First time using flood table - tips welcomed!

Beezcheeze

Beezcheeze

Well-Known Member
heres my first 2x4 flood tray.
Here's what I've run into so far and my solutions. Please give feedback

I had a small 185 Eco plus pump that I tried to use to flood the tray first. It took too long to flood and wouldn't work.
Went with a larger one and it sprayed up and out of the flood tray about 1 cup each time. Also, the larger drain hole had the overflow fitting on it. So it took super long to drain too.

So I used the larger pump hooked up to the larger flood tray drain hole and a small screen over the small hole to prevent clogs.

The room is under 24/7 light and the pump comes on starting at 8:27 am and off at 8:30... And the same thing at 4 hour intervals 24 hours a day. It takes 2 minutes 30 seconds to fill and then another 7 minutes 30 seconds to drain. The res can't hold enough water to ever flood the tray so I'm not worried about any leaks besides the fittings.
My thoughts are that all of the water will be exposed to light for around 1 hour each day. And there is good bits of water left in the tray after draining so that will get mixed back in with the nutrients once sitting under the light for 4 hours.

I'd hate to be messy and fill the whole tray with hydroton(also don't have enough) and think it would just float around anyways but idk.

I do have some coconut fiber mat lying around but thought that it may never dry out during the 4 hours between floods.

Someone with some experience please give me some advice from our experiences. Thank you!
 

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Beezcheeze

Beezcheeze

Well-Known Member
I've since covered the table with panda film and am flooding every 3 hours. The res stays nice and cool and the plants seem to be slowly coming back from my fuck up...
I didn't cover the base of the roots coming out the Rockwool good enough so the edge roots died. The inner roots seem to be starting to catch back up and hoping they'll all do good.
Decided to use these for taking clones to put into flower
 
dadio161

dadio161

Well-Known Member
I would take off the extension on your drain plug . You don't need to flood the tray so high . A 2" flood cycle for 15 minutes at a time should work .
I also use a 2' x 4' flood tray.
On my system , I use a 1/2" hose running from the pump to the FILL fitting . ( I use a 250 gph )
I use a 3/4" hose on the drain fitting .
This allows tray to fill with water and NEVER over fills .
 
Last edited:
Beezcheeze

Beezcheeze

Well-Known Member
dadio161 said:
I would take off the extension on your drain plug . You don't need to flood the tray so high . A 2" flood cycle for 15 minutes at a time should work .
I also use a 2' x 4' flood tray.
On my system , I use a 1/2" hose running from the pump to the FILL fitting . ( I use a 250 gph )
I use a 3/4" hose on the drain fitting .
This allows tray to fill with water and NEVER over fills .
Click to expand...
The roots aren't that low yet so flooding higher right now.

I did have my pump attached to the 1/2" inter but it shot up too high in the air during start up. And when the table drained through the 1/2" hole, it took like 15 min in itself to drain.
There's not enough water in my res to ever over flow the tray so I hooked the pump to the 3/4" tubing and the overflow fitting to the 1/2" hole.
The table drains fast now and the flooding seems perfect.

Right now the pump pumps water 30 seconds longer than it takes to fill the tray, but when I change it to a 2" flood, it will be different, will have to mess with the time again when I switch.
 
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