flood table???

sup stoners i'm bout to setup my second garden and im doin a flood table well what im wondering is what medium to use? let me know what u think! oh and 4x4 or bigger? only got 400w MH & 400w HPS but with one hood tell me whats up

You may wish to take a look at a thread I posted of construction of a flood and drain table. Maybe not. In any case, a 400 watt light will not cover a 4' by4' table adequately, IMO. As far as the medium goes other than soil, its more a personal preference. Some use rockwool, some hydrotron, some coco coir. VV

4x4 is perfect with 400 or 430 hps ...thats what im using and im glad im not running 600 or 1000 just due to heat factor and because you can get that 400 a little closer to your canopy, you get about the same amount of lumens to your plants as a 600 or 1000 ... i do have another room with a 1000 in it and i have to keep it about 4 feet above the canopy so i wont burn the plants... also plants want to stretch and reach for light... so hammering the shit outta them with a 1000 tends to keep your canopy a little lower unless you have the vertical height to hike that 1000 up. Stick with the 400's .... also you get much better light penetration running 2 400's a few feet apart than a 1000 due to the light spectrums overlapping and less shadowing in the lower branches

for mediums... i clone in 1" rockwool cubes ... once they are rooted (roots at least 1" exposing roots from the bottom of cube). Then i line 4" plastic baskets with 4" coco liners and put about an inch worth of hydroton (rocks) in the bottom, (rinse the rocks well before use to get powdery dust off so it doesnt collect in your reservoir or plug your pump), then place the new rooted clone on top of your rocks and pack more rocks around the rockwool cube and on top of the cube. If a lot of light hits the top of your rockwool cube a little algae will grow which is fine and actually its a good sign. But I put a few rocks around the base of the new clone on top of the rockwool cube as to block the light off a little bit.

You dont have to use coco liners inside your plastic baskets but i find that it helps keep things stable a little better and add a little weight to the base, considering i use small 4" baskets.

also you want your waterline in your flood table to fill up to the BOTTOM of your rockwool cube... then you can flood more times per day... if you are soaking the shit outta your rockwool cube everytime your waterline floods up, chances are its holding too much water and you wont have the "best" root growth.... remember, its just as important for the roots to get dry as it is for them to be wet... roots grow and develop when they are dry to search out water

cheers!

nice pic of ass reaper...1inch rockwool to root then move to plastic baskets with hydroton..i dont like rockwool it can get alge easly and lil buggies like to live in them and can kill ur babys.. the ones i use are the starter plugs i think thats what ther called. there like a foam, soil, spunge.. make sure you cover with hydroton..good luck and peace..

wow 4 feet above plants thats way to high ive never but more than a foot unless its the first couple days but wow waste lots of light that high lol

Just starting out and I am thinking of using Sure to Grow as a medium, inert and ph neutral. Little pricey but a whole lot less messy. Also gonna use a Ebb & Grow system for flowering and a flood table for veg. Hope I don't make too many mistakes, will look to you guys for advice when the need arises. Got some seeds called Tibetan Tundra, buds were nice & tasty and the seeds were free, see how it grows.

i disagree that a 400 will work on a 4x4, but if you use both those 400w's over the table it will work.. i been using flood and drain tables for years and the best medium i found is either 4" rockwool cubes or rockwool mini cubes that you would fill the whole table with and then place clones in (cheapest).. if only using a few plants i would use the 4" rockwool cubes or larger depending on how large you will be growing your plants..