Flood & Drain System for Mothers

Hi All,


I am going to undertake 4 mothers using a flood and drain system. I have never used rock wool before and never tried flood and drain. I was wondering if anyone could give me a basic layout on how I should tackle this. I do not need info on nutes, air flow, lighting etc. All I need is:
-how I should set up my system for feeding(how often and for how long)
-how long should I have my lamps running on a daily basis (18-6, 20-4?)
-how often should I clean my reservoir
-do you use water bubblers? if not why? if so why?
-common mistakes made with such a system etc

Please note that I am using reversed osmosis water with this system and I will be doing 4 mothers using a 10 gallon reservoir.

Also any feed back or links about growing and maintaining mother plants for cloning would be helpful as well. Thanks in advance!!​
 

Ledfun

Member
Just food-for-thought for you; I use dirt for my Host Plants, (Mothers), because using hydro makes them grow just too damn fast. The potential for harm increases also with using hydro. Dirt lets the plants grow nice and slow and is more forgiving of problems. The Host Plants can be re-potted as often as needed and kept for a long, long time with little effort.

I would suggest that you rethink using hydro for your Host Plants unless you're selling clones. If that's the case, then hydro is most definitely the way to go for massive clone rates.

If you're just locked in on using hydro, I can advise you on using it for growing your Host Plants. Just let me know.
 

Ledfun

Member
How many clones would you get 2-3 weeks with hydro using four hosts?
If your Host Plants were maintained with about 10 tops each by using topping while they were growing to about 25 inches tall, you could take 4 clones a week off each plant if grown aggressively in hydro. That would be 16 clones every 7 days off of 4 plants. By using dirt, it would be about half that many.

This is pretty general. It would depend on your lighting and what nutrients you were using also.
 
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