Pots of hydroton floating flood and drain table

firsttimeARE

firsttimeARE

Well-Known Member
So I'm new to f&d. Long time dwc grower. Pheno hunting and didn't wanna have to check a couple dozen dwc buckets. So I thought I'd do 1gal pots of hydroton. I filled system and flooded today and pots started floating and some tipped.

Wtf is up with that?

What do y'all do to keep your pots down?

Thinking of just suspending netpots on a rail type system
 
HydroRed

HydroRed

Well-Known Member
Thats what I use are 1 gal pots with hydroton and have never had a problem? How deep are you flooding your table?
 
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firsttimeARE

firsttimeARE

Well-Known Member
HydroRed said:
Thats what I use are 1 gal pots with hydroton and have never had a problem? How deep are you flooding your table?
Click to expand...
Like 6 inches. The pots are like 8-9in. and RW cubes are only 2" tall so was trying to get the water to get near the bottoms of the RW
 
70's natureboy

70's natureboy

Well-Known Member
Trial and error dude. I don't like Hydroton a lot because ti floats too easy. Last time I bought Sunleaves Rocks the grow store guy was amazed that I wanted it. He said he hasn't sold any of "that heavy stuff" in a year. I got it for half price lol. I like rocks that support the plant.

Flooding 6 inches is kinda unconventional. If it was me, I would set the rockwool cubes on 3-4 inches of rocks and flood 2 1/2-3 inches. Then as the plant grows I would add another few inches of rocks to cover the rockwool to prevent moldy rockwool and support the stock a little. Then it's off to the races. Flooding 6 inches every few hours makes your pump work harder than it has to and is normally unnecessary.
 
Stink Bug

Stink Bug

Well-Known Member
firsttimeARE said:
So I'm new to f&d. Long time dwc grower. Pheno hunting and didn't wanna have to check a couple dozen dwc buckets. So I thought I'd do 1gal pots of hydroton. I filled system and flooded today and pots started floating and some tipped.

Wtf is up with that?

What do y'all do to keep your pots down?

Thinking of just suspending netpots on a rail type system
Click to expand...
If the pot themselves floated then you probably need more/bigger holes to allow flood water in and out faster.
 
firsttimeARE

firsttimeARE

Well-Known Member
Yeah the hydrostore guy suggested against them. But it was that or smartpots.

What do you think of using netpots and suspending them above the table? I know an old user here named panhead would do that and get good results. Could flood every hour
 
chiqifella

chiqifella

Well-Known Member
firsttimeARE said:
Yeah the hydrostore guy suggested against them. But it was that or smartpots.

What do you think of using netpots and suspending them above the table? I know an old user here named panhead would do that and get good results. Could flood every hour
Click to expand...
flood 2x daily, pot like these offered here https://growershouse.com/pots-trays/pots-net-pots-mesh-pots/square-pots and no issues.
a few stones will always be floating whatever. flood only a few inches up the pot, dont worry about the rest. first time pour res water manually through the top of each pot, start cycle, morning, mid day, check the bottom of a pot or two in the morning, if wet, you got er done. flowering may need another cycle, depending on your environment. its a set it and forget it system, I loved mine. if I could have done it organic would still be doing it
 
firsttimeARE

firsttimeARE

Well-Known Member
These are the pots I'm using. There are six holes around the edge. So if I filled just a few inches that would wick up?
15176731255236606957011006278372.jpg
 
chiqifella

chiqifella

Well-Known Member
you need 12 holes man, sorry I didnt mention that...pot size will be relevant to plant size. I'd use 2 gallons for plants yielding 2 ounces at 2.5 feet tall for example

yep, water will wick up, roots will find it in days
 
dbkick

dbkick

Well-Known Member
firsttimeARE said:
So I'm new to f&d. Long time dwc grower. Pheno hunting and didn't wanna have to check a couple dozen dwc buckets. So I thought I'd do 1gal pots of hydroton. I filled system and flooded today and pots started floating and some tipped.

Wtf is up with that?

What do y'all do to keep your pots down?

Thinking of just suspending netpots on a rail type system
Click to expand...
I haven't used hydroton since I found sunleaves rocks.
 
HydroRed

HydroRed

Well-Known Member
Those are the same pots I use. I think you were flooding too high. I bury my rooting plugs in the pot so that the botom of the plug is just about 2" above the bottom of the pot. I'll pour in about 1.5"-2" of hydroton into the pot, then set in the plug and fill the rest with hydroton until the top of the plug is covered.
 
firsttimeARE

firsttimeARE

Well-Known Member
This is them on a 40" flood table. Currently at 0.7EC.

My shit Coco in the back. Clearly I'm not overfeeding these like I was told. Leaves keep yellowing and falling off.

MVIMG_20180204_141001.jpg
 
klx

klx

Well-Known Member
I use both methods you mentioned. Pots of clay balls to test new strains and net pots suspended above tray for production SoG runs.

For clay balls you need to bury your stem lower in the pot and you only need to flood a couple inches up the pot. The roots will do the rest. You dont need the rockwool.

Otherwise you can just drop rooted clones in a net pot into holes cut in a lid for the tray and flood as much as you like. I do 30 mins on 30 mins off during lights on. It is closer to NFT than F&D when you do it this way:

CLone 4.jpg
 
PetFlora

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
I replaced hydroton with polished ornamental stones from dollar store. No breakdown, easy to remove post harvest, easy to clean and reuse
 

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