Ebb-n-Flow Set-up

[Raiderfan420]

So I have been growing in a 8x10 room under my house with 2 4x4' trays and smart pots..two 1k hps. I use coco coir/perlite and have been hand watering with a wand attached to my res.
I am moving my room to a 10x12 and am going to change to ebb/flow. I am going to use my cureent 4x4 botanicare trays. What I am trying to figure out is whether or not I should use one res and two pumps or two seperate reserviors. I plan on usign the smart pots, but could use some opinions on this one too.
I know I have room to add more light/trays, but I want to get the 1k per tray thing down with two trays first.
The ceilings are 10 ft tall so I am going to put some 2x4 rafters in to hang lights/ducts etc.
I am also changing up my veg room. I am currently using a 4x4 room and hand watering with wand as well from seperate res. I am going to be using a steel shelving system with two 2x4 trays with 4'quad t-5's over them. I plan on using a res at the bottom and two pumps again in this set-up. Since the trays will be stacked I was hoping to figure a way out to fill the top tray and then have it drain to the next tray and then back into the res, but haven't figured out how to do this.
Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Pic 1 is the rooms

Pic two is my set-up idea

 

[Boomer242]

hey bro this site is givign me issues since im a new user. it wont let me reply to ur PM. so i gotta post it here sorry. im gettin frustrated since RIU is down and this site wont let me send any kind of message private or not. so heres my message;


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RUI has been down for over 12hours and its BS> i spent half the day writing a new journal and uplaoding pix and videos for the new threead. luckily i copy and pasted it into a new thread on here as well but im waiting for the mods to approve the post. should be up today if u wanna be the first to check it out.

 

[Malachi]

Hey whatsup Raiderfan? To answer your first question IMHO it would be better to use seperate res. for each tray. You could stagger your harvests this way and also grow multiple strains that have different nutrient regiments. (If you are like me then you are not just happy smoking 1 strain) Its not really that imperative in your veg room because veg nutes are not as finicky as say your week 3-5 flowering nutrients and are not as strain specific.

And your second question. If I was going to run to trays with 1 pump and wanted to have the top one waterfall into the bottom this is how I would do it. I would run my feed line up to the top tray and into the smaller feedline fitting. I would then run a line from the drain line on the top into the feedline in the bottom (gonna need an adapter) in the bottom tray and then the drain line on the bottom back into the res. Connect a shut off valve from the drain line in the bottom tray to the res. I would use an ebb and flow spacer on the top tray above the drain line, but not on the bottom because I am sure you figured out it would hold standing water. This is where you use your shut off valve and dial it in until you get the right amount of height you want in the bottom tray and when the pump shuts off everything drains back into the res.

 

[SkyHi]

Hey whatsup Raiderfan? To answer your first question IMHO it would be better to use seperate res. for each tray. You could stagger your harvests this way and also grow multiple strains that have different nutrient regiments. (If you are like me then you are not just happy smoking 1 strain) Its not really that imperative in your veg room because veg nutes are not as finicky as say your week 3-5 flowering nutrients and are not as strain specific.

And your second question. If I was going to run to trays with 1 pump and wanted to have the top one waterfall into the bottom this is how I would do it. I would run my feed line up to the top tray and into the smaller feedline fitting. I would then run a line from the drain line on the top into the feedline in the bottom (gonna need an
adapter) in the bottom tray and then the drain line on the
bottom back into the res. Connect a shut off valve from
the drain line in the bottom tray to the res. I would use
an ebb and flow spacer on the top tray above the drain
line, but not on the bottom because I am sure you figured
out it would hold standing water. This is where you use
your shut off valve and dial it in until you get the right
amount of height you want in the bottom tray and when
the pump shuts off everything drains back into the
res.

Agreed, except i would just use two pumps in the veg area seems much simpler , goodluck keep us posted

 

[Raiderfan420]

Hey thanks for the input fellas. I typed a response yesterday, but I must have not posted it..lol
Here is the deal with the flower room. I got a deal on a ebb-n-grow bucket complete system with 55 gal res, pumps, hoses and 48 buckets- brand new $500. This would change up everything. Does anyone have any expereince with these systems? Also if I am ebb/flow in veg I am trying to figure out what medium to use that I can transfer to the buckets if I go that route.

As for the Veg, I did just get two pumps. The one thing I didn't account for was the hoses comming out of the top tray interfere with the light that will hang under that tray. So I but a elbow on it, but it will still limit the heigth I can raise that light.
So if anyone has any expereince with the buckets please share, and anyone with medium ideas that I can transplant from veg to flower. I was planning on using the 5 inch coco pots and just drop them in the smart pots in flower, but if I go with the buckets this won't work.

Thanks again for the help :)

 

[Rob1]

rockwool should work fine.

 

[Malachi]

Just use 6" rockwool cubes like Rob1 said. I don't personally have experience with those setups, but a buddy of mine had one and hated it. He said it flooded sometimes and made a huge mess. Don't know if it was an operator error or what, but he is a pretty smart guy so I am doubting it. I would think you could do a DIY setup with 48-DWC buckets and a 55 gallon drum control bucket with float valve and be able to customize it how you want it.

 

[Raiderfan420]

rockwool should work fine.

Yeah I figure the rockwool or sure to grow would be the easist to transfer. I just currently veg for 6-8 weeks and tansplant twice in veg and one more time when moving to flower. But I have been using coco for the last year.

Just use 6" rockwool cubes like Rob1 said. I don't personally have experience with those setups, but a buddy of mine had one and hated it. He said it flooded sometimes and made a huge mess. Don't know if it was an operator error or what, but he is a pretty smart guy so I am doubting it. I would think you could do a DIY setup with 48-DWC buckets and a 55 gallon drum control bucket with float valve and be able to customize it how you want it.

Thanks for sharing your buddies experience with the buckets. If I don't use the buckets I will go back to my origianl plan and using the two 4x4 trays I already have for ebb/flow. If I use the trays I will use a coco/perlite combination in smart pots and hydroton in the trays. I also looked doubled's tubs as a possible alternative too. The only reason I am moving away from the top fed drain to waste set-up I have is to reduce the daily mantainence.
My original paln before I got distracted by the bucket system was to veg in coco pots filled with the coco/perlite and hydroton or silica rock in the trays then transfer to the flower room dropping the coco pots and roots into 3/5 gal smart pots with the coco/perlite and hydroton or silcate rock in the trays.

 

[20north]

i wouldn't use one res for 2 4x4 table the plants drink alot.... in ebb and flow with coco it would be a full time job topping it off:icon_cookie:

i really like the bucket idea you should go with that idea ebb n grow with sure to grow fittings

 

[Raiderfan420]

i wouldn't use one res for 2 4x4 table the plants drink alot.... in ebb and flow with coco it would be a full time job topping it off:icon_cookie:

i really like the bucket idea you should go with that idea ebb n grow with sure to grow fittings

I decided not to get the buckets and instead picked up two easy drain botinacre 50 gal res. One for each of the trays. I figure with 50 gals I should only have to change the res every 7-10 days. I am planning on running coco coir and either perlite or chunky coco in smart pots. The only challenge I am having is what I shoul veg them in. With the coir, I can't use net pots or anything that the coir will drain out of. So what I am thinking is using the little 4" coco pots and transfering them to 1 gal smart pots in veg and then to either 3 or 5 gal smarts pots. I have ot figure it out in the next few days because my cuttings in the aero cloner are almost ready to be move to pots.