Flood and Drain Questions

panhead said:

With w 4x4 table plant height would be the deciding factor about which wattage light to use,with small to medium plants a 600 is perfect but big ladies need the 1,000,i prefer 600's ( 3 per table )but i do sog with no veg time from clone in most of my tables.

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thanks i think ive changed my mind from a 1000 to a 600. thanks

The new setup, still waiting on the 600 or 1000...havent made up my mind yet. Any suggestions?

My pump takes 10 min to flood and 10 min to drain. How long should my timer be set?

panhead said:

Ive seen tables filled to the rim with hydroton and other mediums like flytocel and perlite,the reason people do this is for root mass,having roots exposed to light prunes the roots.

The problem with a table full of medium is that it ad's drastically to humidity levels,not to mention being the main culprit of powdery mildew which will topple even the best flood table.

Ive gave up on using any medium at all,i cover all my tables with 5ml panda plastic and cut precise holes in the cover to set the net pots in,this leaves the top of the net pot exposed to the light,to stop the light penetrating the top of the net pot i cut squares out of the panda and cover the net pot top,i also use an extension on the flood port and set the table at dead level so the gutter channels at the bottom retain water.

Ya get massive root mass without using any medium at all,ya just have to compensate for the lack of medium with increased flood times,if you can keep everything free of light no medium is needed.

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This is great, I have been looking for someone who has done this.

May I ask, What does your flood schedule look like?
Just out of curiosity, how many plants do you lay out per square foot?
And what nutrient regimen do you use?

I currently use a coco modified lucas formula, 6mL/9mL, hand fed. I cut the micro at week four ( on a nine week strain ) and flush for two weeks and it works great.

I would like to try this using the regular lucas while cutting the micro and flushing last two weeks on floods.

Long Dogg said:

This is great, I have been looking for someone who has done this.

May I ask, What does your flood schedule look like?
Just out of curiosity, how many plants do you lay out per square foot?
And what nutrient regimen do you use?

I currently use a coco modified lucas formula, 6mL/9mL, hand fed. I cut the micro at week four ( on a nine week strain ) and flush for two weeks and it works great.

I would like to try this using the regular lucas while cutting the micro and flushing last two weeks on floods.

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My flood schedule is one 15 minute flood per hour for a total of 24 floods in a 24 hour period,i keep this flood schedule until the plants are in the heavy bud stage & really packing on weight when i increase flood times to 2 seperate 15 minute floods per hour durring lights on,i keep flood times at the regular once per hour durring lights off,this gives me 36 15 minute floods in a 24 hour period.

I know the floods seem excessive but ya gotta remember i have no medium to speak of in the table & no medium in the net pots either,i wedge some chunks pf sponge around the clone to hold her up till the root mass locks her in & thats it so i gotta keep a moist enviroment between the lid & table at all times or the plants suffer.

For nutes i use the 3 part General Hydroponics regime thats been modified to fit my needs,right now im working with member "Homebrewers" recipe to see which is more productive,my standard schedule is augmented by replacing flora bloom with Botanicare Hydroplex,the shit blows away flora bloom,its the only bloom enhancer ive seen that contains the full range of micro nutes.

As for flushing the plants i stopped flushing 5 years ago,i run 8 tables so its easy for me to try different scenarios & i can say without a shadow of doubt that flushing is not in any growers best interest,all my product goes straight thru a co-op dispensary where buyers are paying top dollar & understandably expect primo,my goods are allways in demand to the point my sour d is waiting list,never a complaint.

Fantastic!, Thank You Panhead.

The flushing topic is so sketchy. When you say its not in a growers best interest to flush, is this because of yield? Or a noticeable decrease in potency?

What about taste and all that other shit, I have horrible taste and smell senses so its whatever to me.

Long Dogg said:

Fantastic!, Thank You Panhead.

The flushing topic is so sketchy. When you say its not in a growers best interest to flush, is this because of yield? Or a noticeable decrease in potency?

What about taste and all that other shit, I have horrible taste and smell senses so its whatever to me.

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One thing ive learned about growers who flush is that most are unwilling to even consider the fact that flushing the plants might not do anything to enhance quality,for me all flushing has ever done is to lower my yeilds & im glad i investigated the pratice & tested the pratice of flushing,you see i too believed i could tell the difference in flushed & non flushed buds.

I put flushing to the test where i took away any chance of a placebo skewing the results.

I passed out samples to my family & asked them to report on taste & quality ect,i also pre rolled all samples so all they had to go by was smoking,in one test i they got one flushed joint & one non flushed however i didnt tell them that,all i said was i wanted them to report on quality issues & if they could taste any differene between samples.

In another test i gave them 2 different pre rolls of the same unflushed strain only this time i told them one wasnt flushed & one was but not which was which.

In another test i gave em 2 more pre rolls, both were from the flushed plants but i misinformed them again & told them one was & the other wasnt.

