For All Cap Ebb and Grow Users

Can anyone help me with my first E & G grow? I am changing over from clothe dirt bags. I am trying to get over having been badly infested with fungus nats, eggs in roots, septoria (leaf/root mold), and pythium (common root rot carried in my fungus nats - strips the plant of nutrients and looks like nutrient deficiencies). I am installing germicidal florescent bulbs to cycle on for airborn mold spores, planning to add hydrogen peroxide to every nutrient change (don't have the money right now for UVC water treatment filter), and needing to know how to boost insurances to treat res to keep the mold out of the root system now that it is in my home and growing area. I plan to clean and treat everything with H202 & bleach, but wondering how to keep cost down on nutrient changes. Can I get away with bringing up the ppm's and keeping nutrients in res for 2 weeks rather than change every week? How much H2O2 will be effective if boosting H2O2 is acceptable after a bad infestation, or should I just toss the nuts' every week? If I do that then maybe the UVC water filter is cheaper than wasting the nuts'.

I am actually building my own controller bucket, so I can set the levels for switches at any hight in bucket. My tent is currently raised 1" off the floor with sheet of foam insullation under floor lining to keep roots off cold concrete floor in winter months. I plan to put the controller outside the tent on floor next to res so my 2 gal buckets will be up 1 inch. Should I get them another one inch higher to allow for nutrients to completely drain from grow buckets back to the controller? The design of switches requires space for the lower float switch to move so I know my system will have the same design flaws, but I can run my top switches a little higher to allow for higher water levels. Having thought about STG, RW, root rot, and algy, I too figured on needing some drier space and even the need to cover over the top from light and bugs. If I raise buckets up 2 inches then if I allow for the same measurements as CAP that will mean I have about 5 inches of dry space above the high water level in my grow buckets when nested, is this correct and should I raise my upper switches to bring the top water line up 2 more inches?

CAP shows a vaccuum break 90 degree elbow on their dirrections for the system asmbly in res. Is that something I need to have too? What is the purpose of that? I heard that the water that sits in the bottom of the buckets keeps circulating all the time. Does that vacuum break have anything to do with that? I was thinking of just running my hoses straight in and out of the res and controller bucket. Do I need that twisted plastic to help hold the hoses up too?

I bought the aquabub chicago ebb & flow do it your self bucket controller kit. It has five switches rather than 3 like CAP. It uses two on bottom and three on top. Two of the switches on the bottom set work as a pair to turn the pump on and off less, and they have the same design for the top ones too. They have two about one inch apart on the top so that once it is filled up to the middle switch on the top set the pump turns off until the lowest one in the top set is activated, then the pump turns on again. I like this design as it states it helps reduce the amount of cycling on/off that the pump does when filling and/or emptying. Is CAP set up like this in any way, or does it cycle on/off a lot as water moves in/out at the extreams, topping off and pumping out the rest of the water? If so then the pump may cycle on less for my system and nutrients will not filter over as much if I let the water sit like cap does in the grow pots. One thing I think might be the same is that this controller kit has the upper most switch as a backup switch incase the shut off switch fails it will help ensure the fill pump cuts off.

Should just put hose clamps on all my hoses? I was wondering about how well the rubber grommets worked with barbed fittings, but thought any leaking my be more prone between the grommet and the fitting as it passes through the buckets, and I thought it was strange these are not secured better with silicone rubber. I figured I would just give the grommets a try, and that the system must work the way they have it, so just hose clamps as an upgrade on that one?

When thinking about the flush, why not just take an extra outer bucket with a few big wholes in the sides and use it to flush the hydroton out in the bath tub? I realize flushing with tap water is not a great idea, but it could save time as you would get a lot of faster fresh water continuously moving over the stones. Does the pH adjusted water just need to sit on the stone to loosen up the salts? My city water has a pH of about 7.5 which is not too far out of range which I have had to use in the past given all the near death experiences I have suffered through with the infestation of root/leaf mold. Maybe I am just used to how well my plants look in comparison after flushing with higher pH and a little chlorine, both which really helped to kill the molds and help control the problems in a soil based system. I have heard some people actually raise their pH a little in flushing to help clear nutrient salt build up. Is this the correct way to go about it? I have also heard of using a weak flush addive to help clear salts. The one time I tried it with a plant in soil the dam thing hummed and whistled the reaction was so violent. Wow, I thought I was sucking the life out of the plant. I figured it was some type of reaction the flush solution was having with either the dirt, the hydrogen peroxide I had flushed the roots with prior to the flush additive treatment, or that I was just sucking the nutrients right out of the plant backward and that it was screeming blue bloody murder at me for having done that, so I never used flush additives again for soil.

holy shit thats alot of questions.........

