Help With Flood and Drain Medium Choices

so i have 4 4x8 trays with 18 plants in each tray. I currently did a run with terrapots and wasn't impressed with the roots after harvest, seems they needed more oxygen and the bags did not drain easy at all when i would flush them. So i'm thinking of changing up the pot medium (3 gallon pots)

Option 1:
Smart pot with hydroton layer at the bottom maybe 4 inches up the pot...then on top of that maybe a mix of hydroton and terra soil

Option 2:
What about the trays just filled with hydroton? and or a mix of hydroton and terra soil? What are the disadvantages of this?

Option 3????

I'd go for option 2 if it will work, i like that it would be super easy to flush once a week and get plenty of oxygen not to mention unlimited space for the roots to grow.

I run 8 1000 lights in a perfectly sealed room no in or out air...also just added a biowave google it.

Have you considered using Hydroleca clay pebbles and/or mixed with Cellmax grow cubes(rockwool) available most places www.growell.com or www.greenshorticulture.com , works well for me...

Lightweight and re-usable with no mess...... win win i say...

I would stick with one medium for ease of cleaning. If you're just throwing it away any combo should be good.

Dam. That Biowave is $$$$. Let us know how that works. They should make something a little more affordable for smaller rooms.

Do you have to do res changes with ebb and flow? I do RDWC and considering building my own E&F system just so I don't have to keep doing res changes all the time.

The best medium is no medium at all. Use XPS board with 2" netpots.

The 2" netpots are like $.10 a piece and reusable, the Rapid Rooters are $.32 cents, the XPS board is $20 a sheet but reusable.

All you do is cut the XPS board so it fits tight around the ebb and flow table, then drill holes that the net pots fit in (only use 1" thick XPS board, if you use 2" the net pot will be above the water)

It's sweet because you don't have to buy anything, or PH adjust anything, or worry about throwing out anything. You can also see the roots directly, and I would guess it gives more oxygen to the roots than other methods. It also keeps your roots / res cool, because XPS board blocks all the heat from the light. Best thing about this method though is that the XPS board stays dry and blocks light to the table, so you get almost no algae, and it's easy as hell to clean and doesn't create a habit for pests. Flooding every 4 hours works with this method, though let frequent floods might make for longer roots.

A sheet of XPS is a couple hundred pounds lighter than a tray full of hydroton. Makes it damn nice when you need to reconfigure shit.

I think the only reason this isn't more popular is because it doesn't give the guy at the hydro store a bunch of shit to sell you.

meltdown213 said:

Do you have to do res changes with ebb and flow? I do RDWC and considering building my own E&F system just so I don't have to keep doing res changes all the time.

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??

I didn't think there was a real difference as to how frequently you changed the res? Are you changing the res in your RDWC because you are getting a bunch of crap floating in the water? You can make a filter out of pond filter media damn cheap - you still have to change the res though.

Some people change their res every week in ebb flow. I usually go 2 weeks myself. I do it every other sunday.

thanks for all the input. I change my res every two weeks as well.

Gonna have to look into the foam board, also one side of it is usually reflective which is cool. Gonna check it out.

On my next run i'll update everyone on the biowave. I get all my equipment for wholesale so i tend to try everything

Tibberous is 100% right on. Way more oxygen and space for the roots, way less medium too deal with, The only thing I'd change is slightly bigger netpot for stability, like at least a 3.5". Depends how tall your growin them I guess. Here's a pic of my roots using a 3.5" inside a 1 g bucket.

Lava rock in a Rubbermaid tote. Next time I will put the rock/plant in Air Pots, makes individual plants easy to move around. Lava being very porous can be flooded every hour for explosive growth

I have been growing Ebb and Flow for two years now and am very happy. I grow in rockwool with nothing else. 6" blocks will take you from start to finish with amazing results. I don't use any other medium in my tray. Hydroton just adds to the cost and the hassel of cleaning it after harvest. You don't have to worry about the roots growing out the bottom of the blocks , as the plants will air prune themselves. I use a 2' x 4' tray and six ladies will fill it up in no time . 12 to 16 ozs every time depending on the strains.

tibberous..

What are you using in your net pot to hold the plant in ? Or are u not putting anything , just rockwool cube from cloning, i assume. More details , and pics if possible. Very interested. Thanks

dadio is that under a 600?

Haven't done "real" hydro yet, I'm hand watering coco... fuck my back hurts!

Yes , I use a 400W/600W Nextgen ballast. I use the 400W MH for veg and the 600W HPS for flower. Flood and Drain is the way to go.

Thedillestpickle said:

dadio is that under a 600?

Haven't done "real" hydro yet, I'm hand watering coco... fuck my back hurts!

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