Diy ebb and flow bucket system and lots of questions?

Hello there, first of all awesome community here.
Been reading here a lot before I decided to post for the first time. I am currently planing and buying some stuff for my diy bucket ebb and low system.
The plan so far is, to use six 2.5 gallon buckets and one smaller bucket(with the same height) as a control bucket for the reservoir I would use some 25 gallon tank.
I haven't decided if i use two buckets stacked or just one, but i guess i go with the first option cause it seems more convenient.
The buckets have a lid so i want to drill a hole into it and glue some 4" net pots in place. Then i would fill the net pots with hydroton and leave the bucket empty.

Is it possible to grow this way in a ebb and flow setup with no medium? Unfortunately i found little information on this specific question.
Anybody here got experience here with a ebb and flow and no medium?
How often should i flood?
Would be a small net pot with some hydroton enough to support and hold medium sized plants?

I think one advantage would be that i have more room for roots in the bucket if i don't use any medium. But I completely new to hydroponics so some answers would be great.

itch said:

Hello there, first of all awesome community here.
Been reading here a lot before I decided to post for the first time. I am currently planing and buying some stuff for my diy bucket ebb and low system.
The plan so far is, to use six 2.5 gallon buckets and one smaller bucket(with the same height) as a control bucket for the reservoir I would use some 25 gallon tank.
I haven't decided if i use two buckets stacked or just one, but i guess i go with the first option cause it seems more convenient.
The buckets have a lid so i want to drill a hole into it and glue some 4" net pots in place. Then i would fill the net pots with hydroton and leave the bucket empty.

Is it possible to grow this way in a ebb and flow setup with no medium? Unfortunately i found little information on this specific question.
Anybody here got experience here with a ebb and flow and no medium?
How often should i flood?
Would be a small net pot with some hydroton enough to support and hold medium sized plants?

I think one advantage would be that i have more room for roots in the bucket if i don't use any medium. But I completely new to hydroponics so some answers would be great.

Click to expand...

I run kind of the same ideal but with totes, thinking of changing to pails as well for more mobility. Water Temperature will be a concern IMO, and keeping temps below 70 is the key to happy roots. Roots plugging the drain is also an issue for me but silk screen has solved those issues. Small net pots do support large plants but to small and light penetrates the roots so I had to cover mine. Flooding times are not a huge deal once roots are established IME but until then flood sparingly. As I said I'm interested in switching to pails so I'll be watching how you progress.

How would you make the control bucket?

itch said:

Hello there, first of all awesome community here.
Been reading here a lot before I decided to post for the first time. I am currently planing and buying some stuff for my diy bucket ebb and low system.
The plan so far is, to use six 2.5 gallon buckets and one smaller bucket(with the same height) as a control bucket for the reservoir I would use some 25 gallon tank.
I haven't decided if i use two buckets stacked or just one, but i guess i go with the first option cause it seems more convenient.
The buckets have a lid so i want to drill a hole into it and glue some 4" net pots in place. Then i would fill the net pots with hydroton and leave the bucket empty.

Is it possible to grow this way in a ebb and flow setup with no medium? Unfortunately i found little information on this specific question.
Anybody here got experience here with a ebb and flow and no medium?
How often should i flood?
Would be a small net pot with some hydroton enough to support and hold medium sized plants?

I think one advantage would be that i have more room for roots in the bucket if i don't use any medium. But I completely new to hydroponics so some answers would be great.

Click to expand...

My advice to someone new to hydroponics would be to avoid the multi bucket thing and just run a F/D table. Less chance for leaks, mishaps etc.
They can be made very inexpensively from supplies at every day stores and are as simple as they come to assemble, run, and maintain.

ya i know what you mean there, red, i really haven't had any leaks or many mishaps, but i did almost change from buckets to a table because i couldn't stop the roots from plugging my fill n drain hole. i would always get one, two or more plants turn yellow pretty bad three weeks or so before harvest. i fixed the problem using a bottom drain fitting, which alone helps, but also use a treated landscaping fabric with the treated side down, in the bottom of my buckets. so the roots can mat on top of the fabric but really slows them down enough when they get past the cloth to never clog the fill n drain fitting. the fabric has a copper treatment on one side, its Tex-R and i buy the 4'x20' roll for around 35.00 or 40.00. i cut out 10" circles to fit the bottom of my 31/2 gal buckets. And the fitting i like the best are (GFTH1) and i get the fabric at http://www.horticulturespecialties.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=325&osCsid=47864f79b92efcc2047210ece2f6e514

shambler said:

ya i know what you mean there, red, i really haven't had any leaks or many mishaps, but i did almost change from buckets to a table because i couldn't stop the roots from plugging my fill n drain hole. i would always get one, two or more plants turn yellow pretty bad three weeks or so before harvest. i fixed the problem using a bottom drain fitting, which alone helps, but also use a treated landscaping fabric with the treated side down, in the bottom of my buckets. so the roots can mat on top of the fabric but really slows them down enough when they get past the cloth to never clog the fill n drain fitting. the fabric has a copper treatment on one side, its Tex-R and i buy the 4'x20' roll for around 35.00 or 40.00. i cut out 10" circles to fit the bottom of my 31/2 gal buckets. And the fitting i like the best are (GFTH1)

and i get the fabric at http://www.horticulturespecialties.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=325&osCsid=47864f79b92efcc2047210ece2f6e514

Click to expand...

You arent the first I've heard say that same thing about the roots in the lines blocking certain/majority of buckets in their system. Nice remedy to the issue!

I've tried copper screen but switched to silk screen and it seems to work well at stopping the roots but I do need to clean it once a run halfway through as it stops everything except water .

Been running diy 5 gallon systems with 3/4 inch lines for 2 years and never had a problem with roots clogging the lines. All they do is form a bucket shaped mat on the bottom of the inner bucket. Water still floods up.

Joe80 said:

Been running diy 5 gallon systems with 3/4 inch lines for 2 years and never had a problem with roots clogging the lines. All they do is form a bucket shaped mat on the bottom of the inner bucket. Water still floods up.

Click to expand...

So your running hemp's? Are you hand watering? I've wondered why those drains don't plug. I'm try to decide what type of system to run and hempy is getting a look, but with automated watering.

Budley Doright said:

So your running hemp's? Are you hand watering? I've wondered why those drains don't plug. I'm try to decide what type of system to run and hempy is getting a look, but with automated watering.

Click to expand...

No, i use control buckets flood every 4 hours. I did switch from all hydroton to perlite because it's half the weight and price. Plus a lot easier to rinse.

55 gallon res will flood 12

does anybody have plans to build a controller using a digital 5 pin timer? I've tried following both the aquahub plans and ogres but neither works with the digital timer.

Hi Itch,
I'll tell you my experiences when I switched to hydro a decade ago. I had read about and tried small plant tray E&F lile HydroRed suggested. Good system.

But I wanted bigger and better and went through the whole diy E&F large pot system. All the damn wiring and plumbing and when finished it sucked. I had used 1/2" hose which isn't big enough for fast fill and empty.

I personally would suggest Waterfarms but only if used out of the box without converting them to a bastardized DWC (a pet peeve).

Right now what you're describing sounds more like a RDWC then a flood and drain...which usually uses media and no netpots. So read read read...
JD