Advice/guidance please!

I am a legal grower growing indoors. I do not like anybody seeing anything to do with my grow room. I will not take my plants outside for any work or maintainence. This has created one problem for my grow.
I should start by telling you that I grow in soil in 5 gallon buckets. I feel that to adequately water my plants I need to have at least 10% drainage come from my pots after a good feeding. This helps prevent nutrient build ups. I also believe in letting my roots get nice and dry between waterings. My problem is that watering indoors does not give me many options for proper irrigation of my babies. I use 5 gallon pots and 10 percent runoff is half a gallon each plant. I do not like using a saucer under my pots to collect runoff water for several reasons: My main problem is that the saucer won't hold half a gallon of runoff water and needs to be dumped or turkey basted to prevent my plants from sitting in stagnant water until the excess evaporates. I always make a mess attempting to move my pots from a saucer full of water to a dry saucer AND I am good at spilling the saucer full of dirty water on it's way to the dump bucket. All of this gray water in my basement cannot be good for anything.
I have thought about this all day after mopping my floor twice and my best solution is something like this...
I am going to buy a simple Ebb and Flow table. I am considering the American Hydroponics Bigfoot Hydro Garden Complete Package. This comes with an Ebb and Flow table with a 45" X 26" tray, A 30 or 38 gallon reservoir (websites are conflicting that detail) and a pump to move the water back to the top after it's drained. My theory is that I can set 3 or 4 plants in 5 gal pots on the table and water them as much as I feel necessary. The water will fill the table and drip into the res. I will use the included pump to get the water from the res into a bucket which I can carry to a drain one room away.
My concerns are these: Will the table I am looking at hold at least three 5 gallon pots full of soil and water? Does this even make sense? Is there an easier/better/cheaper way to do this?
I am open to suggestions but please stay on topic. I need to be able to effeciently water AND leach my garden in a small space indoors. I will not switch from soil. I won't use smaller pots. I just need to drain them more! All help is appreciated!
RASTAFARI LOVE AND GUIDANCE!!!
 

Serapis

Well-Known Member
If you are willing to buy and install and ebb and flow system, why not just replace the soil with clay pellets and go 100% hydro? If it is a taste preference, soil over hydro, I understand. Some people claim to be able to tell the difference. This is what I do. The bottom of my pots have river rock, about 1" high. I place about 2" of washed pebbles in the bottom of a plastic tote that can hold 6 pots. The rock in pot is to allow roots to drain, the rock in tote allows the pots to sit up out of the standing water.

Another thing you could do too is to do your leeching in the shower or bath tub. Instant drainage. Good luck with solving this problem. I'll be watching for other advice too. :) Good question.
 

Luger187

Well-Known Member
i am using 2.5 gal pots, soil also. i have a scrog in my closet, which the plants have grown into. so i cant move them around. my trays also dont hold too much. so basically the same problem here.

i was thinking of getting a little cheap water pump to pump the water from the trays to a bucket. just hold the tube for a minute in the water. then i can clean up the leftovers with a paper towel. ive only got 2 plants, so its not a big deal. but with yours idk if youd want to manually do that with that many plants.
 
Top