2x4 Flood & drain container and media contemplation

Hey folks,

Configuring a new little flood/drain table in a 2x4 tent. This will be for 2-4 plants, and likely use a screen to even out the canopy, scrog style, as I don't have a ton of height (the tent is only 6').

I'm debating between the following two approaches:

1) 5" net pots with hydroton with the table covered in panda plastic to allow the roots to grow out of the pots and into the table. (Similar to panhead's old style)
Pros: All reusable
Cons: Roots can clog drain openings. Need to flood more often. Undetected pump failure could lead to plant death pretty quickly. I've considered putting white felt on the bottom to try and protect against this.. however, if I'm going to do that, then why not.......

2) 4" or 6" rockwool cubes straight on the table with no panda plastic.
Pros: More versatile, can move plants around the table freely. Don't need to flood nearly as often, plants can survive a bit longer during a pump failure.
Cons: Need to buy new cubes for each grow. Unsure if 4" (or 6") cube is enough?

I've never used rockwool, but I've read a lot of horror stories. My aim is to make harvest, cleanup and reset as cheap and easy as possible. I'm not looking to fill the entire tray with hydroton or anything like that.

Thoughts?

I ran flood and drain for 10+ years. Used 6 inch pots of hydroton and had great results. I had maybe 1 pump failure and several times I forgot to plug the pump back in and various other silly issues where the plants didn’t have water at all for 48ish hours and never lost a plant that I can remember.

Thundercat said:

I ran flood and drain for 10+ years. Used 6 inch pots of hydroton and had great results. I had maybe 1 pump failure and several times I forgot to plug the pump back in and various other silly issues where the plants didn’t have water at all for 48ish hours and never lost a plant that I can remember.

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Nice! Did you cover the tables at all to allow the roots to grow out of the pots, or would you just let them air prune? (ie, the 6" pot was big enough to take you through flower)

trademanny said:

Nice! Did you cover the tables at all to allow the roots to grow out of the pots, or would you just let them air prune? (ie, the 6" pot was big enough to take you through flower)

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Why not just fill the whole table with clay pebbles?

PJ Diaz said:

Why not just fill the whole table with clay pebbles?

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Rinsing and reusing that amount of hydroton is a non-trivial amount of work. I'm trying to avoid that, if possible. I also like the ability to move things around and add/remove plants with ease.

trademanny said:

Nice! Did you cover the tables at all to allow the roots to grow out of the pots, or would you just let them air prune? (ie, the 6" pot was big enough to take you through flower)

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In my early days I covered the extra table space with sheets of panda film. Eventually I stopped because it didn’t seem to make a difference. The roots air pruned even with the covers and the plant were growing healthy and strong.

I did use 6 inch pots through flower. I also ran many small plants in a SOG style. A few times when I didn’t have enough clones I grew some larger plants in bigger fabric pots in my flood tray. They went fine, but those runs didn’t yield as well as having the whole tray full of single cola clones, and it took longer to veg the larger plants.

I've considered SOG style, but have never done it before. In a 2x4, I could prob get 8 plants in there. You think that would run more efficient yield than 2-4 in a scrog setup? The light is a Mars SP3000.

simplify...drip irrigation, drain to waste in 6" rockwool blocks with caps.
5-15 gal res, small pump, air pump and stones,1/4" drip manifold, tubing, emitters, a little creativity, some imagination...
toss the block when your done. clean up cant get much easier.
rockwool is really simple, doesnt need any expensive bottles. its a neutral medium...whatever is in it you put there.

J. Rocket said:

simplify...drip irrigation, drain to waste in 6" rockwool blocks with caps.
5-15 gal res, small pump, air pump and stones,1/4" drip manifold, tubing, emitters, a little creativity, some imagination...
toss the block when your done. clean up cant get much easier.
rockwool is really simple, doesnt need any expensive bottles. its a neutral medium...whatever is in it you put there.

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Hmmm.... This is like the floracap stuff?

Edit: you've hit the nail on the head as far as simplicity. This does certainly simplify adding nutes, etc. Thanks for the different perspective!

GH flora series 3 part has worked well for me. others have had success with the maxi series.

J. Rocket said:

GH flora series 3 part has worked well for me. others have had success with the maxi series.

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Sorry, I meant the caps they sell, not the nutes specifically.

Where does your runoff go and how is it removed?

Have you used 4" blocks at all?

This is super intriguing.

trademanny said:

I've considered SOG style, but have never done it before. In a 2x4, I could prob get 8 plants in there. You think that would run more efficient yield than 2-4 in a scrog setup? The light is a Mars SP3000.

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In a 2x4 flood tray you can very easily fit 24 plants for a SOG. Each clone gets vegged for 2 weeks in a 6 inch pot to get strong roots. Then goes into flower at 7-8 inches tall. With decent genetics they will finish between 24-30 inches tall, and yield 20-30 dried grams per plant. So that's 500+ dried grams per tray full of plants. I was in a 4x4 tray and ran that way for years. I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well in a 2x4. You would obviously need a separate veg/clone space.

trademanny said:

Sorry, I meant the caps they sell, not the nutes specifically.

Where does your runoff go and how is it removed?

Have you used 4" blocks at all?

This is super intriguing.

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yes, the caps work well. keeps most of the light off the block top and helps distribute the irrigation.
4" blocks are a bit small, imo. prob ok if you veg a shorter time but will likely need more frequent watering/feeding.
I read a test with 4", 6" and 8" blocks a few years ago when I went this route. sorry, dont recall where.
4 was too small, 6 was large enough, 8 was bigger than needed was my take away.
run off drains out of 1020 trays into a trough and out of the space to a catch bottle.
you could just wet-vac the excess out of the tray as well.

You could also do recirculating drip, and handle the res management the same as you would a flood system.

I wont recirculate my plants waste back into the rockwool block system.
it took what nutrition it wanted on the first pass thru.
give it a fresh drink every time and eliminate a whole bunch of potential problems.

You can get 144 4in cubes from cropking for 1.13is per cube. Worth it imo

J. Rocket said:

I wont recirculate my plants waste back into the rockwool block system.
it took what nutrition it wanted on the first pass thru.
give it a fresh drink every time and eliminate a whole bunch of potential problems.

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That's true to a point, but people have been using recirculating systems for a long time with plenty of success. You do have to dump a res weekly, but it's not gonna pull everything it needs the first couple of flows through.

PJ Diaz said:

That's true to a point, but people have been using recirculating systems for a long time with plenty of success. You do have to dump a res weekly, but it's not gonna pull everything it needs the first couple of flows through.

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The guy who taught me had his system dialed in to where the PH would rise through the week from 5.6-5.8 up to 6.5 by the end of the week. He kept a close eye on things to make sure the swings weren't too high or too quick, and he grew fucking monsters in 4in cubes. I was just a kid, and this was years ago, so I don't remember his nute strength or brand, and I kick myself every day for it.

Tolerance Break said:

The guy who taught me had his system dialed in to where the PH would rise through the week from 5.6-5.8 up to 6.5 by the end of the week. He kept a close eye on things to make sure the swings weren't too high or too quick, and he grew fucking monsters in 4in cubes. I was just a kid, and this was years ago, so I don't remember his nute strength or brand, and I kick myself every day for it.

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That's a pretty smart way to do it, the slow and steady ph shift allows the plant to absorb nutes in the different ph ranges throughout the week.

PJ Diaz said:

That's a pretty smart way to do it, the slow and steady ph shift allows the plant to absorb nutes in the different ph ranges throughout the week.

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Right? Dude was masterful before he passed away. My whole goal is to emulate his style and results to the best of my ability, now that I can do it legally.