Question about ebb and grow 36 bucket system

I have searched this topic for 3 days and cannot find an answer. Someone please help...........

Alright my flower room is already set up and ive been growing in soil for some time now. My flower rooms have a total of 6x1000 watt hps aircooled lights with a co2 setup. I am making the switch to a 36 bucket ebb and grow hydro system. Not sure what brand? i am going to buy yet.

The main question i have is they all come with 55 gal resivoirs. I will be running 36 fairly large plants in the 2 gal buckets they come with (hoping to get 3-4 zips a plants(currently get around 2 in soil) Can i upgrade to a bigger rez lets say like 100 gal res so it doesnt have to be filled so often? It seems with 36 bigger plants and a 55 gal res it will need to be topped off every other day. Am i wrong to think this?

Anyone have any expirence with something like this? THanks for the help everyone.

Also any suggestions for me while switching from soil to hydro? Thanks

what you do is get an extra 55g and the connect the 2 at the bottom with a solid 2" pipe. check a plumbing supply store and get threaded gaskets for both ends. then it acts as 110 gals but will stil opperate propery as designed for a 55g

Do not follow the above advice by mrduke. By following his methods, you'll be unable to properly check ppm/pH because the "dual reservoirs" will not sync the proper levels without water circulation. Thus, your readings are worthless unless you balance out and read each res individually.

Your 36 plants probably will consume about 45-50 gallons of the reservoirs water during the fill. I'd recommend you research ebb & flo lucas formula -- it'll give you the proper technique for topping off the reservoir every few days to save cleaning cycles and save water instead of flushing once every 7 days.

Beyond that, your probably better off ordering the ebb/gro system without the reservoir, and then ordering the size you actually want. Remember when doing pot math that it isnt 2.5 gallons per pot, as hydroton and your plants roots take up a considerable amount of space. Its more along the lines of a little over a gallon a pot based on my experiences.

Oh, btw -- if you add a few more days to your veg cycle, you can put just 4 pots under each 1kW and top them with Uncle Ben's method for 4 colas and you'll save yourself a lot of work and time with less plants!

the 55 gal res will support 48 2.2 gal buckets
so i think you should be safe with 36, im about to pick up an ebb and flow tomorrow and starting with 24 buckets and the owner of the store told me how they are expandable to 48... as mentioned above... hydroton and roots take up considerable space i guess, just the more plants the more water they will consume quickly

cousin morris ova hear wouldnt go passed 24 pots on a single 55gal, if you can and are will to spend the money get a larger res, you will see 30inch plants consume 1/4-1/2gal per plant per day, with 24 sites i have to top off every 2days atleast half the res is gone in 3

thanks for info, i was only gonna do 24 myself

so when you fill with water, you add ONLY water right? and add what, pH of 7 water to the res or do you pH it to say 5.8 or 6.0 or whatever the res is currently at? that is the one thing i am a little confused about

sorry to hijack thread but i think it will help original poster also

so if i upgrade to a bigger res like i was thinking will the line from the res be tight so i have no leaks? That is something that has been lingering in my mind. but am i correct to think that it is ok to upgrade the size of the res?Thanks everyone.

i meant the line from the res to the controler

Cereall said:

thanks for info, i was only gonna do 24 myself

so when you fill with water, you add ONLY water right? and add what, pH of 7 water to the res or do you pH it to say 5.8 or 6.0 or whatever the res is currently at? that is the one thing i am a little confused about

sorry to hijack thread but i think it will help original poster also

Click to expand...

You would need to balance it to 5.8 and ad. Or just top it off and adjust the whole rez. to 5.8 ether would work.

You can string those 55 gallon resevoirs together just fine. Use 2 1" pipes between them, and attach a 5 dollar aquarium pump to each, with float valves attached. The keeps both resevoirs circulating just fine, and is exactly what I did with my last ebb&grow. Using 45 buckets I filled to 100 gallons every 8 days with 4 ft plants.

bigbacon2 said:

so if i upgrade to a bigger res like i was thinking will the line from the res be tight so i have no leaks? That is something that has been lingering in my mind. but am i correct to think that it is ok to upgrade the size of the res?Thanks everyone.

Click to expand...

all you will have is a "fill pump" sitting in the res, that plugs into controller and one return line from "drain pump" that sits inside of controller no water tight seals needed at all. this allows you to use say a 70gallon botanicare res or a garbage can