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To cut a long story short like most nubs I've been agonising over a hydro system. I like the idea of a flood and drain and so want to build a small one to fit in a medium budbox (0.75mx0.75m) for automatic feeding of my small plants in my mother/prop tent. The plan is to have it sit at the bottom underneath a shelf, with the mum on the shelf in a waterfarm - vegging plant underneath and then moving into a separate bigger budbox setup for flowering.

I need help with the design of this - it's basically a bastardised version of The Green Man's (from the vid 'I Grow Chronic' which I really liked) and smaller. In his vid he uses a dripper for veg and f&d for flower but I don't like the idea of drip....cloggy etc...I need simple and easy, so the plan is to use this hydrobox to hold plants until ready to flower.



I haven't drilled and fit the nozzles yet, but they're both outs that go underneath. One goes out to the tank beneath and the other get extended up top to prevent overflow. Not shown is a small air pump that brings the nute from the tank into the top, which will be filled with clay pebbley things (hydroton? brain is already overloaded!).

Questions for you wise geezers are:

1) I can't see why the hoses are needed - what I'd really like to do is just cut holes in the top of the tank so that the top tray can drain directly into the tank beneath...no hoses, cable ties or silicon needed. Seems simpler...is there a good reason why not to? (maybe the tank should be closed to prevent bacterial crap?)

2) Do you think this design will do the trick, or should I put a thick layer of rockwool underneath the clay pebbles? I'd rather just go clay pebbles for better aeration but you tell me what works...

3) Is this a sensible idea for growing the small stuff? It all came about because I was about to germ my seeds and then all of a sudden I'm off to Dam on Monday (major f**king result - when they come from out of nowhere they're the best)...so I need a system that will work whilst I'm AFK.

Sorry for all the questions....so far this thing nicknamed "hydrobox" has cost me £50 and if it works will be a really nice compact, low maintenance, hopefully very reliable, hydro system. If this goes well I'll just do the same on a bigger scale in the flowering room.

Thanks oodles in advance,

FF

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Update: I canned this. Reason being using cheap storage containers are crap for large volumes - it started to warp heavily when I tested it out. Also, I found it really hard to find a deep tray no larger than 70cmx70cm to make my own ebb and flood system.

Ended up buying the wildly overpriced Nutriculture ebb and flood trays for 60 quid (yeah I know, fking ripoff) because it has a really low profile (about 30cm) and fits perfectly inside a medium budbox. Having a low profile means enough room to veg stuff underneath where I'm growing my mum and also means I can use ebb and flood to feed my seedlings from clone through veg before moving them next door to flower.

I have no idea if Nutriculture people read these forums...but I'm seriously tempted to get these plastic moulded and punt them myself for 20-30 quid for the pair and still make nice money...

FF