switching from soil to hydro

A quick overview....

I have been growning in soil for a while and fancy trying hydro. Gonna go with Flood and drain.... I have my reasons.

I want to run a 3 table perpetual grow.

I hate the thought of wasting nutes when res's need replenishing.

Q's

Why drain and renew reservoirs every week??

Why am I asking this?? having a perpetual grow and having 3 tables at varying levels of growth... Can I put fresh res on table 1 (full on, late flowering) and a week later, send those nutes to table 2 (mid floowering) for a week and then off to table 3 (early flowering) for a week, then off to the bin.

Is this possible, is it doable topping up nutes along the way?

Thanx in advance.

Answers on a postcard

MrMeanGreen said:

A quick overview....

I have been growning in soil for a while and fancy trying hydro. Gonna go with Flood and drain.... I have my reasons.

I want to run a 3 table perpetual grow.

I hate the thought of wasting nutes when res's need replenishing.

Q's

Why drain and renew reservoirs every week??

Why am I asking this?? having a perpetual grow and having 3 tables at varying levels of growth... Can I put fresh res on table 1 (full on, late flowering) and a week later, send those nutes to table 2 (mid floowering) for a week and then off to table 3 (early flowering) for a week, then off to the bin.

Is this possible, is it doable topping up nutes along the way?

Thanx in advance.

Answers on a postcard

Click to expand...

I use to do hydro many years ago. It is so you dont get a salting out of your nutrients. Yeah it could be done as long as your tables aren't going to mix into one another as to not disrupt your perpetual grow.

Yes it's doable, You just have to keep track of you ppm and ph. Naturally your reservoir will lower as your plants take up the nutes. I replace my nute every three weeks just to be on the safe side.

It can be done but it also invites problems. For example if the plants you are growing require lot of A and little of B and C, then when you give this water to the next tray, there is no A in it because it was all used up by the previous plants. And if they are using all of A and little of B an C, then when you top up again you are just increasing the PPM/EC with more of B and C that they didn't need in the first place. It can be done but you gotta know what you're doing and keep a careful eye on things.

I have never had an issue with wasting nutes. I fill up each reservoir, and do nothing with them until they are empty, all the nutes have been used. Nothing but maybe half a liter of stuff goes down the sink at most, then i fill up from fresh.

calicat said:

I use to do hydro many years ago. It is so you dont get a salting out of your nutrients. Yeah it could be done as long as your tables aren't going to mix into one another as to not disrupt your perpetual grow.

Click to expand...

I would expect loss of potency as each res is fed to the the next table, the strong nutes being given to late flower table (table 1) and the weaker nute brew finally arriving at table 3 (lights just flipped). The loss of potency would be relative to the stages of growth at each table.... I think. lol

Is it possible to neutralise the salts along the way from table 1 down to table 3?

tip top toker said:

It can be done but it also invites problems. For example if the plants you are growing require lot of A and little of B and C, then when you give this water to the next tray, there is no A in it because it was all used up by the previous plants. And if they are using all of A and little of B an C, then when you top up again you are just increasing the PPM/EC with more of B and C that they didn't need in the first place. It can be done but you gotta know what you're doing and keep a careful eye on things.

I have never had an issue with wasting nutes. I fill up each reservoir, and do nothing with them until they are empty, all the nutes have been used. Nothing but maybe half a liter of stuff goes down the sink at most, then i fill up from fresh.

Click to expand...

So replacing nutes every week is not neccessary. Just refill when they levels drop.

With mine i would fill my reservoir, aI do not do as most do and i suffered no issues. I would fill my reservoirs up on saturday, and by the following saturday the reservoirs would be empty. So i would fill them up from scratch, there would be little to no waste. Most people seem to get anal and top up and check and adjust daily with hydro, i do nothing of the sort

tip top toker said:

With mine i would fill my reservoir, aI do not do as most do and i suffered no issues. I would fill my reservoirs up on saturday, and by the following saturday the reservoirs would be empty. So i would fill them up from scratch, there would be little to no waste. Most people seem to get anal and top up and check and adjust daily with hydro, i do nothing of the sort

Click to expand...

My kinda thinkin although I replace anal with excesive love (c;

Amount of pots ?
Size of res?

MrMeanGreen said:

A quick overview....

I have been growning in soil for a while and fancy trying hydro. Gonna go with Flood and drain.... I have my reasons.

I want to run a 3 table perpetual grow.

I hate the thought of wasting nutes when res's need replenishing.

Q's

Why drain and renew reservoirs every week??

Why am I asking this?? having a perpetual grow and having 3 tables at varying levels of growth... Can I put fresh res on table 1 (full on, late flowering) and a week later, send those nutes to table 2 (mid floowering) for a week and then off to table 3 (early flowering) for a week, then off to the bin.

Is this possible, is it doable topping up nutes along the way?

Thanx in advance.

Answers on a postcard

Click to expand...

In my experience I have had issues when I don't change out my reservoir enough. Not worth it. You are inviting a lot of headache that way. Change out your nutes every week or ten days and you will have a lot smoother run. Half change outs work well too, where you dump half your solution every week.

tip top toker said:

With mine i would fill my reservoir, aI do not do as most do and i suffered no issues. I would fill my reservoirs up on saturday, and by the following saturday the reservoirs would be empty. So i would fill them up from scratch, there would be little to no waste. Most people seem to get anal and top up and check and adjust daily with hydro, i do nothing of the sort

Click to expand...

How does this make sense? What type of system where you using? Im just not sure how you would let your res completely drain. Are you doing drain to waist?

I would highly recommend changing your res at least every 14 days, but honest opinion I say every week.

Also, I watch my ppms and top off in between. Top offs more so when the plants are larger because they eat a lot more. Even in my short stint here with hydro, I don't see how any of you are talking about reusing nutes… thats nuts. You would have salt build up and your nutrients will spoil after so long. I can tell my plants start to act funny after 14ish days. You can see it in the leaves. Not to mention you will notice your res begins to smell. Keep your system clean, its cheaper than losing a crop to root rot and other BS.

Hi mate

I swap out my res every 10 days, in that time my lady's drink about 15L of water. At day 5 I refill my res with half strength neuts to ensure there is enough neuts in the res for them. Ive never had any problems doing this. And neuts are fairly cheap anyway, you are better off spending a little more on neuts and having a great harvest, than cheeping out on neuts and having a crappy harvest.