EBB & FLOW timer setting.

[spLIFTED]

Hi everybody!

I am a patient in CA and planning out to grow my own medicine as the prices are too high for my income, i don't have direct experience in hydroponic indoors so this is a total new hobby for me. I am however an advid reptile/aquatic hobbiest.

Right now I have 2 seedlings that are for experimental and they are growing with a ultrasonic mister and 1" rockwool, I have the mister on at 24/24 and lights on 24/24 as well. They are now 1 week old and I already have a EBB & FLOW set up ready to accomedate them. What I am wondering is...

How many times per day/hr should i have the pump on? I've been searching for this all over the internet and came up with these from different sites.

20 mins an hr - 6 times a day
10 mins an hr - 5 times a day

and others from around there. Now some of what i came up with is for other plants as well. I was wondering what other members on this forum has used as a water cycle?

I have a 15 gallon reservior 250gph pump to a tray that is a 50gal rubbermaid cut in half. I will be growing on Clay Pellets and rockwool.


Also i came up with an idea to put a large air stone in teh flood tray on the bottom for added airation. I already have one in the res.


anyways, glad to have stumbled upon this forum!

thanks in advance

-SP

[inohow2grow]

Ebb and flow is a pretty old method. Alot of folks are converting to top style drippers and coco fiber. But I still grow in clay balls too, indoors.

I flood every 1hr and 43 minutes for 5 minutes but only when the light is on.

Why every 1:43? I found a calculater and divided the maximum amount of floods with 14 digital flood settings. So my timer has 14 events.

I don't flood longer than 5 minutes, which is enough to reach my stand pipe. Flooding over 20 minutes can drown them.

Air pump and areation aren't really required. The root zone has plenty of air getting to it. The main concern then is how much moisture your growing media can hold. Since I use only clay balls I need to flood more often than you because rockwool holds moisture longer.

If you were rockwool only they say flood once a day. Don't flood at night, it promotes mildew and fungus.

Grow tall and stay safe

[inohow2grow]

If you hae any questions I'll be back..

[spLIFTED]

Many thanks inohow2grow

That's some great information! i really appreciate it!

Yeah - I just set everything up today. washed the clay balls and everything. threw them in and letting water run trough them for not to saturate and further cleaning and etc.

http://discount-hydro.com/productdis...pid=67&navid=7

that is the timer i have. it said it only has 6 cycles.

what would you recommend?

I was thinking, since its just one block of rock wool placed into the tub surrounded by clay balls. Maybe i should flood every hour for just a few minutes, like 6 - 7? I'll time how long it takes to fill the tub later tonight, it was a 50gal rubbermaid tub that i cut in half and my drain is about 3 - 4 inch tall.

thanks again!

[FLoJo]

that is some good info there..

keep in mind that the amount of times you flood is dictated by your growing medium.. now if you use that 1 inch rockwool block and transplant it into a larger say 4x4 block that means you will only need to flood once or twice per day while the lights are on but if you just do the clay pellets you will want to flood once every two hours or so while the lights are on and maybe once at night just to keep the roots from overdrying later in the flowering period when they are really suckin up the juice....

as far as airation is concerned i would recommend that you put an airstone or two at the bottom not because the water needs the added o2 but because depending on how often you are feeding if the water in your res isnt constantly moving your nutrients can seperate and some can settle to the bottom making hotspots and can cause problems... usually doesnt but more oxygen and good stable nutrients never hurts right??

so that was a longwinded response but to answer your question using that timer i would say water five times per day for 7 minutes and once at night for 3 minutes six hours after lights out.. with digital timers be sure to set the same feeding for all seven days because some ppl miss it due to them being hard to figure out sometimes... hope this helps! oh ya and this is all assuming you are using only the one inch rockwool with clay pebbles!

FLo