tired of bugs in dirt. wanna do ebb and flow. rez / feeding question

I have done dirt for years, but i'm tired of the bugs that come in it. seams to be more often now days. so i'm gonna try my hand at Ebb and Flow. the norm for me is to feed once a week and plain water as needed the rest of the time. so i'm a little curious about the feeding schedule. do the plants need that time of reduced nutes so they dont burn? or is full strength nutes every day a good thing for hydro?

I have a 4x4 flood tray, 60 5 1/2 net pots and a 45 gal rez. i have the entire tray filled with hydroton as are the net pots. i figured the roots wont get air pruned if there is hydroton in the whole tray, more room for the roots to explore. i have a ton of Advanced Nutes(grow, micro, bloom, big bud, overdrive, carboload, veg tea) but they are 2 years old (think they might be bad) they didnt seam to do much this last dirt grow. i also have some floranova grow, and a bottle of floranova bloom i can use. i dont have a good ph meter anymore so i'll have to adjust the water pre-nutes with my little drop tester. and hope i'm close after the nutes. i have tried testing after the nutes but the water is brown so i cant tell what color the test is. I have a 49gal storage tub from wal-mart with the center of the lid cut out for the hoses (i havnt filled it up to 45 gal yet, i'm sure it will explode and i'll be finding something else)

So that being said... any suggestions on feeding would be great. I have a ppm pen so i can make sure it doesnt get too high or low. When i top off with a gal sshould i be mixing the nutes in that gal? or should they have time in the lower nut solution and add plain water

not much of a hydro guy myself but, I have heard that it is important to cover the tops of the rockwool blocks to deter algae from growing. good luck man I might go ebb and flow next grow as well.

if you got bugs flying around from your dirt and you dont do a proper clean up of all rooms and materials you will get them again in hydro, matter of fact they will have a nicer environment to livwe in between the roots and hydroton, the best shit i ever tried was azatrol in the water, if you water once a week you do a strong mix and saturate your pot, if running a recirculating system like ebb and flow only need 3ml/gal, i had gnats and root aphids, a nightmore worse than mites i believe and this cured me 100%, for the res once you reach 25-30 gallons she will get all bloated and the walls will bend, you can use a tub called the tough box, really thick, or spend $ and get a good botanicare 70gal

i clean and vac the room very well between runs, spray the room top to bottom with bleach and water even behind the panda film. then bomb it with Atain TR. clean all the pots in bleach and water. as soon as i take the cuttings from my mom room and plant them in the new dirt fungus gnats and thrips show up.

And i hear ya on the rez. i put 25 gal in it and it bulged out pretty good. that thing leaked anyways. it was one of the ones with rollers on the bottom. i tried sealing around the holes with plastic weld. but it was just a waste. now i have something to grow potatoes in lol

I add back plain water when I do top offs, as my EC climbs over time anyhow. You run the nutes every day multiple times a day, they only vary week to week if you want to change the feed level. Other than that, you should add just enough water to keep the EC steady throughout the week.

running same 4x4 tray with hydroton. my schedule is 8x5mins in veg and 4x15mins in flower.What is your lighting? how are your going to do clones?? i recommend a aerocloner. good luck

For myself I had to lose the planters...I hated the roots getting tangled up in those things.

The bed of hydroton on its own is porus enough to let air at the roots. That's a "key" benefit of Hydroton.

But I find the plants to be very sensitive towards the amount of nutes being used. This was especially true when I started flowering. I use the exact same nutes as you too...strongly recommended by hydro-stroe guy.

So really add a little nutrients at a time is my advice to you. Really watch the upper palm leaves "tips." At the first sign of yellowing drain your res and delute the TDS.

I burnt the fuck out of my plants and found this out the "hard-way"....hope it helps.

ya now that i have filled the tray with the hydroton and flooded it a few times i realized i really didnt need to get all those net pots. Anyone wanna trade 60 net pots for a good rez? lol

@ seanec: i have a digi 600w Hps. i have a Aerocloner 42 site. i learned a trick from a guy, now i put 3 cuttings per neoprene insert. doesn't take much to pull the roots apart if you get em out quick

Only downside to filling the tray with hydroton is the roots all grow together. Now picture this, your in week 3 flower and you have a hermie pop up (shit does happen from time to time) you have to pull it so it doesn't seed your crop rite. Well now you have the old rootball rotting in your tray producing some very nasty bacteria whose next stop is your healthy roots.

O and I like cloning with Root Riot cubes and a tray if I'm using a solid media like soil, hydroton, perilite, ect... If I were doing DWC or Aero systems, I would use a aerocloner. Less root disturbing = less stress = faster/more growth. Just my 2c.

that is a good point "Someguy maybe i should just fill all the net pots and have them in there weather they have a plant in them or not. just to keep the light off the bottom