need advice on flood and drain

ValleGrown

ValleGrown

Well-Known Member
legallyflying said:
Yeah you can use starter rockwool cubes to root clones but in terms of using the bigger cubes 4x4 or whatever there really is no need. It's a fine medium and all but my beef with rockwool is: it's not ph balanced, it's nasty shit if you breath it in, it's completely non biodegradable (it's basically like glass), it's stupid expensive compared to the other "non MJ use sources", it holds moisture for a long time, and moss and shit grows on top if it. Other than that, it works fine. LOL


I use peat pellets, or cups of coco to clone. The pellets are nice and small and don't take up any space on my shelf. Once there are some roots showing I just transfer them to small net pots 1-2". And surround them with hydroton. If I used a solo cup
Full of coco I rinse it hard with tap water and most of the coco washes out, leaving just a little coco and the roots.

Hydroton will not wick moisture up through your container. That way you don't have a top layer of wet medium that an grow shot and provide a place for fungus gnats to breed.

Just my 2 cents
Click to expand...
Would you mind describing your process? It would be very helpful for those of us starting up on ebb and flow.
So I have a 6"x6" rw cube. I've started a white widow x big bud in a rapid rooter so are you saying that I should get a net pot with co co l?? !! Omfg I just realized how wonderful that sounds... Keeps it contained.. Yet allows the cocoa to get even distribution. WOWWEE YOU REALLY HELPED ME TODAY
 
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bangkok101

Active Member
drgreentm said:
in the pics you can see the black trays in the bottom of my flood table, first pic is 1 week from literally putting the seeds in papper towels so i consider this start of veg (established) then the last pic is about 2 1/2 weeks from there.
Click to expand...
did you have to top feed that for awhile?
 
ValleGrown

ValleGrown

Well-Known Member
drgreentm said:
in the pics you can see the black trays in the bottom of my flood table, first pic is 1 week from literally putting the seeds in papper towels so i consider this start of veg (established) then the last pic is about 2 1/2 weeks from there.
Click to expand...
How deep is your tray..
and how does the water get into the starter tray did you say holes in the bottom?
 
legallyflying

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Well here us the situation you want to avoid...two different substrates that hold water at different rates. Since hydroton is your primary medium...then you should use hydroton as much as possible. If you have a big chunk of RW surrounded by hydroton. You create a situation that can cause stem rot when you water enough to keep the hydroton (4x day). Your kind of overwatering the RW.

I make clones in cups of coco or peat pellets. Peat pellets just seem easier as I can put them
All in one if those seed starter trays and put a dome on top and a heating pad underneath.

When roots are bursting out of the pellet I simply take them out, hold them in the proper position in a net pot, and carefully surround in with hydroton.

Actually what I am doing now is making clones in pellets, then transferring to 3" net pots full of hydroton. All of them (28) get placed in a DIY DWC setup. Big plastic bin full of nutes and a couple airstones. The roots grow out into the water in a couple days. I veg them here for about 2 weeks. (under a 400 MH) Then I evaluate all of them
for root growth and general health, then take the best 18 and transfer them
To ebb/flow buckets to veg.

It's nice to have a place that doesn't take up much room to veg and pick the best plants. Some
Clones do great, some don't. You need to have a way to cull the herd.
 
ValleGrown

ValleGrown

Well-Known Member
Thanks man I actually just set up my hydroton in my tray. And switched to the GH nutes. So hopefully I will have some explosive growth. Is 847 with 320 of that being my tap water to much for my girl. She is working on her 3rd node with the 4th popping out the center
 
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bangkok101

Active Member
legallyflying said:
Well here us the situation you want to avoid...two different substrates that hold water at different rates. Since hydroton is your primary medium...then you should use hydroton as much as possible. If you have a big chunk of RW surrounded by hydroton. You create a situation that can cause stem rot when you water enough to keep the hydroton (4x day). Your kind of overwatering the RW.

I make clones in cups of coco or peat pellets. Peat pellets just seem easier as I can put them
All in one if those seed starter trays and put a dome on top and a heating pad underneath.

When roots are bursting out of the pellet I simply take them out, hold them in the proper position in a net pot, and carefully surround in with hydroton.

Actually what I am doing now is making clones in pellets, then transferring to 3" net pots full of hydroton. All of them (28) get placed in a DIY DWC setup. Big plastic bin full of nutes and a couple airstones. The roots grow out into the water in a couple days. I veg them here for about 2 weeks. (under a 400 MH) Then I evaluate all of them
for root growth and general health, then take the best 18 and transfer them
To ebb/flow buckets to veg.

It's nice to have a place that doesn't take up much room to veg and pick the best plants. Some
Clones do great, some don't. You need to have a way to cull the herd.
Click to expand...
so im screwed with 4x4x2 rw in hydroton? my whole table is filled with hydroton.
 
drgreentm

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
ValleGrown said:
How deep is your tray..
and how does the water get into the starter tray did you say holes in the bottom?
Click to expand...
my tray is about 5 1/2" deep, the starter trays are 1" tall and i set my flood level at 2" so that the cube is only sitting in 1" of the water, in the pics you can see what the trays look like. each cup has a hole in it and the roots grow into the cups so eventually (when it roots out of the cube) the roots grow into the cups and are mostly whats getting submerged rather than the entire block, it helps to keep the cube from being over watered and allows you to water much more. i cant use hydroton in my tray because i plant the cubes into a ebb and grow for flower and i wouldnt be able to move them if they where rooted into hydroton, plus i always hated picking all the rock out of the little cracks and crevices of the tray (i always liked pots when doing flood and drain.
 

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legallyflying

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
I doubt your screwed with the RW block. People do it but I don't think it's ideal. What is ideal however is to get sown panda film, cut x's in it, place it over your hydroton and thread the plants through. It will keep your roots cooler, prevent algal growth and reflect light back up to the plants.

Your nutes seem at a good level for another week or two. I can't recommend foliar feeding 2x a week with a quality kelp mix. I use sea green I think it's called. It's expensive but it's 1ml a gallon for foliar so it will last forever. Will work very well given your chemical nutes.

Cheers
 
legallyflying

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
I don't trust anything vegan. If you don't eat ice cream or honey, something is wrong with you in my book.

But anyways, I typically only foliar feed macro and micro nutes if there is something wrong with the plants, principally some kind of weird ph. Sine I'm in hydro now, I don't really have a substrate ph so I don't have problems with ph based lock out. Somethings just work better when applied foliar. Kelp extract is widely recognized as one of those things.

Do some research on it, it is amazing amazing stuff but I don't feeel like typing out all the benefits of it.
 
slider11111

slider11111

Member
drgreentm Do the roots grow through the small holes in the root trays during Bloom? Could I use this same set up with 6 inch RW cube?What size do you drill the small holes? Do you have any pics of the same table during Bloom?
 
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