Old Hydro Grow

Hello

I normally don't post but due to having cancer and a bad heart I would like to share this while I still can.

In the mid 1950's my friend, lets call him John Doe worked in the movie/music business and 1 of his jobs was to help procure refreshments for musicians and actors and on 1 of his trips locating refreshments he came upon a grower who was supposelly the 1st or 1 of the 1st hydro growers in the states.

The system was flood and drain and I have to tried to replicate it on a smaller scale then what my friend John saw. The fill and drain manifold in the pictures were procured from the grower back in the 50's and has sat in storage down in the basement till recently when I decided to retrieve it. That manifold is about 60 yrs old and all the rest of the parts are new.

The system consisted of a reservoir filled with nutes pumped to dual buckets, the outer whiched is plumbed and a inner bucket perferated like a net pot. Nutrients pumped through the 90 degree fitting on the manifold and overflowed through an inner pipe inside of a outer pipe on the manifold that when the nutrients reached a certain height designated by the height of the inner pipe a suction/drain occured and the system basically flushes like a toilet.

You will see in the pics the manifold is on a angle which was able to rotate out of the resorvior for cleaning and nute changes, normally the manifold is in an upright position and the intake was disconnected in the pics for a nute change and may be a little confusing. My friend John does not recall what the farmer used for nutes back then and it was a outside unit. I used flouresents and mh along with dry nutes from a company out of Ohio, along with pea gravel for a medium like the original system used and it took alot of pea gravel that I cleaned and flushed through a strainer.

I'm sure other methods like the BB are the way to go now, I just thought some of you would like to see how it was done 60 yrs ago and sorry if the pics aren't the greatest.

Thanks
Oldschoolhydro

Wow! Never thought I woud see another system like that! We must have shared some of the same alike mind thinking friends bro!

Thanks for sharing this! Hopefully it will clue some folks in on just how long these methods of growing hydroponically have been around and practiced!

Would loved to know what was used for nutrients......

Good lookin plants! I see you have not lost your touch over the years.....like fine wine!


Take care!

I ran hydro-gro dry nutes from cropking, I had good results for a nute that is reasonable in price.

Fuk man,im pushing up on 60 yrs old & have been growing half my life & ive never seen anything like that rocket ship,too damm cool.

I met some cats in the 70's who grew dope in a gold fish pond & i thought it would never amount to much,boy was i wrong.

Thanks for the info & pics,it sucks about your illness,i hope all is as well as it can be for you.

to cool of a setup oldschool! in alot of ways sticking to the basics and not feeding into all the new hip stuff on the market can
make things so simple! hey oldschool hope all stays well for you! and your grow, peace HR

If there ever was someone or something befitting of the term "OG" this and the op is it! Thank you for showing us how it was and still is done! Hope your grow provides many more crops for you to enjoy in your time of need. Peace, best wishes, and happy growing.
KnB

Thanks for all the kind replies, Glad you all like it.

Any updates?

Reminds me, I'm only 31, but I remember in my dads library there was a book written in the early 60's on hydroponic farming. I always thought that was from the earliest days of it, its cool to see it from a decade before that. Beautiful work, oldschool.

hellraizer30 said:

Any updates?

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I'm so sorry I didn't reply sooner. That grow went great and I am doing as much research as I can for the next grow. I want to try dwc next and I have been reading alot of your posts, you have some aewesome threads.

Man what a cool set up !

I remember that system. The pea gravel was a pain in the ass!!

I really like the pea gravel medium and yes it was a lot of gravel to rinse but I didn't have to boil it or anything just a rinse through a colander and just $3 at lowes. It is heavy though and on the dual bucket system I was carefull to pick up and rotate the inner bucket if needed to give the back side of the plant light as to not crush a root by shifting gravel.

I'm hopeing to go to a little larger rock for the 5 gallon net pot lids and give a dwc a try and it will be alot less gravel to clean but I really wish the holes were smaller for the net pot lids and just use pea gravel. I really don't want to use hydroton if I don't have to.


Hard to tell from this pic but this bucket on the milk crate is seperate from the rest and is a manual flood and drain , the bucket next to it with the lid is the rez that is plumbed to it some 1/2 hose and used about 2 gallons of nutes and I just picked up that bucket, sat it on a stool for a couple minutes and then sat it back on the ground a couple times a day.

I didn't use rockwool or anything like that I just sprouted seeds in paper towel and just stuck the seed in the pea gravel and it worked pretty good.

I'm sure dwc will out perform this but it was pretty foolproof and never worried about having to run a dwc tea.

What about using crushed lava rock they have it in 1/2" size and its light and airy or stuff we have here is called cinders I always wondered why more people don't use it and cheap as heck. I still dig ur set-up

I bought a hydro system back in the 70's that included lava rock but I didn't use the lava, I was looking at lava rock yesterday at walmart, it wasn't crushed but a hammer would take care of that, but I don't know if its ph neutral?

Nice set up.....oldschool...

Back in the 70's I grew out doors....Then a little bit indoors in the 80's... that were in dirt..

Then about a year and a half ago I set up a hydro set up.....with the drip rings and air stones....I have been very happy with the hydro....I will follow your thread...

I am three weeks into my grow right now...I have been posting weekly up dates...good luck with your grow...NH

Not sure if it is... I will have to go to some aquaponic forums and take a look around .

oldschoolhydro said:

I really like the pea gravel medium and yes it was a lot of gravel to rinse but I didn't have to boil it or anything just a rinse through a colander and just $3 at lowes. It is heavy though and on the dual bucket system I was carefull to pick up and rotate the inner bucket if needed to give the back side of the plant light as to not crush a root by shifting gravel.

I'm hopeing to go to a little larger rock for the 5 gallon net pot lids and give a dwc a try and it will be alot less gravel to clean but I really wish the holes were smaller for the net pot lids and just use pea gravel. I really don't want to use hydroton if I don't have to.

View attachment 1869846
Hard to tell from this pic but this bucket on the milk crate is seperate from the rest and is a manual flood and drain , the bucket next to it with the lid is the rez that is plumbed to it some 1/2 hose and used about 2 gallons of nutes and I just picked up that bucket, sat it on a stool for a couple minutes and then sat it back on the ground a couple times a day.

I didn't use rockwool or anything like that I just sprouted seeds in paper towel and just stuck the seed in the pea gravel and it worked pretty good.

I'm sure dwc will out perform this but it was pretty foolproof and never worried about having to run a dwc tea.

Click to expand...

I was dealing with 4 scoops of gravel. It got really old. I think that you are correct that the pea gravel is a better medium than hydrotone.