Topping off my Flo n Grow?

I will be running a 16 site flo n grow in coco. Will likely flood 2x per day, not sure on the times. I have a few questions. It is a 2000 watt room on light rails running house and garden nutes. Room is cooled with a 24000 btu mini split. CO2 is implemented as well.

1) How high do I need to fill the res for a 16 site? I was thinking somewhere around 40 gallons. Res will be changed once per week.

2) Do I replace nutes when topping off, if so, how much?

3) How often and when would you flood?

4) What temperature should I set my chiller to? Thinking around 65.

Read a lot more before diving in here.Do you have your good quality meters? You can find all the answers on this site. But you need to read and read a lot. Such as topping off the res. You ask which - water or soup. That depends.

How big are your sites? thats a huge factor in res size but assuming u have a 50 gallon res, i'd just fill it all the way. more water means more pH and TDS stability. watering twice a day in coco? i'd recommenced a lot of perlite mixed in or less watering. i water coco plants in 10 gallon pots with 2 gallons of water every other day. also thats a fucking huge ac for 2000 watts lol. u can run 6 lights with that easy.

clayawesome said:

How big are your sites? thats a huge factor in res size but assuming u have a 50 gallon res, i'd just fill it all the way. more water means more pH and TDS stability. watering twice a day in coco? i'd recommenced a lot of perlite mixed in or less watering. i water coco plants in 10 gallon pots with 2 gallons of water every other day. also thats a fucking huge ac for 2000 watts lol. u can run 6 lights with that easy.

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Its in a flo n grow, not hand watering. Its a 55 gallon res, with 16 4 gallon pots. The a/c is large enough to combat 4000 watts in the room, eventually, as well as a co2 burner.

hotrodharley said:

Read a lot more before diving in here.Do you have your good quality meters? You can find all the answers on this site. But you need to read and read a lot. Such as topping off the res. You ask which - water or soup. That depends.

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Yes, I have a bluelab trucheon ec meter, as well as a bluelab ph meter.
Ill list all my supplies.
-Bluelab trucheon ec meter
-Bluelab ph meter
-Enough house and garden nutes for a fulll run.
-16 site flo n grow with coco liners.
-1/10 hp chiller
-Co2 tank and regulator
-2x 1000 watts on light rails
-2 ton mini split w/ heat pump.

Ive got basically everything down, the one thing I am troubling to understand is the replacement of nutrients in my res. As well as when to set the brain to flood. In flower I will flood twice per day.

Okay EC and TDS are 2 very different things. You must swap your solution at times. The Total Dissolved Solids are composed partly from used nutrients etc. So an EC of 1.4 that stays static but TDS is climbing it's time to change res solutions. But if you have your EC at 1.1 and see it drop next time you check it is time to add water and add nutrients. If the EC is the same as it was prior, top it off with water. Regardless of what the meters say, watch the plant for signs of nute burn or deficiency.

hotrodharley said:

Okay EC and TDS are 2 very different things. You must swap your solution at times. The Total Dissolved Solids are composed partly from used nutrients etc. So an EC of 1.4 that stays static but TDS is climbing it's time to change res solutions. But if you have your EC at 1.1 and see it drop next time you check it is time to add water and add nutrients. If the EC is the same as it was prior, top it off with water. Regardless of what the meters say, watch the plant for signs of nute burn or deficiency.

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Yeah the meter measures EC and TDS. Although wouldn't the EC and TDS change together? Say im at 1.4 ec which is 700 TDS. Then the next day im at 1.0 EC or 500 TDS. This means the plants are drinking up the nutrients which is when it is topped with a soup, correct?
And if the ec/tds stays steady, the plants are drinking water, so top off with water.

So mixing the soup. Would i just mix up how much i need to top it off, at the same ratio as the origional solution?

Yeah, I'm also confused by the comment that involved EC or TDS changing independently of each other. TDS meters actually measure EC and then convert it to TDS mathematically, at least that's what I read. As I understand it, EC and TDS are simply different ways to represent the same thing.

Tds and ec are the same as far as growers are concerned, tds is just conversion of the EC. I run a 135L res that does 6 plants and only have to add back on rare occasions when I dont have time to do a res dump. Read the Lucas formula for some great info on res maintenance. I dont follow the formula but did gain valuable insight into nutrient use. When I do add back I get my EC to the starting point (which I run on the low side) after adding water. I dont have a set schedule for dumping and do it when PH starts to drop off, which is from 5 days to 10 depending on stage of growth. 40-50 gallons should be adequate, your looking for stability over time. Not sure about the 65F and you may want to get some more recommendations on that one but I try to keep mine around 67-70, but dont run a chiller, i find things slow down a bit if too cold.

Bluelab makes a nice constant read meter. It's a bit pricey, but u can set it to read whatever your preference, ppm, EC, or TDS. Also has alarms u can set to let ha know if EC or ph drifts to far. Aw hell for a 100 bux more you can buy one that self adjusts ph. Sorry I'm rambling lol

toaster struedel said:

Bluelab makes a nice constant read meter. It's a bit pricey, but u can set it to read whatever your preference, ppm, EC, or TDS. Also has alarms u can set to let ha know if EC or ph drifts to far. Aw hell for a 100 bux more you can buy one that self adjusts ph. Sorry I'm rambling lol

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I like the bluelab trucheon to measure ec/tds.