Ebb & Grow

jadins_journey · Oct 10, 2008

I'm fairly new to the Farm and I must say there are some REALLY impressive grow journals here. Sure I haven't gotten around to reading them all but I will for sure.

One of the newest hydroponic systems out on the market today is the Ebb & Grow unit from Cap Industries. I bought mine about a year ago and to be honest this system rocks, seriously. The principal design is for the resv. to be placed away from the grow area, hell even in an other room if ya want, and the 2 gallon pots sit directly on the floor. For gardeners like myself that have ceiling heigth issues this is the system for you.

The other advantage for this system is it's versatility. Up until this point in my garden there have not been 2 grows that were identical, each grow has been adjusted based on what happened with the last grow. The unit is designed to accomodate from 6 to 48 pots. Any less than 6 pots and the pumps cycle way to often and burn out, 48 pots really is pushing limits of this system. Feeding that many in full flower would require top offs frequently.

Water movement is accomplished by the use of 2 small pumps. One in the resv. and one in the control modul located at plant level. When the system cycles on the pump in the resv. fills the control and gravity fills the pots. When the system cycles off the pump in the control empties the modul and gravity empties the pots to the control modul.

Enough about the system, let me see if I can find some old pics of it. Found them, these were taken the day I first bought the system a year ago, it's truely a virgin in these 2 pictures.

jj

jadins_journey · Oct 10, 2008

My genetics: back when I started this little project I ordered a package of BlueberryxCinderella99 seeds from Joey Weed, sadly Joey is no longer selling seeds. Surprisingly all 20 seeds popped, one died so the 19 remaining went to flower. Sexed them and had 7 ladies to flower out. Clones were taken before flowering so I had labeled each plant and clone, tossed the boy clones LOL.

The plant labels enabled me to track each pheno for the next 2 generations. Of the seven pheno's ran I selected them down to 4 of what I felt were the best in respect to quality of smoke and growth rate. From that point on all plants are the same in my garden BB x C99. The first crop was seeded on purpose so I do have a supply of F2's if needed but have not grown any out just pop a bean for germination test on occasion.

I am currently working on the 14th generation of this genetic line. What you will see in this journal is a combination of genetics and equipment, designed to work together. This system could be adapted to run any genetic line but for now it's just me, my E&G and my plant. System goes online in 7 days, check back in.

jj

hererisssh · Oct 10, 2008

nice system jj! Did you have to special order or did they have it at a hydro store? Those are 2 gal bucket filled with hydroton and flooded with a timer then suctioned back to the res? Is that the arrangement you still use? Cost? sorry for all the ??'s but that setup looks perfect!

jadins_journey · Oct 10, 2008

hererisssh said:
nice system jj! Did you have to special order or did they have it at a hydro store? Those are 2 gal bucket filled with hydroton and flooded with a timer then suctioned back to the res? Is that the arrangement you still use? Cost? sorry for all the ??'s but that setup looks perfect!

hererisssh, first off let me say thanks for stopping by.

1) yep straight off the store shelf, wormsway.com
2) yep, 2 gal bucket with hydroton, actually double buckets one with holes in the bottom that sits in one with a single drain hole. Enables grower to move plants at any time they choose.
3) yep, flood and drain. pump in and pump out.
4) hell no! I made lots of mistakes, lots and have since tweaked the system just a bit.
5) Cost? It's expensive I must say, $575 for the first picture alone and I have since spent a $ more on upgrades. Most every mistake I made cost me $$, there's probably $6K worth of mistakes in my shop or the dump by now LOL.

I'll be more than happy to answer any question I can so ask away.

jj

hererisssh · Oct 10, 2008

Hear ya JJ, mistakes cost a lot in this game! Shit, so does success! Damned if you do/don't I guess. First time I've seen this system and I like what I see bro.

Got a couple of questions I've wondered about these recirc systems. Did you level the buckets to each other? Have you run the system without the hydroton to watch a flood cycle? If, so how long did it take the last bucket to drain once the pump flipped?

It's great to see commercially available products, like this one, setup so everyone can get some insight about the real world experiences prior to purchase. Tweeks, improvements, do tell...

hererisssh · Oct 10, 2008

~Deleted duplicate post~

jadins_journey · Oct 11, 2008

hererisssh said:
Hear ya JJ, mistakes cost a lot in this game! Shit, so does success! Damned if you do/don't I guess. First time I've seen this system and I like what I see bro.

Got a couple of questions I've wondered about these recirc systems. Did you level the buckets to each other? Have you run the system without the hydroton to watch a flood cycle? If, so how long did it take the last bucket to drain once the pump flipped?

It's great to see commercially available products, like this one, setup so everyone can get some insight about the real world experiences prior to purchase. Tweeks, improvements, do tell...

hererisssh, I spent a minute and dug back through all my picture files and tried to find one from each grow that might represent in color some of the issues you can face with the Ebb & Grow.

Floor leveling is critical as you suggested and my grow room has a variance of 5.5" from high to low point. In the crop 2 pictures you can see the water that flooded my room during the rainy season. The E&G control sits on the floor which is the only part of the system that sucks, that water you see on the floor shut crop 1 down and the sump had to be installed in the floor.

I tried leveling each pot as you can see but that really bites. Then I tried leveling a row at a time, think that is 4 or 5 with the vegetables. I do flood each system before bringing in the plants to check for level actually, look at those red and yellow float things in the one pic in the bucket. Flood time to fill and or drain with hydroton for a 20 pot system is 7 minutes. Never timed an empty flood drain cycle as the amount of water pumped is huge compared to a filled flood cycle.

During the last remodel I said f' it and built a new floor, that's level LOL. Like I said earlier this garden has been a series of mistakes with some good smoke thrown in at times.

jj

OGReggieBUSH777 · May 7, 2010

man why did u switch up so fast... btw nice canopy

blahman · May 9, 2010

Nice system, I have a 40 pot version going. I bought a controller off of fleabay and bought the pots local. I've done a smaller grow before with it 22 plants. Worked great.