Flood & Drain! Newb! Help me out! +REP PK, NL, C99, AK48

How do I run this system?!?!? Do I leave water pump constantly running? How often do I flood? Please just help this hydro newb out!

you definately do NOT want to run it constantly, your poor girls would drown, to start with give them a 30 min flooding once a day. as they get bigger youll want to step it up to 2-3 times a day for 30 min each flooding. you will want to keep a good check on the ph, some nutrient lines have wild ph fluctuations. the longest you want to run off of a resevoir between changes is 7 days, as the water level drops, just add more water to top it off and ph back to where you need it. you also want to make sure the resevoir stays aerated. a couple of small air pumps with air stones made for fish tanks usualy work great.
some like to wash their resevoir every changing, i typicaly washed it every two changes. at least once a month i would run a florakleen flush to help rid excess salts buildup off of the roots.

If those plants are sitting in just geolite, then you will have to floo and drain a little more often.

Do you have a nutrient regimen worked out, or did you just throw a bunch of plants in those pebbles, hoping for the best?

Thanks faldikar. Very informative I appreciate it! They are in hydroton, should I take them out and put them in net pots? Any other suggestions? And I have a personal regime for nutes. I've only grown in soil, this is my second grow so I'm still fairly new.

naw you can let those bad girls go as they are, the main thing will be how big you want to get them. a bit of training goes a long way. when you flood make sure the water level rises to just under the hydroton and no higher, you dont want them floating around, especially when they get top heavy.
when working with your nutrients, go in 1/4 strength at first and build up. in hydro your girls will show signs of stress a lot quicker and will be hit a bit harder if its way off. jus remember small corrections go a long way.

Thanks again man. I plan on growing small doing a scrog!

awesome, set up looks good, hope your grow goes great

Should I put more hydroton in to make more depth for the roots?

CinderellaMan said:

Should I put more hydroton in to make more depth for the roots?

Click to expand...

If you can do it without dislodging and breaking too many existing roots, your probably should. I may be wrong but pic 2 looks like you've got algea growing in the rockwool. If that's the case the rockwool is too wet. Try to keep the cube above the floodline.

lowerachry, nice catch i completely missed that.

So my main table with all my plants is filled with hydroton balls. This table has a pvc tube that runs down below into my lower table. This pvc tube had a switch pictured above (5th pic). If that is turned so that it is blocking water the top table will flood. But how does it drain automatically? Wont all that water just sit there and literally "flood" my plants? Do I have to manually turn the switch to drain the water?

How often should I feed them? Should I put the plants in square pots instead of just freelancing on the hydroton? Will I run into problems with the roots if they are intertwining?

What can I do if the roots are turning brown?
How do I kill algae?