Perpetual SOG with Different Strains?

I built a 4'x3'x3' flowering box that was initially intended for a soil SOG with 6" square pots. However, after realizing that differing strains and even different plants of the same strain consume water at different rates, I want to switch over to hydro after the first couple of harvests. My plan is to use 6" or 5" square fence posts to hold the plants. I could lay them horizontally for NFT or ebb and flow or vertically for DWC. They'll have minimal veg time, probably being sent to the flowering room as soon as the clones show signs of new growth.

Flowering time is 8 weeks for one strain (Mataro Blue) and 9 weeks for the other two (White Widow knockoff and Blue Dream). There would be 8 rows of 6 plants, but the first row would have 10 plants to compensate for the extra week of flowering. Each week, the last row would be harvested, each row moved to the next, and a set of clones added to the first row. Ideally, I would want to just lift the net pots and move them to the next row, but I could slide entire rows (except for the first) over if moving just the pots isn't gonna work out. Vertical space is only 3', but I built 2 100W (actual power consumption, not just rated power) LED panels that share an external power supply circuit that I also built, so the height used by lighting is less than an inch. (Note that I will probably build more and/or larger LED panels after the first couple of harvests)

What kind of hydroponic system should I use for this? Should I separate the plants by both week and strain, or can I get by with only separating them by week?

I wanna do DWC, but I'm afraid that the fence posts would get filled with roots very quickly, leading to constant topping off of the small reservoirs and possible clogging of air stones. It would consist of vertical fence posts with an air stone in each one. Plants of the same age and strain would have their reservoirs joined with a PVC pipe to make checking pH and PPM easier and to keep their water levels the same. I'm not sure how I would do rDWC or URDWC with the limited space, but I'm open to those if anyone has suggestions.

I believe ebb and flow would be the simplest. However, algae and possible death of several plants at a time due to broken pumps or power outages don't seem appealing to me at all. It would consist of two horizontal fence posts (six if strains should be separated) per row. The top would be the flood table, and the bottom would be the reservoir.

I haven't really given much thought to NFT, but I'm open to it. Same arrangement as ebb and flow, but the top fence post(s) would be at a slight angle. I also don't like the risk of pump failures and power outages with this setup either.

I'm open to any advice, even if that advice is to not do hydro until I have more space to work with. As long as there's reasoning behind it, I'll listen. Thank you in advance.

You can do ebb and flow... and the strains that need more nutes you can "hand water" to give them more nutes "manually". I love ebb and flow, old school SOG (short plants) with perpetual cycle, it is the easiest way to get huge yields. You can about 20 - 40 plants in rockwool easily on that table if you pack them tight and just grow colas. http://www.mjguide.com/tutorials/Hydroponics/1275.htm

Glad to see somebody down with the old school ways. Hope that helps?

_MrBelvedere_ said:

You can do ebb and flow... and the strains that need more nutes you can "hand water" to give them more nutes "manually". I love ebb and flow, old school SOG (short plants) with perpetual cycle, it is the easiest way to get huge yields. You can about 20 - 40 plants in rockwool easily on that table if you pack them tight and just grow colas. http://www.mjguide.com/tutorials/Hydroponics/1275.htm

Glad to see somebody down with the old school ways. Hope that helps?

Click to expand...

I had never thought of adjusting the nutes so the most sensitive plants were happy and then hand watering the hungrier girls. Thank you very much for that idea; that's certainly something that will greatly impact my decision when the time comes. Also, how long do you reckon I'd have (until plants start dying) to replace a pump if one breaks or get a generator going if the power goes out? That's the main thing that's steering me away from ebb and flow . I'll be using LECA or rocks in net pots.

It is good you are thinking of contingency plans, making your grow bulletproof! If for some reason the power goes out, you can hand water all of them manually until the power comes back.... Do you lose power often? Also you can buy another pump for a "hot spare" backup.

My neighborhood loses power for usually about an hour a few times during the summer due to aggressive thunderstorms. If it happens while I'm away or during the night, how much would it hurt? Losing power for several hours is rare, but I'm still worried about losing months of progress in case something like that happens as well.

I prefer flood & drain sog with oversized rez , i like the flood tables with the gutters in the bottom for power loss , if you set your flood table dead flat the gutters will allways retain an inch of water , standard wilt time in power outage for me is 48 hrs & they can snap right back with an hour long flood , a 24 hr outage wont even hurt my girls because of the water the gutters retain & i use 5 inch net pots filled with medium & zero medium in the table , i get massive root mass that fills the gutters 1st then the entire bottom of the table with one big white carpet of roots .

I think you should stick to a single strain atleast until you get the system dialed in , its alot harder to diagnose a problem in 4 strains in a new set up vs a single strain .

panhead said:

I prefer flood & drain sog with oversized rez , i like the flood tables with the gutters in the bottom for power loss , if you set your flood table dead flat the gutters will allways retain an inch of water , standard wilt time in power outage for me is 48 hrs & they can snap right back with an hour long flood , a 24 hr outage wont even hurt my girls because of the water the gutters retain & i use 5 inch net pots filled with medium & zero medium in the table , i get massive root mass that fills the gutters 1st then the entire bottom of the table with one big white carpet of roots .

I think you should stick to a single strain atleast until you get the system dialed in , its alot harder to diagnose a problem in 4 strains in a new set up vs a single strain .

Click to expand...

48 hours just to wilt? That's extremely reassuring! What's the height of your flood table and the volume per plant of your reservoir?

I was pretty set on doing DWC, but you guys are strongly swinging me towards ebb and flow. I still want to go with the 3 different strains, even though it'll be tougher to get everything dialed in. I might just convert one strain to hydro at a time, though, to make it easier.

I would also do tables w 6" Hugo rockwool cubes. I did extremely well using this method for years. As already stated run nutes lower for finicky plants and hand feed the others!