Nubby Tubbs, I built my own bucket cloner and it works just as good as any other system you can buy for a lot less. I also built a fogger cloner too, and that thing is great too. I took a black 3 gal bucket, put a 400 gal/min pump in the bottom with a 1/2" pvc manifold with red 360 degree screw in mister heads, about ten. That works really well, but blasts the water on the cuttings so the gel does not stick to cuttings, so I tried fogging. Oh, I also took a really strong fish tank air pump and hooked up a good 5" filter stone on bottom of areocloner bucket to oxygenate the water.

The fogger really is simple and easer to make. I now perfer this to the fancier areo cloning bucket system. You just buy a single head ultrasonnic fogger with the float it sits in off ebay. I paid something like $35 dollars for mine. Then, you get a really good air pump at the pet store with a 5" long high quality air stone. You take the 2" net pots and neopreme plugs and lay them out on your bucket lid and trace them with a marker. I then cut them with a 1 and 7/8th inch hole saw because the wholes come out a little bigger and using a 2" hole saw made the holes a little too loose and some water leaked around edges when it did it on my aero cloner bucket, but the spray is really strong on an aero cloner with high pressure spray jets. This bucket even a 2 inch hole saw would work OK. So, you then just take a pair of snips and snip inside the ring on bottom of net pots to open up your bottom so that the stems of cuttings can go down lower if you need them to. Drill small hole with step drill cutter so that rubber grommet that comes with ultrasonic power supply will fit tightly then pulled through underside of lid. Drill another small hole with step drip to cut size of hole that will snuggly hold fish tank air hose in top of lid too. There you go, now you have a great fogponnic cloner that will not blast the cloning gel off you cuttings and works just a well as any $400 machine. I have clones with these two setups even using the orange home depot buckets without any algy issues. The clones are always rooted well in 7 to 10 days.

I usually start the clones in the fogger until the tips of the roots show, so that the gel is not blasted off when I first cut them. Then I move them to the areoponnic bucket for faster root development. Then, I put them back into the fogger bucket on a cycle timer so that the roots have to open up more to seek water. The fogging cycle causes the roots to think they are in a dry pot needing to seek water so they start growing latterally if you then cycle them this way. This process takes a few weeks, three at the most, and you will have 99 to 100 percent success if you spray cutting leaves with a waxed cloning leaf prep solution, or trim back leaves more... I have also cloned in both with and without any hormones or solutions added and it works great too. I still use the gel even though it will work without it. I guess it roots a little faster that way, not sure I have really seen much of a differnce. Not buying the cloning solution additives anymore. Just pH adjust R/O water to around 6.8 to 7 works for me.

I have cloned some really old nasty woody looking logs with just one leaf using the areo cloning bucket by the way, it just takes a little longer. One time I cut a long branch into a buch of sections and just suck them in the areo cloning bucket with cloning gel on the first and after about 2 weeks had nice roots from all cuttings, and they were in full flowering and woody looking bottom cuttings with little scruff leaves. I never use a humidity dome top and I have cloned them just sitting on the floor next to a window and even right under MH and HPS lights without using any spray sealants on leaves to reduce transpiration. Once I took a plant that fell over, full size 3 foot tall budding plant, washed the remaining dirt out of half the root system that was still intact, stuck it in my little 2 inch foam insert with all my little clones, took my aeroponnic bucket cloner and set it dirrectly under the HPS lights and that plant came right back to grow nice roots. These things don't have to be expensive to work, but you do have to have a drill, hole saw, pipe cutting tool, tap and die set for treading holes for screwing in misting jets... For the cost of a 30 cloning site system you can own the tools and build tons of different areoponnic/hydroponnic stuff. I found that Lowes had a much better sellection of 1/2 inch pvc pipe fittings and they are much better organized. They even have the jets, but you might not find the same red ones that are used in the areojet machines sold commercially. For those, pick them up at your local hydro source. You might want to consider using the smaller size net pots if you want to fit more sites on the top of the bucket lids. You can lay out 12 of the 2 inch net pots on a bucket lid, but I think you can layout around 19 or 20 of the next size down. I just didn't have any at the time I was building mine, so now I have two buckets and found having one areoponnic and one fogponnic makes for two types of systems that work well together.