The last test i did was to give em another round of pre rolls where both joints were from the same flushed plant,this time i marked each joint & i specificaly told them which was flushed & which wasnt,both joints were from flushed product but i still told them one wasnt flushed,just to see how much is placebo related.

Out of all the smoke i gave away not one test had reliable results showing where flushing does anything benificial,infact the test that 100% convinced me that flushing is an utter waste of bud building days was the test where i lied & told them the one marked with an X wasnt flushed,even though it was flushed & even though in previous smoke sessions they loved the smoke once the seed was planted they hated the smoke.

I got reports of sore throats,unclean burning ash,harsh choking smoke,reports of the weed crackeling & sparking while smoked,nasty after taste & smell,my entire family reported the placebo unflushed joints were some of the worst they had smoked in a long time.

I know people think "yeah right,who goes thru all that shit & gives away all that free dope just for a test",the answer is i did & for a good reason,i had a chance to get in on the ground floor of Michigans med mj laws & invest in a co-op where all investors would have their product given top priority to be sold to the co-op so i had to know if my shit was tight before i laid out a years worth of retirement checks.

In the co-op i had invested in at my insistance they pass out questionairs asking patients to bring back the paper with all questions answered for a discount on their purchase,most patients fill out a questionair every visit because it saves em cash.

Out of piles & piles of those questionairs i read thru no pattern everbemerged showing my unflushed product to have taste or harshness issues,ive since been repaid my initial investment with the co-op so i no longer have access to customer questionairs but product speaks for itself,at $3,600 an lb the sour d i grow has a "will call" customer list where the club calls patients when its in stock,not bad for unflushed product.

If at any time a pattern would of showed flushing to have any affect at all i would do it with every grow,i now use those extra feeding days to pack on weight.

Interesting, do you cure for long periods of time or quick dry?

Thanks for the information, very helpful.

Long Dogg said:

Interesting, do you cure for long periods of time or quick dry?

Thanks for the information, very helpful.

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I use 3 day quick dryers,i pull em out of the dryer on the start of the 4th day & bag em up,i then let them sit in the bag for another 24 hours so the remaining moisture left in the real large buds can be reabsorbed by the small buds,this gives me perfectly dried buds that are ready to go .

I keep a personal stash for the wife & myself that ends up being cured for a few months by the time we need to replenish,the only difference in quality i can tell is my personal stash ends up having a much more heady aroma where it smells up the room as soon as its put on the tray,the non cured products smell is still skunky but more subtle.

Ive slow dried using the hanging net shelf dryers & compared the smoke to the smoke from the quick dryers & compared the two,the quick dried buds are the same as slow dried buds.

Hello panhead

sorry to drag this on, I am curious about something else.

With a stretchy sativa like Sour D, how tall/thick (stems) do you take your cuttings if there is no veg time. And how far apart do you space them?
you work with 600w correct?

For instance, I have a jack the ripper that should be topped because single cola weight is not worth the time, the closest i believe i could get them is 8" apart with minimal veg time because she stretches a lot. I currently work with 600's, but am considering the 1000's for sativa strains.


Edit: Glad you havent answered yet. Do you have to moniter pH daily, or are you ok with weekly rez changes.

Second Edit: , please dont get frustrated. Ok, another thought, you could also leave the pump running 24/7 like a rdwc right, I dont see why that would not work, thoughts?

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Hey longdog,sorry about time lag but ive been recovering from a recent spinal surgery & the fentynal had me too fucked up to type,im getting better so im back.

First issue is the clones. I use seperate mothers & rarely take clones from small plants,my mothers are all very lush,the cuttings i select are all from woody parts of the plant,stalk as thick as a pencil & look like they have bark on the branch,length is from 8" to 10" inches.

I gotta question when you lable Sour Deisel as a lanky strain prone to stretching,even though sour d is a sativa hybrid i find its growth rates to closely mimic strains with high percentages of indica,i also find sour d to be extremely tollerant of lower light levels caused by distance from canopy to reflector.

Obviously there are different strains of sour d from different breeaders so maybee its my strain,with my sour d grown using 600's my reflector can be 6 to 7 inches away with zero stretching issues,however when i can i try my best to let the canopy ride the reflector with some leaf or bud tips barely touching the glass,i run dual centrifugal fans in a push pull configuration with one 8" fan pushing cool air into the lights & one 6" fan pulling hot air from the lights,this keeps my glass cool to the touch where only buds that are mashed by the glass will lightly burn.

Try getting the reflector as close as possble,most times there is less than an inch between my glass & canopy.

As for ph issues i dont chase ph for several reasons,the 1st reason is once ya start thinking ph should stay at a set value you never stop adjusting levels.

