EBB AND GRO users..I need reservoir advice

I've bought the ebb & gro system with additional 6 pots so I have 18 pots. I'm constructing a 2 1000 w hps sealed flowering room in basement & have a laundry sink outside the grow room. Switching from organic to hydro. Where is the best place to put my reservoir? Inside or outside the grow room? Just thinking about cleaning it & draining, as I'm not very handy or strong. Do you use a pump or an aquarium hose? Do you put a float in it to "top off" water? My city water is 8.2 ph w/300 ppm too, so I'm wondering what I should do about that as well. I've read that r/o works for ppm, but not ph.
I haven't put it together yet, but it doesn't look like the hoses are long enough to put far enough away to place reservoir outside the grow room. If anyone has any advice about this system, I'd appreciate any helpful hints.

I have my res right under the system. Don't use a float as mine just circulates the water to the level of my screen and when the pump shuts off it drains back to the res. My city water is 7.5+ ph and 350 ppm. I use ph down and get my water in the 6-0 to 6-2 range. The high ppm water will mess wth your ph for the first couple of days but it can be controlled using what I call micro doses of ph down. With high ppm water you want to bring the ph down slowly. Say if you start at 6.2 and the next day it is back up to 7.0, then don't overreact and try to get it down to 6.2 all at once. Do it in 5ml total ph down per res and then later that day do it again. If you try to do it all at once the next day it may be back to 7.2 and you on what I call the ph rollercoaster. RO water is better in that it has close to 0 ppm but the ph will still be in the 7's for the most part to start.

keep your rez outside, one tip about this system, is you should purchase atleast 25feet of extra 1/2inch poly hosing, i pump water out, you just may want to invest in an r/o unit. its funny a month ago i dont remember seeing this many people getting e&g's..must be all the good reviews

morrisgreenberg said:

keep your rez outside, one tip about this system, is you should purchase atleast 25feet of extra 1/2inch poly hosing, i pump water out, you just may want to invest in an r/o unit. its funny a month ago i dont remember seeing this many people getting e&g's..must be all the good reviews

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This is my 4x8 Tray and 70Gal res grow. Rockwool with 2x10001.

I bought a Hydrotek 70gal res for $102. It also has volume markings inside the res. Both in gal and Ltr. Great deal man.

Edit: I think I interpreted ebb n gro to be a generic name for ebb n flow. Nevermind.

morrisgreenberg said:

keep your rez outside, one tip about this system, is you should purchase atleast 25feet of extra 1/2inch poly hosing, i pump water out, you just may want to invest in an r/o unit. its funny a month ago i dont remember seeing this many people getting e&g's..must be all the good reviews

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It is best to have both the controller and the reservoir outside the immediate grow area. I had the controller in the grow area last grow and it got in the way.

Your solution will stay cooler outside the grow room also.

Thanks for your advice everyone. I wasn't sure if it was possible to keep it that far away from the buckets without problems. I think I will get more tubing then and keep it out of the grow room. Now to try and figure out where to put it, and how to get hoses in the grow room. I'm putting up drywall tomorrow.
Thanks mostlycrazy for the ph advice too. I think I would go mostly crazy trying to figure it out on my own. Since I'm all for making things easy, I'd probably be better off buying a r/o. I picked the ebb n gro because it did have good reviews and ease of use for newbies to hydro, and also need to grow bigger plants as I'm on a plant limit for medical.

i've never had any problems having mine in the same room. I did insulate the res. with that bubble wrap/mylar insulation crap works great res temp never moves. also must agree with morris another pump and some hose makes draining quick and easy i got a 650gph pump for draning, it takes about 5 minutes and drain all but a couple pints which i leave with no problems. As for the water deffinatly use RO water, hard water is tough on the pumps and switches.And trust me a failure suck ass big time good luck with your new grow

Understood Fluffygrrrl! You may have to pay closer attetention to the RO water since it has virtually nothing in it and it's all up to you.

For me I tried some store bought water and it was just more of a hassle to me since I was buying jugs, making nute mix mistakes, going to get more water, etc. At the time I could not justify a RO system since the only thing that made sense was the whole house version since my tap water is over 350ppm. Really came down to a no guts-no glory situation.

Now I know what my water does and how to control it and it's almost as automatic as what I would have to do to supplement the RO.

Good luck on your grow!

hving the res outside the room is good for solving humidity problems. having it in the room helps keep the water warm but it will warm up fast enough outside the room.. reverse osmosis is great but as Jorge Cervantes says " if you can drink it, your plants can drink it" also General Hydro makes a hard water nutes progam for folks like you..

for draining and cleaning--- i use an extra piece of hose that i hook up to the fill pump.. just unplugg it from the top of your control bucket and into the extra length of hose.. run it to your drain and flip your notches on the timer to make it "fill" right into the drain then i bought an extendable scrub brush type thing so i can easily reach in and scrub out all those left over nutes out ( use mild bleach or pinesol solution to get that shit out. ) make sure you rinse very good until you cant smell the pinesol anymore , cold water seems to work good to rinse, hot of course to wash.. i take my 4 res upstairs and wash them in the bath tub, is easier wiht less mess then a floor drain.. 50 gal res and 2inch floor drains dont mixwell especially if you have drywall or extension cords on the ground



i hope this helps i love questions.. and make sure to always watch your res fill unless you have a float shut off... if you are too medicated and forget to shut off your water... its not fun to clean up..

love the cheney avatar...

