Hyrdroponics Watering, when?

As with many things concerning growing and the internet, there are some varied opinions and its sometimes hard to tell which is correct, so if you side one way or the other, please explain yourself, any help is greatly appreciated.


I am using a hyrdroton bed for my eb and flow for flowering stage. This is my first time and I just want to make sure I have the right idea about when to water and how long to water. From what I understand plants can only feed when its daylight so watering at night is mostly pointless. My current schedule plan is this.



Water 15 minutes after lights come on, for 15 minutes. Water for 15 minutes 1 third into the day cycle, and water again for 15 minutes an hour before lights out. I will water a 4th time right at the half way point of night because I am using only hydroton and it is not absorbent, this is only to combat the roots from drying out to much over the 12 hours of darkness.

I light at night, to save on energy costs, lights on at 6pm, lights out at 6am. So each at 15 minutes my watering schedule looks like this 6:15pm, 11:30pm, 5:00am, 12:00pm

I have a hardwired timer that can work in 15 minute intervals so 15 minutes is the least amount I can water is it enough or should I run 1/2 hour? I have a 350 gph pump that fills it up within the first minute, so the flow is fairly strong, and I have two air stones int he 15 gallon reservoir so I feel the oxygen levels are good enough.

I can take pictures if anyone needs them.

Thanks for the info, using only hydroton and no rockwool or other absorbent medium my initial thought was more than 3 times a day was necessary. I think my plan going in now is to start my first watering when the lights turn on and every 3 hours from then on out until the lights turn out. I'll monitor any wilting closely the first few days and adjust to have the longest time in between waterings possible.