El-Cheapo Ebb and Flow System on Perpetual harvest

Didn't want to post this till it was run through a couple cycles. The system uses 4 reservoirs. One is 1/2 strength nutes for 2 weeks of veg to establish roots. 2 more for 2-4 and 4-6 weeks veg. Last tub is straight water for flush. These are the big black tubs with yellow checkerboard lids and the 18" sterilite tubs on top. Each tub hold 2 sterilite tubs. The vinyl fence posts are cut in 18" sections so you get 4 per fence post. The caps are expensive. The top of each section has 5 holes for 2" netpots and they are staggered. The bottom and bottom of the sides are drilled to allow for filling and draining. Each one has about 8 qts of hydroton for growing medium. The pumps in the rez come on every 4 hours for 15 minutes, I use a 1/2" line to fill and a 1" overflow tube plus a 1/4" hole in the base of the tub to drain. Every week I clean one rez, so each rez runs 4 weeks between cleanings. I don't run bennies, I don't run sterile, I'm not using RO water. Roots stay really healthy until about 10 weeks, at which point they completely fill the fence post and suffocate so not a good layout unless you're running straight into flower or only a couple weeks veg. Fits comfortably in a 4x8 grow room, total cost about $180 to setup.

The great part is you can just pick up each fence post section and move it to the next tub, or take it out for cleaning, or for trim, harvest etc. I'm out of town a lot, mine routinely runs 2 weeks without me being there to check on it. The only issue is splash, if your pump fills too fast water in the tubs gets turbulent and splashes over. You can fix it by upsizing your incoming line to 3/4" or by putting a turn at the head, a screen etc anything to add a little back pressure. Pics below.

The small plants are straight out of the cloner, about 4 days after transplant. The larger plants are 4 weeks old, 2 weeks into flower. ACDC strain on the larger plants, already 28 inches tall.

Very cool. Nice work

hows the acdc working out for you? i picked up a clone from elemental in san jose and even after a month or two, it looks pretty thin and wispy...are you getting that?

Clown Baby said:

hows the acdc working out for you? i picked up a clone from elemental in san jose and even after a month or two, it looks pretty thin and wispy...are you getting that?

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Ya number one sign your strain is legit. Definitely crowd it in. Its really touchy when cutting clones, dehydrates fast so make sure and clip fan leaves with at least 2 nodes and lots of stem. It will also go yellow/purple and drop leaves like crazy just before flowering finishes so dont worry about that just flush like normal. It does NOT water cure well stick to flush if you're going to smoke. My grandfather with a rare form of palsy benefitd tremendously from concentrated alcohol extract, he adds it to rum and shoots it.

Here's 4 weeks on ebb and flow. Welcome to the jungle. It will flower and get heavy resin even in low light areas. These spent 2 weeks in veg and this is start off week 5, 3rd week of flower.

Normally I would screen it but I'm out of town for 2 weeks then 2 weeks again so no time for manicuring.

Little guys in second pic are about 10 days out of cloner. Slowed the growth on them with fainter lighting cause I'm behind flower cycle on others.

Last pic is 2 weeks of veg, mixed up close, second row catatonic, third row snow goddess fourth row Harlequin. Snow goddess is the tallest. 12-16" on 2 Cob's. Will go to flower in 2 weeks.

thanks. keep the updated coming subscribed

7 weeks. I didn't do any maintance on it the last 3 weeks so I know its crazy overgrown. 2 tubs are down to about 10 gallons of water, root growth in the basin drains caused water level to get higher than it should and a lot of splash over. I'm going to notch the tubs on the inside edge so in the future its impossible for level to get too high. Other 2 tubs rock solid. I know the leaves are curly in some spots, my carbon filter exhaust is mounted too low and runs very powerful it causes turbulent air.

The ACDC jungle is at 7 weeks almost to the day, the clones are at 5 weeks. The clone batch has a big hole in the ACDC growth, 2 plants sagged into the flood tray and are stunted severely from being submerged in water. Jungle is 5ft at the tallest, the clone batches are about 40". I'm really shocked how big the clones got on just 2 cxb3070's. I thought I would stunt them a little with the lower light. Failed.

kooks over crowed in there . With that spacing in between I would t veg more the. Two weeks max I inly say this because I have been though it gl

Tone5500 said:

kooks over crowed in there . With that spacing in between I would t veg more the. Two weeks max I inly say this because I have been though it gl

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Ya I had a bad combination of timing. The last round went 2 weeks longer than I was expecting so they vegged when I usually go straight from cloner to flower. Now I'm even worse off on the next round cause I was gone over 3 weeks. Starting the next batch of clones Sunday, will take down the LEDs and run CFLs to slow it up a bit, then split this next round and prune heavily.

BuddyLeeCU said:

Ya I had a bad combination of timing. The last round went 2 weeks longer than I was expecting so they vegged when I usually go straight from cloner to flower. Now I'm even worse off on the next round cause I was gone over 3 weeks. Starting the next batch of clones Sunday, will take down the LEDs and run CFLs to slow it up a bit, then split this next round and prune heavily.

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I was having timing issues with having to take clones , so now I just take my clippings and put them in water untill I'm ready to root that way my cutting don't get to big before I flower don't bo if this applies to your rotation just tough I would throw it out there for Ya

Sorry been out of town. Got back yesterday and started harvest on the overgrown ACDC. Trimmed about 2/3 of it and have 8 gallons of trimmed flower water curing. This is from a 2x4 grow area. Didn't weigh it all out but a lot more than I was expecting. I will pull a second crop from what wasn't ready to go yet, some of the buds buried under the foilage. Will probably be another 3 gallons. Several plants underneath had been smothered and were completely dead but had no impact on other plant growth, benefit of going sterile.