The other reason is its not in the plants best interest to see a constant ph value,or a small window between 5.5 to 6.5,those values are just starting points & thats it,each plant absorbs nutes differently at different ph values,for instance N may be best used by the plant at a ph value of 4.0 while P is best absorbed at a value of 8.0,then K is best absorbed at a value of somewhere in the high 9 range & all the micro nutes somewhere between.

I allwas allow my ph to float above & below normal values,i will allow them to float as low as 4.5 before slowly bringing them up,i will go as high as 7.5 before slowly bringing them down,infact ph values even lower or higher for very short periods wont hurt plants at all.

If my ph value is around 4.5 & wants to keep floating back down after i raise is i take the ph up to 7.5 over the coarse of about 3 days,then it starts comming back down & within a day or so its back in accepted range,the higher ph for a short period worked in the plants benifit since it was such a short period that wasnt long enough to cause burn,i use the same technique when the ph value is too high & after adjusting it wants to keep climbing back up.

Dont get caught up thinking you MUST ! have a ph value dead set at the magic number of 5.8,not only is is alot of un needed work its also not in the best intrest of the plant because the set value never allows the plant to see optimal absorbtion levels of quite a few different nutrients.

To see exactly what im talking about do a bit of research on optimal ph values of each nutrient in your fertilizer,you'll see how wildly all the nutrients vary in which ph level each seperate nutrient see's optimal absorbtion at.

Plants that arent happy at current ph values will push the ph of the water in whatever direction needed to best allow them to uptake whatever nutrient they are not getting enough of,this causes where the grower has a hard ass time keeping the ph within acceted range of 5.5 to 6.5 no matter what course of action they take,by allowing the ph to float around more & by also allowing the ph to briefly see ph values slightly higher & lower than normal range its more likely the plants are getting all the nutrients they need & are working easier trying to absorb the nutrients needed,in the end this will give you a rez that is much more stable where ph levels wont be so irratic.

Its a little long winded on the answer but its the way i run my rez's & mine are all very stable.

I have been waiting for your reply like a fiend!
Sorry to hear about the current health issues you are going through, I wish you better health in the near future.

From what I have read, Sour is an infamous stretch plant. Where did you get you Sour from?
I am looking for mine. Reservoir seeds is MIA for time being, and I lost all my sour og's cali connection to fungus gnats, along with other expensive seeds. It can be heartbreaking learning to do this the right way.

I always thought the pH will instantly stunt a plant. In about a month I will be ready to gain the experience.

Thanks again, and please get better.

Longdogg,my sour d came from a friend in cali,i imported a bunch of clones from a few other different strains as well,i also have jack the ripper which im about to discontinue in favor of making more room for better strains.

So far the sour d hasnt been beat for my needs,fukin massive harvests not far behind the big bud i used to run,outstanding buzz with extremely high resin percentages,carefull though not all strains of sour d are equal.

My 1st strain of is was a lump of shit that i was gonna discontinue,in talking with a friend in cali about how unhappy i was with my strain he hooked me up with his strain of it,night n day difference too

Much of the bullshit clones floating round michigan are taken from unhappy & unhealthy mothers,grown out by newb growers & rushed to the medical market,i quit using any strain from in state & import everything now.

As for the ph stunting the plants thats simply not true,while ph is important & bad ph values can & will damage or destroy a grow its not a hard obsticle,nor are the numbers cast in stone.

I like to let the plants have some freedom,once ya get used to a strain its easy to see what they need & ph falls into the catagory where you can see where they prefer to be,the plants will tell you what ph level they want to live in & its rarely the magic 5.8,just watch em & you'll see & dont chase the ph,take your time,be patient,adjust in small incriments & if it goes out of acceptable range dont sweat it & rush to push it back in range all at once,even if its way out of line put it back in line in small incriments,large fast ph swings do much more harm than good.

As long as you have a quality meter that holds a calibration & good up n down chemicals ph is a snap bud.

Good luck.

panhead said:

Ive seen tables filled to the rim with hydroton and other mediums like flytocel and perlite,the reason people do this is for root mass,having roots exposed to light prunes the roots.

The problem with a table full of medium is that it ad's drastically to humidity levels,not to mention being the main culprit of powdery mildew which will topple even the best flood table.

Ive gave up on using any medium at all,i cover all my tables with 5ml panda plastic and cut precise holes in the cover to set the net pots in,this leaves the top of the net pot exposed to the light,to stop the light penetrating the top of the net pot i cut squares out of the panda and cover the net pot top,i also use an extension on the flood port and set the table at dead level so the gutter channels at the bottom retain water.

Ya get massive root mass without using any medium at all,ya just have to compensate for the lack of medium with increased flood times,if you can keep everything free of light no medium is needed.

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Do you have to use H2O2 to keep your roots oxygenated or are you just doing air stones in your res? I've thought of covering my pots with some film, but I know the flood/drain cycles are the only times during a day the oxygen in the hydroton gets renewed. How do your roots look?