11 Plant Ebb & Flow

To answer the first obvious question yes I was knighted haha.
This is my first attempt at growing and I don't think it is going to badly please let me know anything at all to improve my design or overall benefit my product.
Seeds sprouted about a week and a half ago under florescent light 24hrs a day. I didn't even wait for them all to sprout before I transplanted them in to the hydroton under the MH Light. Probably a bad idea... one of many.
Also I did not mix at 1/4 nutes for the seeds I did 1/2. But anyway here it goes. Until about 2 days ago the MH light was on 24 hrs.

Date: 1/29/09
Light: 400w MH @ 19" Above top of plants
Light Time: 18/6
Pump: 700 Liters Per Hour
Pump Timer: 15min on 30 off
Nutes: FloraGro 5ml/gal, FloraMicro 5ml/gal, FloraBloom 5ml/gal
PH: 5.5-6.5
Temp Day: 78-85
Temp Night: 60-70
Humidity: 30-50%
Ventilation: Inline 6", oscillating 12", and small 4" for light.

Here are some pics of everything up to date also I’m getting some yellow spots on some leaves that have turned brown on some. While the other half look perfect for the most part. Any Ideas? The tallest plant is only 3". I also do not know the strain just some excellent seeds I came across friends that accidentally got pollinated. When the pump is running it fills to submerge about 50-70% of the rockwool.

Apparently the other pictures I have are to high quality for this website lol but here is 5 for now.

Ok finally got all the pics in low enough res for this site. I think everything is going to turn out alright the yellow leaves are looking healthier. Could someone tell me if I am supposed to remove the filter from my pump and if so will it get clogged. Not sure if the filter removes some nutes.

Date: 1/30/09
Light: 400w MH @ 19" Above top of plants
Light Time: 18/6
Pump: 700 Liters Per Hour
Pump Timer: 15min on 30 off
Nutes: FloraGro 5ml/gal, FloraMicro 5ml/gal, FloraBloom 5ml/gal
PH: 6.0
Temp Day: 80
Temp Night: 68
Humidity: 34%
Ventilation: Inline 6", oscillating 12", and small 4" for light.

I still don't think that much could be going wrong since half the plants are flawless.

Feel free to reply to this with some inputs I am by far amature at best and could some input or thoughts.

Here are lots of pics of everything including the new little guy in the corner not sure what happened to the first one didnt make it far at all... Twice well see if its to late for him at all. No big its all experimental.

woo man easy on the nutes. Most people would just start giving nuts to them now. I know what your thinking mor nutes = bigger muscles but you'll do more harm then good. Theres not much else i can say ive never really seen a grow like this. Confused about where the roots are gonna go and where the water drains too

I've got my 400 watt hps 6-8" away from my plants....
it will take a bit of fiddling but move your lights closer.... it will make the nodes more compact giving you denser buds... as well as more buds...

hehe, I built one of these. It worked awesome. I used recycled tire mulch as a medium and flooded for 15 min every 2 hours. Also i had to flood 2x at night or svere wilting.

I have abandoned the system however due to several reasons.

I had from seed so it was going to be pointless to weed out the males then have some distant place females.

I wanted to be able to place plants closer together un der a light.

i read on another sight that come a few months time there is the problem of roots groing into the tubes. This is fixable. Place a screen inder the 2 liter caps.

I liked the wat it worked so well. I am growing in rockwool right now. It is easier to move as even though I am legal my landlord is uninformed as to what I am up to. Dont know how he would react. lol.

I am duting my 11 plant setup off to put on my balcony to grow herbs with. Basil and chammile. Nice smellers

good luck. nice job on the build. gotta love that pvc cement that stuff will bond anyting. I used mountain due green bottles so I could watch the roots. Idk if that is ok, but inside the reoots loved it.

Hey, thanks for the comment earlier. Your set-up looks like it has some great potential too! From what I see , your plants may still have too much nutes. I have never grown with that type before, but usually seedlings and clones that are small need almost 0 nutes. You can't really go off the bottle, as I discovered, so buy a ppm/ec meter if you can, as it saved me a lot of trouble. They are kinda $$$, but sooo worth it in the long run.
Also, pH is a HUGE factor with any hydro set-up. Aim for 5.8 if you can, since that is normally the upper boundary for nute uptake. I have seen that 5.2 is sucessful, though for me I kept my plants at between 5.7-5.9 at all times and well, you see how they responded to that. Still regarding pH, it is also crucial to keep the pH from roaming too far out of that zone, so an adjustment of once a day was the schedule that I was on.
Of course, the last thing I would say is about lighting, since you have a 400W MH. This might be ok for the veg, as it will make them grow a lot faster for that cycle, but the flower is what determines the quality and final yield (with other factors such as plant size at the switch). In my opinion, I have seen success with smaller lights, and I think that a 400W would be fine for only a few plants, but for 11 I would get some supplementary lighting like at least some CFL's. For flower, use a HPS bulb if you can too, since they give they best quality bud because of the different light spectrum.
Well, I am subscribed now! I am interested in your set-up too, since I have never seen an ebb-and-flo quite like yours! Oh and don't take that filter off! there is no point in not, and when you change your rez, once weekly, just clean the filter too. Those pumps are bitches about getting contaminants in them!

Tanis83 said:

I've got my 400 watt hps 6-8" away from my plants....
it will take a bit of fiddling but move your lights closer.... it will make the nodes more compact giving you denser buds... as well as more buds...

Click to expand...

Ok i will try moving it closer i had just thought maybe it was burning them a little bit it gets hot in there. How much denser can they get im on the fourth node and they are only 3" long. Thanks for the input anything else feel free to let me know.

you get a good fan in there to throw the heat off the plants and they can get really really dense


the farther the light is from the plants the farther it will stretch.... if you have your light 2-3" above where it is too hot for the plant... it will only grow that 2-3" in a few days making the notes tighter and the plant denser.....


