I use it with great results but my buckets are not the original design. In my system with the original 2 gal. buckets I have lids I made with 8" net pots pop riveted into the middle of them to give a lot more room for water and roots and less for hydroton you don't need. I also shim the buckets at a slight slant to completely drain them after every fill.

On another system I have 3.5 gallon buckets with similar lids with the 8" net pots in them and that system is going like crazy. I had plants I potted that were stressed the first week due to other factors and in 6 weeks they were 4 feet tall. More room for roots gives you a lot of benefits.

It's not a perfect system but with tweaking it works well enough for me.

Thanks much for the input. I think I am going to give it a try. Which one of the two that you are running are your preference? I'm going to be using a dedicated vege room and a dedicated flower room so transportability of the buckets is a major consideration, which is one of the reasons why I am leaning towards a system with less hydroton than the waterfarms.

I like my 3.5 gallon modified system. You can find the buckets at US Plastics online and the lids at any grow shop, they're molded with net pots in them and snap right on the buckets.

I only run ten buckets per rez on that system since it takes so much water to fill them but the results make up for the few plants.

Ya, I too use the Ebb & Gro site systems..
GREAT SYSTEM IMO...

Matter fact, I have a couple DIY Ebb & Gro sites setup in a 3x3 tent scrog I posted in the Grow Diaries, if I can ever get the post approved so you can see it... LOL

But I have always suggest the 3-1/2gal buckets just because you can use a smaller reservoir and therefore less overall nutes for the total grow...

Ya, I'm a penny pincher... LOL

steelyeyes said:

I like my 3.5 gallon modified system. You can find the buckets at US Plastics online and the lids at any grow shop, they're molded with net pots in them and snap right on the buckets.

I only run ten buckets per rez on that system since it takes so much water to fill them but the results make up for the few plants.

Click to expand...

hey, i was thinking about trying something very similar to this. could you talk about the growth rates in comparison to filling the buckets with rock. also, what kind of issues have you run into?

The growth rates in the beginning are about the same but in the original design they get rootbound in a few weeks well before they get to the size they could with more root mass. With the modified buckets and 8" net pots there is at least triple the room for roots, which do the plant good versus rocks that don't do much but get in the way. For stability you can always tie the plant up but you won't need to if you let the system restrict the root growth.

The only other real issue has been root zone temps. For that I use a chiller, chill water rez, and coils of plastic irrigation tube for heat exchange. I added circulation pumps to my reservoirs to keep them stirred so now they just push the nute solution out through my chill tank and back to keep the rez stirred and cool.