the rocks are a bitch to clean tho LOL just curious
Yes indeed the hydroton is a chore.....but it beats buying 5-50L sacks every 14-21 days.
To answer the questions that have been posted in regards to the hydroton cleaning............
1. I use a 5 gallon bucket of water....
2. sumbmerge pot of used hydroton with trunk and root mass undisturbed.
3.Once the pot floods i gently squeeze the outside of the pot as i pull up on the root mass......by doing this with everything in suspension (in the 5 gallon bucket of agua) the root ball comes out cleanly without tearing and leaving behind alot of little pieces of root.........
4.I lay out wet hydroton on large mesh screens (small enough so rocks don't fall through) framed in 2x2s and let it air dry until the bits of roots that are left get dry and brittle.......a week or so......
5.I shake and sift the hydroton on the screens and the bits of dry, brittle roots get turned to dust by the movement of the rocks, I rinse the remaining organic material through the screens and sanitize with a mix of 10ml/L 35%h2o2........dry........rebag in manufacturers plastic bags and store for re-use.
6.I usually smoke a bowl before, during and just after thsi task.....
about how many plants do you fit per tray? and about what do you get off of each tray? its 2 600s per tray right?
Each tray is serviced by a 1kw light on a rail..........
My first "full tray" or full 1kw harvest is in the works now.........I have harvested about 20-25% of the first crop.......the rest is coming ready between now and the 31st.......First run was all 7 strains to trial run and smoke.....they had different flower times and went into flower over a 2 week period.......
Hard to estimate what the full tray will be but so far it has been around 600 grams in wet weight and that dried down to a little more than 5 zips......the bonus is the few grams of hash that I have already enjoyed
Plants, I put between 88-the absolute minimum (11rows x8plants) up to 120-the max (15 rows of
. With 120 i exceed the 6x4 space that I consider to be my primary light area of the trays (40 watts per foot is about as low as I want my light concentration)
96 is perfect as it works out to be 4 plants per foot........
I have the lights on movers but I don't like them to move more than a foot off center in each direction......when they do the ends of the trays start to lose hours of optimal light and requires more rotation on my part....that means more work manicuring lower yielding plants.....more fiddling wwith shit mid-grow, etc............
Hope this helps as far as hydroton cleazning goes........its a chore but aren't all of the steps to hydro.....