I have all my small branches coming form the bottom of my plant to the top and they are really filling out.....

[ From what I see , your plants may still have too much nutes. I have never grown with that type before, but usually seedlings and clones that are small need almost 0 nutes. You can't really go off the bottle, as I discovered, so buy a ppm/ec meter if you can, as it saved me a lot of trouble. They are kinda $$$, but sooo worth it in the long run.
Also, pH is a HUGE factor with any hydro set-up. Aim for 5.8 if you can, since that is normally the upper boundary for nute uptake. I have seen that 5.2 is sucessful, though for me I kept my plants at between 5.7-5.9 at all times and well, you see how they responded to that. Still regarding pH, it is also crucial to keep the pH from roaming too far out of that zone, so an adjustment of once a day was the schedule that I was on.
Of course, the last thing I would say is about lighting, since you have a 400W MH. This might be ok for the veg, as it will make them grow a lot faster for that cycle, but the flower is what determines the quality and final yield (with other factors such as plant size at the switch). In my opinion, I have seen success with smaller lights, and I think that a 400W would be fine for only a few plants, but for 11 I would get some supplementary lighting like at least some CFL's. For flower, use a HPS bulb if you can too, since they give they best quality bud because of the different light spectrum.
Well, I am subscribed now! I am interested in your set-up too, since I have never seen an ebb-and-flo quite like yours! Oh and don't take that filter off! there is no point in not, and when you change your rez, once weekly, just clean the filter too. Those pumps are bitches about getting contaminants in them![/quote]

Ok def not giving them nutes the next time till they are about this size. Right now the ph is sitting at 6.

And they were started from a seed so i figure i am only going to get like 5 females. Do you think it will be ok for 5 to 6 or still get some cfl's.

My balist is actually hps it has a mh conversion bulb in it now for veg.

I will also leave the filter on it and clean it like i did just the other day. I cleaned the res and everything for the first time and the filter had red in it. I figured it was from the hydroton but not sure if it was some nutes.

Thanks for the input everyone it is much appreciated here are some pics of the design

how many cfm is your exhaust fan in relation to your area?

my fan blows at 80 cfm and my cabinet is 30" x 30" x 4' so 24 sq ft... so my cabinet has new air in it almost 4 times every minute... that helps keep heat out.. allowing you to lower your lights...... I have a fan that blows across my light in the direction of my exhaust fan as well... you wanna try and limit how long the heat is in the grow area...

my inline fan is a 6" the box says 500 but its one from home depot so i know it isnt really that much. As far as for the closet is 48 cu/ft but my in pipe is only a 2" that comes from the ceiling all the way to the bottom of the plants and dumps fresh attic air in while the exhaust comes from behind the light where the small fan is blowing the heat to the 6". While the 10" is oscillating was the only way i am able to keep the plant height at a temp of 80 consistent. Don't know if that makes a difference as well. Does that make any sence

6' inline duct fan or inline fan?

I used one of those 6" inline fans, an although it did cool the bulb signifigantly, it still wasn't as much as I would have liked. The only real way to get a bulb cool enough is with a ducted fan, which can be kinda $. I think your grow will be real good though, even if you only get 5 females. I would advise pre-sexing them a bit later, and then just veg the females big so they are huge in flower. You will have a few big plants rather than more smaller ones, but hopefully with some LST and/or topping you can still get a lot!

Date: 2/1/09
Light: 400w MH @ 12" Above top of plants
Light Time: 18/6
Pump: 700 Liters Per Hour
Pump Timer: 15min on 30 off
Nutes: FloraGro 5ml/gal, FloraMicro 5ml/gal, FloraBloom 5ml/gal
PH: 6.0
Temp Day: 83
Temp Night: 68
Humidity: 33%
Ventilation: Inline 6", oscillating 12", and small 4" for light.

Ok I just wanted to update this since I have moved the light down quite significantly. It seems to be getting a little hotter in there already. Im going to have to watch it through out the day.


Does any one know the highest temp that the closet could be for a good grow because its lookin like I can control the temp in there just with the height of the light. The plants may stretch but that may have to happen in order to keep my temps down.


Here are a bunch more pics probably the last time for a week or so I will post pics.

go to the grow faq

from what I've read you want your plants between 20 and 30C..... 26-28 is optimum...... don't go to 30C though.... 30C and above and your plants will stop growwing at all....

I have grow in closets a couple times, and yeah, heat seems to be the main issue in them. Your plants are looking nice too! To pre-sex them, which can be a bit of work, though is still easy, you will need just a paper bag and some time. Since a plant will flower with a 12/12 light cycle, the idea here is that you will put one growth tip into that cycle so it will sex. This doesn't sex the entire plant either, so your plant will still be growing in veg after it told you it's sex. All you have to do is cover one side growth tip so that it gets 12 hours of life and 12 hours of dark. I think this will be best to do later though, since your plants aren't big enough really. Have you considered topping and LST yet, SirSmokeALot?

Wow that is crazy I did not realize that you could put just part of the plant into flower. I will def try that so then should I do that to each plant at the same time or one at a time. How long does it take about to show sex after putting it to 12/12. I looked at topping and fimming not sure was kinda thinkin I would do a couple topped, fimmed, and normal and see the difference. Thanks man greatly appreciated

Well I'm back up to 16" above the top due to temp they reached 86 so thats not gunna work to well. I may have to figure out how to get some of that heat out of there. Seems like I have plenty of air flow in there. Not sure if any one has some inputs on a cheap way to get some heat outta there