Considering Moving from Soil to Hydro, Need Help.

So, presently I'm growing in a soil environment. Typical, 5 gallon buckets using Fox Farms soil and nutes. I'm considering moving from soil to hydro, but I'm not sure where to start.

I had a setup with a bubbleponic system at one time. I had a lot of issues with heat and the constant adjustment of PH due to the small res size. I'm thinking an Ebb and Flow system would work best but I'm not really sure.

I curious about the following:

1. Does anyone have a suggestion on method? Like I said I'm considering Ebb and Flow but I'm not sure of all the pros and cons.
2. I'm a little confused on my veg/flower transitions. My current room has two rooms one for veg and one for flowering. Obviously, I can't move the table from one room to the other. How is this transition usually handled in a hydro setup. With a soil system I just move the plant from one room to the other.
3. Are there any other growing mediums other than Hydroton that are effective. I found this stuff to be extremely messy.
4. Lastly, I'm presently using Fox Farms nutes with my soil setup. I would be curious what nutes most hydro growers use? I'm not concerned about the organic vs. non-organic nute debate.

Thanks in advance.

shinedog said:

So, presently I'm growing in a soil environment. Typical, 5 gallon buckets using Fox Farms soil and nutes. I'm considering moving from soil to hydro, but I'm not sure where to start.

I had a setup with a bubbleponic system at one time. I had a lot of issues with heat and the constant adjustment of PH due to the small res size. I'm thinking an Ebb and Flow system would work best but I'm not really sure.

I curious about the following:

1. Does anyone have a suggestion on method? Like I said I'm considering Ebb and Flow but I'm not sure of all the pros and cons.
2. I'm a little confused on my veg/flower transitions. My current room has two rooms one for veg and one for flowering. Obviously, I can't move the table from one room to the other. How is this transition usually handled in a hydro setup. With a soil system I just move the plant from one room to the other.
3. Are there any other growing mediums other than Hydroton that are effective. I found this stuff to be extremely messy.
4. Lastly, I'm presently using Fox Farms nutes with my soil setup. I would be curious what nutes most hydro growers use? I'm not concerned about the organic vs. non-organic nute debate.

Thanks in advance.

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Sup shinedog.. I can try to help ya out, but can't give ya much info on an ebb and flow. If you need help with bubbleponics, you got the whole bubbleheads crew to help you out. Looks like you already have quite a bit of experience with dirt, and you got seperate rooms too, sounds like a nice setup. I can tell you however, that you won't regret switching to dro.

2. I am not entirely sure about ebb and flow, exactly how that works, but it would be basically the same thing if you had a bubbleponics/DWC as you do with dirt. You'd just take the plant out, roots, netpot and all and either just place it into another bubbleponics or a DWC system if you already have your root mass. N let em roll!

3. I'm sure others can chime in here, but hydroton has worked for me and others alike, usually it is recommended to rinse your rocks in a strainer to get all the brown dust off till the water runs clear. At that point, just place em in your netpot or whatever other container you're using and they shouldn't cause any trouble.

4. If your not an organic person, then I think you will find that Flora series nutes work pretty damn well. Can't go wrong really, real easy to use liquid nutes, there are a lot of charts and such letting you know, at least as a guideline, how much to use at each stage of your grow. I found it pretty streamlined and easy, it was my first grow however with bubbleponics and flora nutes, and tbh it couldn't have been easier esp. with the bubbleponics brothers here to help at every turn.

Wish ya good luck with whatever you decide to do, if you go the route of bubbleponics, be sure to become a bubblehead and you can't go wrong! Peace.

You could try hempy.
You deal with them just like soil pots, and the medium is perlite.
It might be a good transition for you.

For nutes, GH 3 part flora series is pretty much the gold standard, cheap and reliable.
Also, look at the lucas formula for a popular alternative feeding schedule.

