Flood or Tube

I am about ready to leave soil behind and get into hydro..I looked at several threads/journals on here and most seem to just stop with no updates for some reason..can someone point me to a good system that is fairly priced or a good DIY tutorial? ..any help appreciated ...i saw the Heath Robinson flooded tubes and they are amazing but not much info on how to design/build..where to get a good pump etc...flood tables look appealing as well..thanks.......and I am not looking for anything real small, I have two 600 watt hps and one 1k watt lights.

look at the rails in "harvest a pound every 3weeks" by stinkbud

if you want maximum efficiency, then look at vertical like that of heath robinson. it is however not the simplest to build. if I was going into vertical, I would do vertical tubes with top feeding nft instead of flooding the tube like what heath does. you can innovate as you see best. as for equipment, you will need to look for them one by one except if you want to buy a ready made system which is silly priced. once you have chosen your system, it will be much easier to find help with it. Good Luck!!!

To be honest I think you should start out with dwc to begin with as its forgiving. You dont have to buy expensive setups either. My first hydro was dwc and i messed up a few times but never killed a plant in dwc. Also they are easy to scale up you caoul have four under those 2x600w and another 2 or 3 under the 1kw tho with anymore than two you should really get a resevoir and a master bucket setup so you dont have to sort each buckets water out everyday. Good luck!

thanks for the info people...would you say this is a good deal?...been looking for setups and this was the best price I could find for a decent size set up...

its a good setup but i say build that sucker

seems like the control box and the res would cost 200...plus another 85? for buckets and tubing and fittings? how much do you think I could save? more than 50?

DWC is a pain in the ass and doesn't scale up. With 2200 watts you can cover 4'x8' or more if you want to push it.

My recommendation is use 100% Coco and fabric smart pots. If you can figure out how to drain it, use drain to waste. DTW is the shit because you don't have to worry about PH etc. Just mix it, keep accurate records of how much ph down you have to use for your tank and make sure you get 10-20% runoff. You can deal with less runoff if you run your nutes at 1/2 strength and flush once or twice a week. Coco will want a little extra calcium and magnesium, warning, that shit will make your tank nasty, I mix it separate in a 5 gallon jug and hand water 2 or 3 times a grow. If you can manage to fuck up coco you shouldn't be smoking weed cause you need all the brain cells you can get.

Ebb and Flood sucks... Did that for a couple weeks and then switched to top feed which was trivial type easy. Having 200 lbs of water in your table is a recipie for disaster.

They make 4x4 flood tables and 2x4 flood tables. If you get the 2x4 tables you can put them side by side, add more, put space between, arrange in all sorts of ways. The 2x4's are easier to store when not in use. My 4x4 is a pain in the ass to pull out and clean etc.
It stands out like a sore thumb when I'm washing it outside too. I highly recommend 2x4 flood trays over 4x4.

I've used both plastic pots and fabric pots. I like the fabric pots better. They fold down flat for storage and seem to wick out salts etc. I currently use 5 gallon pots 3/4 full for plants that fit 6 in a 4x4.

Don't believe the manufacture recommendations on how much to add. If doing drain to waste start with 1/2 of what they recommend unless they have a recommendation for DTW.

Mix your coco with a bunch of water in a plastic tub and adjust PH of water to 5.8 or so. Yes you will need a good ph meter. If you do DTW you can live without an EC meter.
Coco has sand and shit in it and the ph is probably wrong on the bricks. Soak it good, use a strainer to get it out of the tub. You can wash it after a grow an re-use it.

damn, I have to say, this is a good deal, if you're decided on horizontal growing already, then go for it. I don't do vertical because my aim is not to sell, and not maximum efficiency, I smoke so little, i grow much more than i can smoke. if your aim is to produce to your max, maybe you should at least try vertical with one of your lights. this 12 plant system will rock under 1Kw, try vertical with 600w

Kervork..that sounds like a lot of work with that coco/fabric...and where do you drain to?


@ zem, It does look to be the best deal I could find...how would that system be done vertically?

Corso312 said:

Kervork..that sounds like a lot of work with that coco/fabric...and where do you drain to?


@ zem, It does look to be the best deal I could find...how would that system be done vertically?

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no not this same system, I meant that you go ahead and use 12 plants horizontal grow with 1Kw and use the 600w and build yourself a vertical setup, once you perfect it, I guess you will do only vertical, not that I have so far, but then again, I don't need it

If you're a DIYer and somewhat mechanically inclined, you can build yourself a vertical setup.
But as you saw when browsing heaths vertical SOGs, it takes a good deal of material and labor to build those systems.

If you want to do something vertical without much construction, you can look into vertigrow trays.
The link in my signature has a grow logged with them. You can run them flood and drain. ezhydro used to sell them, but that site went down. The only other place I've found them for sale was here https://rasahydroponics.com. And I had to call them.. theyre not listed on the site. But theyre basically round flood tables stacked on top of eachother, and you hang a bulb in the middle.


The easiest route is just to use standard flood tables. get 3x3's for your 600s. Flood and drain is very simple and forgiving. And you dont get as many of the the water temp and pythium issues associated with DWC.

Clown Baby said:

If you're a DIYer and somewhat mechanically inclined, you can build yourself a vertical setup.
But as you saw when browsing heaths vertical SOGs, it takes a good deal of material and labor to build those systems.

If you want to do something vertical without much construction, you can look into vertigrow trays.
The link in my signature has a grow logged with them. You can run them flood and drain. ezhydro used to sell them, but that site went down. The only other place I've found them for sale was here https://rasahydroponics.com. And I had to call them.. theyre not listed on the site. But theyre basically round flood tables stacked on top of eachother, and you hang a bulb in the middle.


The easiest route is just to use standard flood tables. get 3x3's for your 600s. Flood and drain is very simple and forgiving. And you dont get as many of the the water temp and pythium issues associated with DWC.

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I am real handy and will build a vertical tube system eventually, was thinking Polyethelyene pipe would be the way to go..I want to get something up and running before I start taking on any projects though..It appears from looking at 60 plus websites that the 12 bucket system from Plantlightighydroponics for 369$ is the best price I have seen..the controller alone is 200$ ..so it seems I would save very little money piecing together myself. what do you think of that system?

Corso312 said:

I am real handy and will build a vertical tube system eventually, was thinking Polyethelyene pipe would be the way to go..I want to get something up and running before I start taking on any projects though..It appears from looking at 60 plus websites that the 12 bucket system from Plantlightighydroponics for 369$ is the best price I have seen..the controller alone is 200$ ..so it seems I would save very little money piecing together myself. what do you think of that system?

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you are right, this is a great deal! I wish I found it when I began growing

the only thing that I don't like is the size of the buckets, Seems like it could be a problem with the roots growing too big in those tiny buckets, do you think that would be a problem?

2 gallons in growrock would hold a big plant, no problem there

k thanks, think I am going to pull the trigger ...you think 3 week veg would be too much for this system?..9 week flower

Corso312 said:

k thanks, think I am going to pull the trigger ...you think 3 week veg would be too much for this system?..9 week flower

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it sounds good, just that you cannot put an exact timeline, I'd say no less than 3 weeks, sometimes you find plants growing slower, you will judge by the size of plant and by how much it grows when it flowered. some plants double in size, others triple or more! IMO, with this setup, a SCROG will be great.