I got an RO system and used it for about a month, then scrapped it. I now use the RO as drinking water and just run 300 ppm tap. SO much easier to fill reserviors with just a garden hose. but I have more than one res. If I only had one res, I'd use RO. still a pain in the butt though.

Just consider your drain system as if it was a household drainage system. Always have a small amount of pitch (beginning of pipehigher than end of pipe) am nd just consider draiage based upon interior are of the pipe.

areas:
1/2" = pi x (0.5^2)/4 = 0.196" square
3/4" = pi x (075^2)/4 = 0.442" square
1" = pi x (01.0^2)/4 = 0.789" square
1-1/4" = pi x (1.25^2)/4 = 1.223" square
1-1/2" = pi x (1.5^2)/4 = 1.767" square
2" = pi x (2.0^2)/4 = 3.142" square
3" = pi x (3.0^2)/4 = 7.068" square
4" = pi x (4.0^2)/4 = 12.57" square

ie if your drain lines for eack bucket are 3/4" then a 3 inch drain line can handle: (70.68 / 0.442)= 15.99 buckets all draining at the same time.

You say your water is 300 ppm. What is important is what that 300 ppm is. You should be av ble to get a water report from your water treament plant. It is likely posted on line. What effect the tap water would have is based upon mainly whether the ppm is chiefly calcium or carbonates. If your water has been lime softened by the treatment plant then your water really sucks. If it is not lime softened water then a lot of the ppm could be soluable calcium. When water with soluble calcium is heated the calcium precipitates and can be filtered out by running it through a sediment filter (or coffee filters) while the water is still hot. If you let the water cool however most will go back into solution so it will nit be filtered out. That means simply running hot water through a sediment filter. If when you use the same pot to boil pasta repeataedly you have a white coating on the bottom of the pot that is precipitated soluble calcium. Soluble calcium is called temporary hardness because it can be removed by heating. The sediments that they tell you to periodically drain from the bottom of your hot water tank are mainly calcium precipitates.

If it is water ppm is mainly carbonates it will mean if you have 200 ppm of carbonates and mix your nutrients with RO water to ann EC of say 2 and and now mix your tap water to an EC of 2 with tap water it will take less nutrients than with the RO water. Meaning your nutrients will be weaker in all but calcium carbonates. The only economical way to remove carbonates is with an RO filter. A DI filter will remove them but at a much higher cost per gallon. Using GH hr ard water Micro adjusts by lowering the soluble calcium by 115 ppm. It makes no adjustments for carbonates which is the chief problem with hard water not the soluble calcium.

As for those normal people who think to criticize my replies by commenting on my grammar and spelling I have dyslexia which makes writing, typing and reading a bit more challenging and no amount of snide remarks from others will ever make the dyslexia go away.

fluffygrrrl said:

I've bought the ebb & gro system with additional 6 pots so I have 18 pots. I'm constructing a 2 1000 w hps sealed flowering room in basement & have a laundry sink outside the grow room. Switching from organic to hydro. Where is the best place to put my reservoir? Inside or outside the grow room? Just thinking about cleaning it & draining, as I'm not very handy or strong. Do you use a pump or an aquarium hose? Do you put a float in it to "top off" water? My city water is 8.2 ph w/300 ppm too, so I'm wondering what I should do about that as well. I've read that r/o works for ppm, but not ph.
I haven't put it together yet, but it doesn't look like the hoses are long enough to put far enough away to place reservoir outside the grow room. If anyone has any advice about this system, I'd appreciate any helpful hints.

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ive just been and bought the same 18 pot ebb system. im a newbie and wasnt very sure what to do so i also bought coco. ive started both types of medium and the coco is looking alot more healthier and ive also come across problems with nutes in my ebb. i didnt adjust anything in my res and ended up with yellowing on the tips of my plants and looking droppy. i was told i mixed the nutes to strong and that was the reason for this to happen. but i only mixed them 1/2 strengh so i would reccommed mixing them 1/4 of the strengh.. and also make sure to use all the outlets so the water can flood and drain in time. im only watering once every day because these are only 3 weeks old and i was told i could do this 3-4 times a day but i tryed 3 times and they just dropped again and looked crap, so maybe more floods when there a few more weeks older. let me know how things are going and what works out best for u... i'd like to learn with somebody learning

GreenThumbSucker said:

It is best to have both the controller and the reservoir outside the immediate grow area. I had the controller in the grow area last grow and it got in the way.

Your solution will stay cooler outside the grow room also.

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Did your buckets have a problem flooding with the controller bucket being on the outside. I would rather do that but I thought the hoses had to be flat on the ground from the controller to the buckets.