Floraflex Drippers or Bubblers, which is better?

I just did my first run with floraflex Drippers in 6" rockwool cubes and had a few issues.

1. The drippers weren't flushing the salts out of the cubes so I had some salt buildup by week 6 of flower or so the wrecked one plant.

2. The drippers clogged! I went out of town and had one set of drippers clog completely. I lost another and am pretty bitter about it.

There is not a lot of info online about best practices and feeding schedules with the drippers. I've read everything from an people using constant feeds to 50ml highly concentrated shots. My problems are likely user error

I ran the Athena blended nute line with hydroguard and RO water. I also had a 100 micron disc filter.

Has anyone used the floraflex bubbler system? I feel like this would be the better system since if it clogs, you can clean it. I also only run 4 plants at a time, so the 8 outlet manifold would be perfect for my setup.

You can just build your own system with orbit or rainbird. Same idea manifolds, just hella cheaper and not proprietary thread sizes, so you aren't locked into ONLY buying floraflex

Jjgrow420 said:

You can just build your own system with orbit or rainbird. Same idea manifolds, just hella cheaper and not proprietary thread sizes, so you aren't locked into ONLY buying floraflex

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Thanks, it's only going to be about $50 to switch over to a bubbler system. I honestly thought that was a pretty fair price. I just want to make sure the bubbler is an improvement over the drippers.

been using standard 1/4" orbit/rainbird drip emitters for years without clogs.
4 for each 6" block, feed to run-off every time so the blocks dont get build-up.

J. Rocket said:

been using standard 1/4" orbit/rainbird drip emitters for years without clogs.
4 for each 6" block, feed to run-off every time so the blocks dont get build-up.

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Interesting. I was always told that runoff every watering was too much and that it would least to root rot. But this is my first grow with the Hugo's so I am definitely open to suggestions for my next run. I do think my feed schedule was the problem, I just don't know how to fix it without overdoing it.

How many times are you feeding per day during veg once everything is transplanted and fully established?

dont let the block sit in run-off, make sure it can drain away freely.
kind of tough to over water rockwool if its allowed to drain.
you can water too often though, thats for sure.

sometime in the 4th or 5th week (from seed) I hook up the auto-feed.
starts off at once a day, an hour or so after lights on.
with the rapid growth you may need to go to twice a day within a few days.
check the block, feel its weight. you'll notice when it needs.
this run I went from 2 to three feedings/day in week 8.
currently lights 6:30a-6:30p.
feedings 7min at 7:30am, 5min at 11:30am and 7 min at 4:30pm. usually about 1 minute of run-of each feed.

I had problems with those floraflex bubblers clogging as well. So I switched to the octobubblers and they work way better. 2 hours after lights on I will hit the blocks with about 100 ml every 15 minutes for two hours. 3 hours before the lights turn off I feed the same intervals for an hour until I get runoff. Haven’t had any problems since switching to the bubblers

Spindle818 said:

I had problems with those floraflex bubblers clogging as well. So I switched to the octobubblers and they work way better. 2 hours after lights on I will hit the blocks with about 100 ml every 15 minutes for two hours. 3 hours before the lights turn off I feed the same intervals for an hour until I get runoff. Haven’t had any problems since switching to the bubblers

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Whats the reasoning behind feeding after 2 hours lights on and 2-4 before lights off? Ive seen people always say to irrigate around those times .... but whats the reasoning?

newbplantgrower420 said:

Whats the reasoning behind feeding after 2 hours lights on and 2-4 before lights off? Ive seen people always say to irrigate around those times .... but whats the reasoning?

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Let’s the plant have time to start to transpire before giving more water. I stop feeding to help get a head start on the dryback and so that there is less moisture in the room when the lights turn off so less of a humidity spike

Spindle818 said:

Let’s the plant have time to start to transpire before giving more water. I stop feeding to help get a head start on the dryback and so that there is less moisture in the room when the lights turn off so less of a humidity spike

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Makes sense. thanks for the explanation. I was reading this chart from Grodan. Should you do the same in Veg before blooming? I was reading this chart the other day. Theyre recommending 0-1 Hour after Lights turn on to feed... but plants havent yet started transpiring during that time right?

newbplantgrower420 said:

Makes sense. thanks for the explanation. I was reading this chart from Grodan. Should you do the same in Veg before blooming? I was reading this chart the other day. Theyre recommending 0-1 Hour after Lights turn on to feed... but plants havent yet started transpiring during that time right?
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I do the same in veg, but I only veg for 10-14 days at the most

I use the flora flex bubblers, they shouldn't ever clog. You should clean them out every run. You can unscrew to cap if you want to monitor any possible buildup and clean if necessary. They also don't use a proprietary thread, they use standard 1/2 pipe thread.

newbplantgrower420 said:

Makes sense. thanks for the explanation. I was reading this chart from Grodan. Should you do the same in Veg before blooming? I was reading this chart the other day. Theyre recommending 0-1 Hour after Lights turn on to feed... but plants havent yet started transpiring during that time right?
View attachment 5273659

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are you crop steering?

J. Rocket said:

are you crop steering?

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Ive been reading up on it and trying it my bloom room atm but confused exactly when to go back and forth between Veg and Gen and what exactly each does to the plant when i flip to bloom. Does Gen steering reduce stretching or encourage it? One article says one and another says the opposite

You should use hypoclorous acid whenever you use drippers. Athenas product is cleanse floraflex is root drip. They are expensive though so I use a product that has the same main ingredient but even more concentrated at half of the price.

since I'm not crop steering I dont use info from the crop steering literature for my grow.
its not a method I was interested in using.

Super late to the party, but IMO the issue was the Athena nutrients; my dad was running Athena Blended in his Autopot system, he also had clogging issues. His system does not clog with the oldschool General Hydroponics 3-part so he switched back to that.

My opinion, the Athena line has a different solubility than other nutrients and, though they dissolve and mix well by hand, IMO they're subject to "crystallization" in automated systems moreso than say GH 3-part, which I bet if you switched to GH your clogging issues would go away.

You could use an inline filter. It's cleared up my drippers nicely.