Help with drip system

I'm setting up a drip system using hydrton and I'm wondering how often I should water and for how long.

I plan on getting either half gallon or one gallon per hour dippers and running my pump 30 on 15 off, rather than on 24 hours, in order to keep my res temp down.

Any thoughts?

i would get one gallon a hour drippers and then run a timer every four hours for 30 min's like a ebb&flo not from experience just a thought.

Thats what I was thinking, I have two questions.

1 How much water can hydrton hold, this will decide if the pump is off for 15 or 30 miniutes.

2 1 gph or 1/2 gallon per hour dripers? I guess this is affected by the first question. I'm thinking in hydrton with any time for the pump to rest it will be hard to over water.

Has any one used a top drip system before?

I've found that my tinny fountain pump will probably not heat my water to much. I've also redigned my system to get much more pressure out of my little pump and a more even spread of water in every pot, all with less lines and pvc pipe.

I'm soaking my hydroton now, once every thing is in place I'll run the system for a few days to see how stable it is before introducing any clones.

I'm going to run this system using the Lucas formula so that I can have a perpetual harvest with a shared reservoir. I have to do this because of my space limitations.

I use top drip, w/ hydrotone .. I put my pump on a timer and set it for 15 min on every 3 hours. I do this all the way around the dial so that when the main timer goes of and it turns of the timer for the pump it won't throw the timing of.. That used to get me.. As long as the timer is set all the way around your pots will never go dry for longer than 3 hours

Smokeyjoe419 said:

I use top drip, w/ hydrotone .. I put my pump on a timer and set it for 15 min on every 3 hours. I do this all the way around the dial so that when the main timer goes of and it turns of the timer for the pump it won't throw the timing of.. That used to get me.. As long as the timer is set all the way around your pots will never go dry for longer than 3 hours

Click to expand...

Really three hours? Seams like the roots would get dry real quick under HPS bulbs.

For me this works, but let me add this; I start in 4 inch pots w foxfarm oceanforest, then when I switch to bloom I put them in 7 inch pots and fill in around the root ball w/ hyrotone, this all sits on a bed of hydrotone, the roots come out the bottom and grow into the bed underneath. It's always moist there, at my local grow shop the have tomatoes growing in a flood table in net pots w/ hydrotone and they flood every 4 hours... So I do 3.

Fluxcap said:

Thats what I was thinking, I have two questions.

1 How much water can hydrton hold, this will decide if the pump is off for 15 or 30 miniutes.

2 1 gph or 1/2 gallon per hour dripers? I guess this is affected by the first question. I'm thinking in hydrton with any time for the pump to rest it will be hard to over water.

Click to expand...

hydroton locks in moisture for quite a while so roots dont dry out 4 hours in my eyes would be pretty sufficient i ran drippers one time for my first grow ever just did it till my seedlings got a little bigger i did this in my ebb&flo tray then when they got a little bit down the road just switched to full flood and drain just ran the same schedule for both worked good for me hope this helps.

I run a drip system or GH's waterfarm with hydrotron. You can't over water imo.... a lot of people say that running the drip 24/7 is bad however I have found it to be quite amazing. I believe GH tells me with my "waterfarm" to have a constant drip while the lights are on only. I have heard numerous stories of people running drip 12/12 and when the air pump is off (GH uses an airpump to pump the water to the top of the system) that water will vacuum through your lines through the air pump flooding your room and fuckin your airpump.

Because of this I run drip 24/7 because flooding is a very very bad option for me. Staring at a Cheese mama right now the plant is very healthy besides maybe 5 of the 50 leaves show signs of overwater. With that being said, I could not be more pleased with my production and quality right now. I have a 6 inch NYCD cola off of 2.5 weeks veg that i get to lop off in 1 week! can't wait!