Thanks guys. I'm not necessarily opposed to Bubble/DWC just didn't have a pleasant experience with it the first time around. I definitely had a few mistakes with it. I purchased a 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot with the lid and cut a hole for my basket. All of that worked fine but it wasn't light resistant so it caused some issues. Plus, I think the room ran a little too hot for it at that time. Also, with soil I only have to water every couple of days. While I check on my plants on a regular basis checking PH and PPM for multiple plants could prove to be a bit tedious. That's why I was considering Ebb and Flow. Maybe a couple of resevoirs to check levels daily instead of mulitple pots.

bro the system you want to transition depends on how much room you have. If you have some room you can use ebb and flow which is what i like also aeroponics. if you don't have the space i would go with dwc. If you want to veg the plants a while and get huge monsters you can also use dwc in buckets. I use botanicare nutes which are organic, they have a good taste and easy to use. if you want to go the right route without the guess work i would look up the thread a pound every three weeks by stinkbud. PERFECT

Room isn't really an issue. Typically I let my plants veg until they reach about 2 to 3 feet in height. I'm curious with an ebb and flow system do you have two tables one in veg room and one in flower? How do you transition your plants from one table to the other? I would imagine the root system is well established and some plants may have even tangled with others.

Sorry, I'm very interested in ebb and flow. I'm just trying to get my head around it.

Before you go full out hydro, I recommend doing a small hydro grow with like a DWC Rubbermaid setup, or a single tube aeroponic setup. I know it sounds all straight forward but there are a lot of little tricks to learn and troubleshooting to deal with when you first begin hydro.

It's definitely the way to grow, and once you got it down its way cool to not have to worry about individually watering every plant. Just don't bet a whole crop on it right away.

if your doing strait from clone or with short veg then go with ebb and flo (flood and drain) as its better suited to that system, if you like to grow big ones or have plant limits like i do then a bucket system/dwc is better.....as for nutes pretty much all nutes have a line that will work for hydro such as advanced nutes conisuer is best for dirt and sensi is better suited to hydro but both work well either way, also hyfrofarm has a multi bucket dwc system that is cool....its called big texas or something like that, it look s pretty simple in that all the buckets share 1 res, i mean its just buckets connected to a single res so it looks pretty easy to copy

I'm also curious about aero, if anyone has experience here I would love to hear. One of my primary interests is plant sizes. Growing in 5 gallon buckets of soil I can let my plants obtain a fairly large size. It looks as though most aero systems are running around 3in net pots with about the same amount of space between each pot. Seems like a good system, but how are you able to grow large plants in such a small space and with the plants so crowded together?

i like ebb and flow as well. great benefits to using it...easy to move the plants and to work with the res. Are you trying to build your own.... i am sure since it is too easy and would save money. I would think the only problem you would have is having too tall of plants you would need bigger pots or weighted pots to keep your plants from falling over. other than that go for it. I want to see your progress ...luck

I just moved one plant from soil to hydro.

I took a five gallon bucket I had laying around. Cut a hole in the lid and plopped in a net pot. Then I took a rapid rooter with a clone just peeking thru and thru it in the five gallon with some air stones. Two reg size aquarium pumps I used for compost teas.

I guess I got to paint the bucket or cover it. I thru a towel on top. The nutes I have on hand are all soil or botanicare for hydro. Except I have one thing of stealth hydro veg nutes from a kit I had once a long time ago. I remember they worked.

The thing is I am refusing to use dechlorinated water! Lol, I am not getting out my ro filter for five gallons for my hydro experiment. I think Al is always swearing he does not care.

In soil I am all organic and super soil and green. Fro hydro I am going as chem. as I can. I am going to use either GH or canna. Just run the tap water right out the faucet. No fuss.


I have two 4x4x6 rooms. Tents. I use a 600 Lumatek for flower and a 400 Lumatek for veg. I am a tree dude who I think got some bad genetics. I only got an ounce a plant in Sven gallons and I am pissed. I use marijuana seeds nl and it sucked. I hear sim reports over in the organic soil threads.

I am remembering with this dwc and an ebb table I ran but with marijuana seeds nl genetics I had good results but from crappy plants. Like it all worked right with a snap but I had shifty yields anyway. Lame sounding I know. I have a few threads on it.

I am hoping this baby wows me. As it is I can see awesome results up until bud growth as in chunking up in soil. But we will see. If plant number is not a prob and you have more space than me I suggest al bfuct plan as awesome.