First Time Ebb & Flow question

hello guys, im a new grower and made a bit of a diy ebb and flow system to test out how it goes with a 12 plant mini SOG. On a traditional Ebb and Flow table the plants are placed directly on top of the table, i didn’t want the roots to be too constricted to the bottom of the the table so i used the lid to have them a bit elevated as shown:



You can’t really see the roots too much from this picture these clones are about 16 days old now i transfered them here from rockwool cubes about 6 days ago and now a lot of roots are coming out through the bottom and reaching the bottom of the “table” as shown in this picture:



Now my question is, should i add a layer of hydroton clay at the bottom of the “table” ? Would it make a difference? And will the roots coming out like this become a problem? Thanks a lot for all the help I’ve been a lurker here for some time which helped me a lot in building this setup

I made a similar system years ago I used hydroton clay rocks on bottom once another time nothing I liked the rocks gave the roots something to cling to and grow around ….I then put it up went back to dirt and a few years later put bubblers in it and did clones worked like a champ matter of fact I just pulled it out a few days ago gonna do clones again when I replace the top I split mine

bulla said:

I made a similar system years ago I used hydroton clay rocks on bottom once another time nothing I liked the rocks gave the roots something to cling to and grow around ….I then put it up went back to dirt and a few years later put bubblers in it and did clones worked like a champ matter of fact I just pulled it out a few days ago gonna do clones again when I replace the top I split mine

Click to expand...

Thanks for your input, that is what i am going for i wanted them to have something to cling to my only worry is that i saw some of the clay pebbles are pretty small, would there be any damage if they got into my drain and then rez?

I would skip the Hydroton(clay pebbles) mainly because it will just take up space you will need/want for roots. That container looks a little small for 12 plants even with a mini SOG setup. Even small 3 node lollipop'd clones approx 10in at flip have a pretty big root mass. So your sacrificing extra nutrient volume for something the roots to cling on to. Normally having the roots cling on to something will help stabilize the plant from tipping over. I'm getting a little "wordy" now, but I will try to explain my train of thought. If you let the plants vege and become BIG you will definitely run out of room in the tub to contain all the roots. So you will need to flip/flower them before they get too big. If you vege them for a short period and keep them small the roots won't get out of hand and that tub should be fine. Since the plants aren't that big you don't have to worry too much about "stability" of the plant. I would definitely run some type of support method for the main cola once your flower, but that should be plenty of support. Roots don't need to attach to anything to grow healthy (in a DWC setup the roots are submerged in water 24/7 and don't attached to anything).

I ran 4x4 ebb/flow trays for awhile on a SOG/perpetual grow setup. each 4ft x 4ft would hold 16 plants in 6x6x6 net pots filled with hydroton (clay pebbles). Clones were transferred from nursery to tray with 3 full nodes and 4-6" in height. We veged them for 14 days and they grow to about 10-12in. Flipped them to flower. By week 2 of flower they were usually around 30-32" The main cola was usually 9-11" when finished. After harvesting was the pain in the ass cleaning process. The 6x6x6 pots were always crammed packed with roots, and then there would be a white carpet of roots in the tray. That is why I think if you let the plants get too big you might run into problems with your tub.

When we first started we thought the hydroton would be a great idea because the weight would hold the pot in place and help keep the plant from toppling over. Even with the relatively small size of our plants they often tipped over that first grow. We thought about using other heavier things to weigh down the pots but that created other problems. We ended up creating a cleaver bolting system which was awesome. We place stainless steal bolts in the exact spots of the tray and placed the net pot over the bolt, then simply bolted the pot in place with a wing nut bolt. filled the empty space with hydroton and placed our clone in the basket. We could have found smaller pots to just hold the clones, but we already had all the 6x6x6 pots and hydroton so decided why bother getting all new pots.