 lights off every 6 hours. You can drown the plants eventually.

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I hear what you're saying Fletch,but this system floods + drains so quickly,I thought more often would suit ?

FilthyFletch said:

System like this one I built an use ...

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Oh,very nice m8, respect to ya. I'm shite at practical stuff,so as I had the cash ,I thought it best I buy one !,

I set my timer for basically how long it takes to fill all the buckets to full. Like on mine I use a 800gph pump and run 18 buckets which are 2 gallon buckets. Your brain bucket controls the flooding. I did my test run with full hydroton pots filled I timed it till all buckets fill and how long it took them to drain back using my 150 return pump. For me I run it 15 minutes per fill it takes about 5 minutes to fill all buckets and about 5-6 to empty them so they get a full 3-4 minute submerge soak but in all almost 10 minutes of watering. I set my timer to flood every 6 hours with the first starting 5 minutes before lights on. I tried few other ways like just 30 minute floods like every 4 hours and it drowned plants and slowed root growth not enough oxygen time. The hydroton keeps the roots moist and the buckets retain maybe an inch of water in them at all time for roots to drink when grown.

Yeah Im the guy who goes and looks at something laughs at the price and figures out how to make it for a third lol. Really everything I needed I got the buckets from the dollar store so 36 buckets at buck each. The T fittings and elbows got at home depot for about $20. The brain bucket was a 38 lbs Tidy cat bucket. The hose cost me $10 some sealent $3, the timer for a jacuzzi cost $12, the diodes cost me nothing I wrote a manufacture for free samples so they sent me 4 for free.The 2 pumps I had one was a pond sump the other just one of my little aero tub pumps...but if bought the little one was $9 on ebay same big one about $30.. so it was like $120 ish if you bought new pumps but since I had them bout $80 bucks. I made 3 to use and still use them 4 years later but working on building new under current replica next for bigger plants.

Hahaha,i managed a few dripp systems me self m8,but its my first go with hydro & flood + drain, so I wanted a tidy system to start. The one I have has sensors,no floats in the brain,the pipe work is 32 mm, u can't time length of flooding, just the intervals,10 min segments. Its built so it can't fuck up,it leaves that to the bloke using it ! Lol

Im looking at the ebay pick I see the big difference is it looks like your system sits in small little like saucers under the buckest while mine is a 2 bucket system where you have the fill bucket which is 2 gallons then the same kind of bucket with drilled holes in it sits inside that bucket with the plant and hydroton. Only way mine would fail is if power went out or a timer or pump died. My has slide floats where the 4 floats are on triggers hooked to the outlets so it turns the pumps on or off. Im curious on what you mean by sensor on these got any pics of inside the brain bucket? lol Im always curious for different things like that.

http://alienhydroponicsystems.co.uk/flood-drain/index.html
Its all m8.

panhead said:

Yes & no , no im not pulling 6 lbs in a 4 x 8 grow area every week , yes i am/was pulling 6 lbs in a 4 x 8 flood table every 7 to 8 weeks , 3 large air cooled hoods with 600 hps in each hood at 1,800 watts of total light over each table , 50 5inch net pots per covered flood table in a sea of green single cola per pot style , each cola yields about 2 zips , some heavier & some lighter so 2 on average , its a simple formula .

Two zips = 56 grams per net pot x 50 net pots = 2,800 grams totaling to 6 & 1\4 lbs per 4ft x 8ft flood table , grow room space is nearly 3,000 sq ft & 8 seperate flood tables were used , each table loaded with fresh clones 1 week apart allowing for 1 table to be chopped every weekend .

Im hitting roughly 1.5 grams per watt of useable bud with the SOG , its not a world record or even a Rollitup record .

Ive posted pics in the past of single pots ready to chop & of the single dried cola that came out of the pot but never of the whole grow for obvious reasons .

I still grow off & on but since selling the co-op i no longer have enough patients to grow those plant counts & weights but im still hitting over 1.5 grams per watt in my dual patient 24 plant grow .

If you want help setting up a sea of green that will yeild 6lbs per 4ft x 8ft table i'd be glad to help .

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BRAVO!!!!!
1.5 grams per watt of flower lighting is very impressive to me (60 day finisher)------best I can do is 1g/w with 3'-4' plants at 12/12 switch.

I've often wondered just how much I could pull with my style of growing-------if I went sea of green??????

I've never run sog and have several questions about process design (clone donors, timing etc.)