First of all, I love that controller kit. I just bought one from Auqahub for $120. I agree with you. Since I raised my buckets up 1 1/2" to allow for full drainage, that had made my flood level lower as well. I used a 4gal square bucket this time, and with this kit, was able to place the level of my floods where "I" wanted them, which was were they were supposed to be if my buckets were still sitting level on the floor. Like you said, it also comes with 5 floats. These magnetic reed switchs in these floats are very sensitive, in fact, CAP as had to re-deisign this system a couple of times due to floats burning out. I like the seprate relays for the fill and drain and most of all the extra "over-flow" switch, just in case. Over all a better set-up for sure. After buying pumps and fittings, I saved only about $100. The CAP controller bucket comes with 2 pumps and all the fittings and runs around $260, but is no match for these kits for sure.

As far as the clamps go, I only used a clamp on the hose coming off the drain pump in the controller bucket lid. Mine liked to pop off there. Other than that, not a leak one. The grommets and barb fitting work great and do not need clamps. Just make sure the 1/2" line is all the way on the fitting and you should have no leaks.

AND YES!!!!! YOU NEED some sort of anti-siphon fitting coming off the fill pump INSIDE your res. You can take a straight barbed fitting and drill a 1/8" hole in it. Put in "in-line" with the hole POINTING DOWN. When your fill pump is running, there should be a stream of water coming out and going back into your res. This keeps your whole res from being siphoned out once your pump shuts off. You can use an elbow too, whatever works for your set-up. Just make sure that its there.

As far as the flush, that would work. If you are growing a perpetual crop in this system, and cannot flush due to other Ladies in the system that are not ready. DISCONNECT the buckets and cap the lines on the ones that are ready to be flushed and do so by hand for a week. Remember to disconnect them from the sytem though, you wouldn't want to defeat the pupose by having them still being fed nutes in-between your laborous flushs!!

so i got my ebb and grow, and im putting it together and BOOM! it says there are 3 float switches in the directions, but my bucket only has 2. should i stop what im doing and get a different controller bucket???

Nubby Tubbs said:

so i got my ebb and grow, and im putting it together and BOOM! it says there are 3 float switches in the directions, but my bucket only has 2. should i stop what im doing and get a different controller bucket???

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Each system is different. I have one CAP controller bucket that runs on 2 floats and the aquahub that has 5. I perferr the 5, but both work fine. I am sure that your "kit" should have everything you need to run this system, ofcourse unless it was supposed to come with 5 instead of 3. I assume that its a kit you have and not the CAP bucket because you said you have to put it together, the CAP is pretty much plug & play, only assemb. req. is basically grommets and fittings.

Nubby Tubbs said:

so i got my ebb and grow, and im putting it together and BOOM! it says there are 3 float switches in the directions, but my bucket only has 2. should i stop what im doing and get a different controller bucket???

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The problem with two float switches is that it isnt very safe if one should fail. That's why its recommended to use two floats per level................... It'll be fine until its not. You can always buy a few more floats and just wire them in later, too. They just pigtail onto each other. Check out Aqualab's instructions on their E&F kit and it'll give you an idea of what wiring would be needed. It's a 10 minute job, max. GL!

thanks for the input dudes (ettes?). definitely gonna look into getting more float switches and wiring them in. as far as the brand, it is a CAP system...then the net pots have their name embossed. i even got some hotel sized BC BLOOM nutes haha. unfortunately this toy is gonna have to collect dust till spring when i get an electrician out. my 1000w is blowing circuits, and i need to get that worked out (in 3rd week of flower now). so...ill stay posted and learn up and apply what my limited brain can remember.

wow... sooo many questions. lets touch on the floats. the floats that come with the cap are .25 milli amps, this is a problem. float switches are known as reed switches. they work with a magnet, every time the go up and down there is a small spark. not a big deal until it welds the reed to the contact, turning the switch into a constant on.

far as clones, make sure your clones are planted 3/4" below to outside bucket. make sure you top off the inner bucket all the way to the top... why you ask? because this will keep the humidity down, the light off the nuts, and the fans from drying out the medium between feeds.

on the topic of hydroton.. try sillica stone, it is the shit.

and i will say it again look at the 5 gall growelf, they have a vid on youtube, and on their web site www.growelf.com

i hope kitty wont bite my head off for the growelf push

ears said:

i hope kitty wont bite my head off for the growelf push

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Good advice, too!

