I need a crash course in the basics of Ebb and Flow

I been doing Coco forever and I decided to use inherited equipment. I set up a 100 gal res and a 4x8 table but don't really know what makes a good grow in this system. My teacher has left me blind and I really wanna pump these tables hard. I flipped 18 days ago and have to learn how keep up a clean system. Will you help a brother out of the dark???

^^^I am in this for the learning also, so there is at least 2 of us in here in the dark...lol, I am curious about keeping the stability of the res, both in ph, ppms and overall health in such a setup.

Peace

Asmallvoice

For keeping the res stable you need good complete hydro nutes, 100% light proof, temps below 70* and run beneficial bacteria, or at a minimum sterilizers... plenty of bubbles (if using bennies), dechlorinated and free of sterilizers (if using bennies)

I am not the most experienced, but i have found ph should naturally drift upwards a few ticks throughout the week. If all of the above parameters are correct and you are experiencing rapid ph drop, it is probably from cal/mag deficiency. You want to run your nutes hot enough that ph buffers are present in sufficient quantity to stabilize your res. This should only be an issue if you are feeding super light such as seedlings. If you use dynagro protekt, it can be used as ph up which I have found to be quite stable.

I have never tried ebb n flo but it seems like you are already rolling with it and in flower already. Do you have any specific questions? Because you can pretty much find a 10 min youtube crash course video for just about any type hydro.

I am experienced in coco, problems like algae, root rot, overall hygiene are more pronounced in the ebb an flow. Rockwool and buildup issues? I am finding that the coco is producing healthier plants. How does one change a resivoir and clean out the tables properly???

Just drain your nutes into the tub / sink / outside with your water pump and hose, and then add new water with your bloom base nutes. Add bennies or zone/h2o2 and ph to 5.8

If you want to clean you can use bleach or h2o2 or physan 20, but I have found this isn't necessary unless you have algae/slime/etc.

If you are having algae, make sure res is light proof and cold. You can wrap your res in reflectix for insulation and light proofing and run a chiller to keep temps below 70* If your res has a big enough opening, you can use gallons of ice as needed instead of a chiller, depending on how much effort you want to put into it.

I like to run bennies... great white, mycogrow soluble, aquashield, pond-zyme all good products. You can bubble them in a bucket of water for 2 days with ancient forest humus and black strapped molasses if you really want to boost the microbial diversity (diversity prevents pathogens) and stretch your dollar to spend virtually nothing on bennies. If you go this route, you want to not kill off your bennies with shit like h2o2 bleach and chlorine.

If you go the sterile option, I know dutch master zone is pretty popular. But to keep your water clean of algae etc, you should run one or the other.

If you have salt build up you might be feeding too hot, even if you see no tip burn. You can run a few cycles of plain water or just get caveman style and rinse off the rockwool blocks with a hose and fingers (keep in mind, moderate levels of chloramine in your water could sterilize your bennies).

PetFlora said:

The inherent problems with soaking any medium include salt build up that is difficult to flush and/or root/stem rot

Better to drip from the top, and even better than that is my technique of spraying (think rain shower head) from the top into a fast draining media which allows plants to be fed mini-meals every hour during lights on. Imagine how explosive veg should be, and therefor buds.

See my first go round thread and my new thread which is the 2.0 version

Click to expand...

I love this idea and when the space opens up will consider it seriously. Automated and simple feeding is my primary objective....the coco was working very well in terms of growth but the handwatering from above was just not easy. I checked out the thread but it was a little obscure because I didn't really know what I was looking at. let me know as much about it as you can/want and maybe we can put our heads together.....who knows. This sterile vs. bennie issue is kind of a tough call. Is it a big deal to flush it sterile and recolonize? Hey thank you so much. One question....I have so far been using beneficials and humic acids but algae is all over the rockwool....this is normal? I don't see more bacteria getting this any better if it has not already....

What ever kind of hydroponics you use the first thing to purchase is a monitor being a bluelab guardian or neptunes apex. A water level gage on your reservoir. It is very critical to monitor your system PPM, PH, Temperature, reservoir water level these 4 things will make or break your grow. Being able to monitor everything at a glance is key. When your PPMs go up and your water level goes down your nutrients are to strong (lockout) When your PPMs go down with your water level increase your nutrients. Perfect is PPMs will be stable and not change when water level drops. Oxygen levels in your nutrient solution are very critical also. If you purchase the apex great controller sky is the limit on what you can do from your cell phone. Also consider a dissolved oxygen (DO) meter or oxygen reduction probe (ORP) for the apex. Using one of these will tell you what the oxygen levels are in your nutrient solutuion. Good luck .......

hammer21 said:

What ever kind of hydroponics you use the first thing to purchase is a monitor being a bluelab guardian or neptunes apex. A water level gage on your reservoir. It is very critical to monitor your system PPM, PH, Temperature, reservoir water level these 4 things will make or break your grow. Being able to monitor everything at a glance is key. When your PPMs go up and your water level goes down your nutrients are to strong (lockout) When your PPMs go down with your water level increase your nutrients. Perfect is PPMs will be stable and not change when water level drops. Oxygen levels in your nutrient solution are very critical also. If you purchase the apex great controller sky is the limit on what you can do from your cell phone. Also consider a dissolved oxygen (DO) meter or oxygen reduction probe (ORP) for the apex. Using one of these will tell you what the oxygen levels are in your nutrient solutuion. Good luck .......

Click to expand...

^he is right
once you understand the dynamics of ph and ppm you will have a successful grow. its the most important thing to know when growing hydro, its amazing how many people jump into it not knowing this basic info.

From measuring my runoff and seeing it a couple of points higher, makes me tend to think that would eventually lead to an unstable mixture in the res. if I recirc'ed it. I know my mixed nutes (25g) are respectably stable at 5.7 to 5.8 and after 6 days it is never more than 6.0 mostly 5.9, so having a "spent" drainage coming back into the res at a higher ph, would have a tendency to create a negative snowball effect and cause issues.....imo

Please note, I have no exp other than tons of reading and research, I know it produces stunning plants and is a widely used method, I just can't see leaving a system like that unattended for say 4-5 days ( unless the nutes are automated ) and not come back to an issue somewhere.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

Another just right timing! I've been researching, reading and reading all I can find with growing. I've have grown out side and few years been inside w/hydro & DWC. I'm got a little grow happening right now, more on experiment kind but they are growing. I've seen some great result using this method/"EBB and FLOW. So many ways to make good MMJ and all the intelligent advice one receives here on these 'forums'. I'm new to all this social media stuff. I'm here to learn and maybe insert my 2 cents (doubtful). So I'm here does that mean I'm 'Sub' or do I have to hit another button. Dummie me!