Cheers,

Alaric

Alaric said:

BRAVO!!!!!
1.5 grams per watt of flower lighting is very impressive to me (60 day finisher)------best I can do is 1g/w with 3'-4' plants at 12/12 switch.

I've often wondered just how much I could pull with my style of growing-------if I went sea of green??????

I've never run sog and have several questions about process design (clone donors, timing etc.)

Cheers,

Alaric

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Nothing beats sog for yield & speed , proper clones are the main key , you want to use 6 to 8 inch high clones with 6 to 8 sets of nodes , zero side branching .

Using that style clone you'll end up with plants that look like little 2 ft xmas trees but 1 solid bud .

FilthyFletch said:

Im looking at the ebay pick I see the big difference is it looks like your system sits in small little like saucers under the buckest while mine is a 2 bucket system where you have the fill bucket which is 2 gallons then the same kind of bucket with drilled holes in it sits inside that bucket with the plant and hydroton. Only way mine would fail is if power went out or a timer or pump died. My has slide floats where the 4 floats are on triggers hooked to the outlets so it turns the pumps on or off. Im curious on what you mean by sensor on these got any pics of inside the brain bucket? lol Im always curious for different things like that.

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Wow there's a blast from the past ! How ya been man ?

Lol yeah been awhile since been on Panhead. Im getting by found out in December I guess I'm pretty sick so seeing bunch of specialist trying to see if I can beat it or if not at least slow the clock down a bit...How you been doing? Any new exciting news happening around here?

FilthyFletch said:

Lol yeah been awhile since been on Panhead. Im getting by found out in December I guess I'm pretty sick so seeing bunch of specialist trying to see if I can beat it or if not at least slow the clock down a bit...How you been doing? Any new exciting news happening around here?

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Same ole RIU , nothings changed but the faces .

Are you ok ? Sounds like you've got some serious health issues , hope it all works out for you , ive been dealing with health problems myself & it gets old i know , seeing doctors has became my full time job since i retired .

Its good to see you posting again brother , the hydro section hasn't been the same since you split & i hope you stick around , haven't seen a member here match your system building skills in all these yrs .

Its good to see 1 of the original members back on the forum , there's like 5 of us left now that your back .

Yeah I missed coming round... It was getting weird with the newer bunch lotta arguing and dickhead stuff. Few mods were getting abit power happy and well me and roll never been eye to eye lol. Imma try to stick around until I get myself tossed again....I went in to see a doc since I haven't had insurance so last time I was like 12..went in to see about getting an embilical hernia I had for last few years fixed been hurting a lot.. They had me do some blood tests called me next morning to come back in.Found out I have some genetic disorder now where my body isn't processing cholesterol correctly so my level should have been like under 200 mine 785 and my Triglycerides should be around 200 mine were 8000.. soo this caused big issues. It damaged my pancreas, so I'm not making enough insulin so it made me diabetic my glucose was 387.. It damaged my kidneys my creatinine should be around .08 mine was 2.9 so slow failure on those... My heart muscle is damaged so have to see how bad that is in a soon future visit and I'm probably going to go on a special dialysis called electroferisis that will filter the Triglycerides out of my blood and hopefully get things started better or at least stop more damage for right now.... I pretty much feel shitty everyday..I'm trying to change things like diet and exercise so I have to avoid diabetic foods such as sugars and carbs while avoiding fat, calories, and cholesterols..pretty much everything that's food lol.... I dropped 30 lbs since dec 22 got my glucose to around 114 with no meds and have to get new tests to see if I'm dropping the Triglycerides at all or else machine time... Who knows about the heart stuff yet that's another visit and test...All i wanted was my hernia fixed but they said yeah that's not even a concern right now lol...Life you gotta just roll with it.

I'm wondering why everyone here is bugging so much about drowning their plants? If it were that easy to drown your plants then I would think DWC would be impossible. As long as the water is oxygenated, and in an ebb and flow system it almost 100% of the time is, you shouldn't have any worries concerning "drowning" your plants/roots.

I flood my small ebb table 1x every 90 minutes. And I flood my ebb buckets 4-5x a day in flower and 1x every 2 hrs in veg. When I was using the 2 gallon net pots I would flood much less because all of the hydroton (it drains well but it does hold a lot of moisture). I converted my ebb buckets to use 5" net pot lids (much less hydroton) which gives the roots 10x more space for roots and I can flood as much as needed with out any negative effects. I think flooding times is dependent on how much hydroton is in the net pots.