Anyone have links to a 240v version of the "ebb and grow" buckets?

hey guys.. i want to do a 36 site.. 4 rows of 9 under 3000 watts. my situation is i need to veg at one house then transfer them to another house. my plan is to veg in 4'' rockwool cubes for a couple weeks under a 400 watt mh then transfer them to the other house.

i know i can't place the rockwool at the flood level, or i might get stem rot if the rockwool is constantly wet. if i place them rockwool cube a half inch above the flood level, i figure i'll have to veg for another week or two with 2000 watts 3' above the canopy in order to get some descent root mass in the buckets so the plants can take the full 3000 watts for flower.

am i on the right track??? i'd love to hear, 'no bro just throw the plant in the bucket with the cube a half inch above the water level and flip them to flower!'. if that will work i would prefer to take that route. they can grow big enough in the rockwool where i really won't need to veg for size, but instead for root mass in the containers. thanks!

cheechee said:

hey guys.. i want to do a 36 site.. 4 rows of 9 under 3000 watts. my situation is i need to veg at one house then transfer them to another house. my plan is to veg in 4'' rockwool cubes for a couple weeks under a 400 watt mh then transfer them to the other house.

i know i can't place the rockwool at the flood level, or i might get stem rot if the rockwool is constantly wet. if i place them rockwool cube a half inch above the flood level, i figure i'll have to veg for another week or two with 2000 watts 3' above the canopy in order to get some descent root mass in the buckets so the plants can take the full 3000 watts for flower.

am i on the right track??? i'd love to hear, 'no bro just throw the plant in the bucket with the cube a half inch above the water level and flip them to flower!'. if that will work i would prefer to take that route. they can grow big enough in the rockwool where i really won't need to veg for size, but instead for root mass in the containers. thanks!

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This way will work. However, there's an easier way. Clone/seeds in 1" rockwool cubes, then veg them in the 4" or 5" square pots full of Hydroton. Then just put em in a big cardboard box to the new place and transplant them into the new Hydroton pots. It's actually the normal way to veg, just most people walk the plants to the flower room, you have to drive.

agreed with kitty in a flood table hydroton in small 1/2gal pots would be perfect. if you use net pots you can just throw the whole pot into the E&G bucket and let'er rip into flower. I always like a few bays after transplant before changing lights dont want to much change at once you know

I did this once and there are a couple reasons to avoid netpots. 1) it makes your root ball into an all you can eat buffet for fungus gnats; too many openings. 2) it's almost impossible to extract the netpot from the bucket after harvest because it's so involved with the roots up near the stem. Not that netpots can't be replaced, but the fungus gnat issue was way worse. Use 5 inch pots. The plant pops out of them for transplant no problem.

mrduke said:

agreed with kitty in a flood table hydroton in small 1/2gal pots would be perfect. if you use net pots you can just throw the whole pot into the E&G bucket and let'er rip into flower. I always like a few bays after transplant before changing lights dont want to much change at once you know

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damn those are some serious root how long was that veged for?

only my 2nd grow but i am using ebb and flow ststem (i assume this is what u on about u call it cap ebb and grow ) btw i am in uk and we talk diff lol

i used flood and drain in my first grow (about 8 yrs ago) not been settled since so no where to grow - now im back

i raised buckets about 1-2 inch abouve res - i do worry about standing water and root mass just sitting in it but so far about 3 weeks into flowering all root nice and healthy - except one mother plant a m8 gave me that is 3 weeks ahead - slight browning of roots - but i tend to ingnore this plant as its out of sinc with rest of my crop

interesting to hear about peoples constant flushing - i should do more except my water pipes have froozen so until we get a thore i am stuck with just topping up res every 3 -4 days

pump set to water x4 daily - at lights on then 3 times every 4 hrs till lights off and once in the middle of night - i actualy feel i could water just 3 x daily but following what others say 4 seems the norm

i am using canna hydo nutes - x2 600w MH - rock wool cubes in clay balls

mrduke said:

damn those are some serious root how long was that veged for?

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Those were grown from seed in flood and drain and are about 110 days old. Part of my mother herd. I just moved all of them (13) into ebb and grow buckets. Going to let them veg in there for a while too I guess I'll flower them someday but I like flowering smaller plants since I only use 600W lights.

how long should i veg 12 sativas under 1000 watts from clone, 4x4 space?

axl said:

how long should i veg 12 sativas under 1000 watts from clone, 4x4 space?

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good luck with that.. i vote 1 day veg.