How do you drain this hydroponic system?

thanks, pimpn. I put the valves on my system to make dumping my tanks easier. I used to use a spare pump on a piece of hose to drain one tank at a time, but now I can drain all 5 tanks just by switching the valve positions and turning on the pumps- and heading for the coffee grinder. By the time I'm done with my 2nd coffee, tanks are empty & ready to clean & refill.

mountianstar said:

A Plant should be started on 300 ppms from the stage of a seedling and increased by 150ppms every week that the plant is in veg thereafter up to 1200 ppms (which is pushing it a bit).

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Very conservative, probably smart for seedlings. Can't hurt, anyway.

I don't bother with ramping up nute strength with clones. All my flowering tanks run 1400ppm all the time, including the one which handles the newly rooted clones for week 1-2 of flowering. My mother plant system is run a bit stronger at 1800ppm. I put freshly rooted clones right into that system as well when I start replacement mother plants.

Hey AL, B Fuct, what do you put in your tray around your rockwool cubes, hydrotron or do u put nothing.
Also I bought an RO system and the hydro system has a 35 gallon res. I know it takes like 3 gallons of water to make one gallon of water with the RO system or something like that. Is it still cheaper to used the RO system instead of buying water from walmart or somewhere?

pimpnitjc said:

Hey AL, B Fuct, what do you put in your tray around your rockwool cubes, hydrotron or do u put nothing.

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Nothing in the trays.

The RW cubes are not put directly in the trays. They are in pots filled with absorbent media. Each pot is filled with about 25-50mm of tightly packed rockwool in the bottom of each pot with the remainder filled with Fytocell.



This is an older pic. Since Fytocell has a tendency to escape the pot drain holes, in this pic, each pot has a knee-hi stocking over it to keep Fytocell crumbs from washing into the tray. This didn't work so well. Fytocell also has a tendency to float. In later batches, I put in the layer of tightly packed RW floc in the bottom of each pot both to keep the Fytocell in the pots and keep the pots from floating Once wetted, the RW floc is heavy enough to keep pots from floating.

Also I bought an RO system and the hydro system has a 35 gallon res. I know it takes like 3 gallons of water to make one gallon of water with the RO system or something like that. Is it still cheaper to used the RO system instead of buying water from walmart or somewhere?

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How about you just use tapwater? It's served me well for about 20 years.

There's just no need for RO or other heroically filtered water. Chlorine is the indoor grower's friend, suppressing pathogens in rez tanks for a couple of days until the chlorine evaporates. After then, you must use an anti-microbial agent like H2O2 to keep your nutrient soup from being a friendly home to pathogens. Minerals like calcium and magnesium found in tapwater are essential micronutrients, which if they were not in the water would need to be added anyway.

Some folks will maintain that chlorination will kill beneficial microbes in soil. Do you like this 12ft tall cherry tomato plant I grew in my organic veg patch out back last season?



Grown mainly with municipal water right out of the tap. This single plant yielded more than 450 fruit. If tapwater is bad for plants, this plant was ASTONISHINGLY successfully fooled!

Don't waste your money on fancy water. Municipal tapwater is fine.

BTW, instead of me putting long replies to questions directed to me instead of the thread starter, please go here: Al B. FAQt

The PPM in my water is between 300-400. So that will still be ok? Also how long should I wait before giving my week old seedlings a small amount of nutes in soil. I don't understand the subtracting the tapwater ppm from the nute formula to get your ppms.
Thanks for all your help!

Let's not hijack this thread any more- please go here: Al B. FAQt

I use a little hand powered pump that is similar to the drill pump method.
I agree less holes in the tubs are less potential problems for the future.

i would drill a hole and adapt a male adapter that fits like a drain on the sink .then use hose to let it drain down into your res.