For All Cap Ebb and Grow Users

Ferredoxin said:

Great thread! I have decided to change my entire op over from soil to Ebb and Gro thanks to this wealth of info. Thanks to everyone for contributing! I still have a few questions that I havent really seen a solid answer to:

1) Could I take bareroot cuttings from an aero cloner and transplant them directly into this system with hydroton? Would they need to be flooded more than 2 times per day in the beginning like it seems people are doing with rockwool cuts? Should I transplant them into another medium before placing in the hydroton buckets?

2) Is there a concensus on plant support? DO tomato cages work with this system? Are people even finding it necessary to support the plants? All of the branches seem to be pretty damn stout in the pics I have seen.

3) Am I correct to assume that it is bad to irrigate during dark hours?

Thanks!

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Let me see if I can get all 3 right.

1a) Yes
1b) Not sure but I would do 3.
1c) Not required

2) Up to you, I don't see the need.

3) Not bad per se, just not needed.

If I'm wrong then I'm sorry, someone more knowledgable should be along shortly.

Ferredoxin said:

1) Could I take bareroot cuttings from an aero cloner and transplant them directly into this system with hydroton? Would they need to be flooded more than 2 times per day in the beginning like it seems people are doing with rockwool cuts? Should I transplant them into another medium before placing in the hydroton buckets?

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Bite got the other ones already, so here's the answer to #1.....

1.) You may take bare rooted cuttings from an aerocloner and transplant directly. Without any rockwool or rapidrooter cube to stay "moist" between floods, you water them 2x a day (hour after lights come on, then 6 hours later). For the first week, hand water them additionally from the stem of the plant and around it in a circle to ensure you got the roots properly. A party cup sized amount of water per plant would be plenty.

Additionally, I *strongly* encourage use of a Foliar spray. For Humboldt Nutrients its a little of the Verde, Sticky, Ginormous and a few others I cant remember. Foliar spray them just before lights go out and they will be even better, happier, greener, etc.... Any foliar spray would work, I just have experience with mixing my own based on Humboldt Nutrients foliar spray schedule.

Good luck!

researchkitty said:

Bite got the other ones already, so here's the answer to #1.....

1.) You may take bare rooted cuttings from an aerocloner and transplant directly. Without any rockwool or rapidrooter cube to stay "moist" between floods, you water them 2x a day (hour after lights come on, then 6 hours later). For the first week, hand water them additionally from the stem of the plant and around it in a circle to ensure you got the roots properly. A party cup sized amount of water per plant would be plenty.

Additionally, I *strongly* encourage use of a Foliar spray. For Humboldt Nutrients its a little of the Verde, Sticky, Ginormous and a few others I cant remember. Foliar spray them just before lights go out and they will be even better, happier, greener, etc.... Any foliar spray would work, I just have experience with mixing my own based on Humboldt Nutrients foliar spray schedule.

Good luck!

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Thanks Kitty & BSF for the quick replies. I have some Grape Stompers that are ready in the aero cloner, but they were pegged for soil until I saw this thread! Just making sure I dont need to do anything special. I use Cutting Edge Solutions nutrients, and you can spray a low rate of 'Grow' as a foliar. I will give that a try. Kitty - what does your spray schedule look like?

Well, finally after hearing from everyone else that using coco in this system is a mistake. I am comparing the difference between hydroton and coco as a medium. The plants in Hydroton are way more healthy and faster growing than the ones in coco. The coco also has problems with gnats and it's messy. and it holds moisture for too long. Even though I mixed the coco with hydroton. Lessons learned..

I`m building my own controller for ebb system after running a cap it is very plain no adjustments and cheap etc. My controller use`s a top off tank when my 55 gallon barrel gets low it pumps solution from the top off tank to the 55 gallon barrel . When the top off tank gets low the controller has output that i connect to a phone dailer to call me to let me know. Also it will call me if water level is to high or has leaks also more leds to let you know what is happening. Also i can adjust the floats to any height i want or need.

Ferredoxin said:

Thanks Kitty & BSF for the quick replies. I have some Grape Stompers that are ready in the aero cloner, but they were pegged for soil until I saw this thread! Just making sure I dont need to do anything special. I use Cutting Edge Solutions nutrients, and you can spray a low rate of 'Grow' as a foliar. I will give that a try. Kitty - what does your spray schedule look like?

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http://www.humboldtnutrients.com/feeding-charts/foliar-charts/ is my foliar chart...... I just stick with week 1 veg spray, dont really ever change past that. Once the plants start to sex, discontinue foliar.

horsepower850 said:

Well, finally after hearing from everyone else that using coco in this system is a mistake. I am comparing the difference between hydroton and coco as a medium. The plants in Hydroton are way more healthy and faster growing than the ones in coco. The coco also has problems with gnats and it's messy. and it holds moisture for too long. Even though I mixed the coco with hydroton. Lessons learned..

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Glad you learned the way

anybody know if you can use the sentenal control box to replace the cap one

hellraizer30 said:

anybody know if you can use the sentenal control box to replace the cap one

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As long as the hose outputs on the bottom are made to fit 1/2" inner diameter hosing, then yes. The only thing of caution is that if the floats in the alternative control box are taller or shorter than your buckets because nobody uses the same height buckets, it may fill too much or fill too little. Both can be adjusted using those plant risers for a few dollars each but that can get expensive.

If the hose outputs arent 1/2", just seal em up and drill new ones.

I have a couple questions.... I'm about 3 weeks into flower and want to do a rez change. I don't have RO water and 40 gallons of distilled is a little too expensive. My tap water is about 250 ppm. My question is if I do the rez change right after the last feeding before the lights go out, how long can I go with out a feeding so I can let the chlorine evaporate out of the rez. They say your supposed to let the water sit for 24 hours. can I get away with 24 hours safely? Should I keep the light off that whole time? I have 1- 1000watt light over 12 plants with a light mover.

Second question is.... If I start out with a ppm of 250 straight out of the tap no nutes, and My max target ppm is say 1300... Does that mean my max target ppm should actually be 1550 after adding my nutes? Tap water ppm(250) + nutes(1300) = 1550?

cooley150 said:

I have a couple questions.... I'm about 3 weeks into flower and want to do a rez change. I don't have RO water and 40 gallons of distilled is a little too expensive. My tap water is about 250 ppm. My question is if I do the rez change right after the last feeding before the lights go out, how long can I go with out a feeding so I can let the chlorine evaporate out of the rez. They say your supposed to let the water sit for 24 hours. can I get away with 24 hours safely? Should I keep the light off that whole time? I have 1- 1000watt light over 12 plants with a light mover.

Second question is.... If I start out with a ppm of 250 straight out of the tap no nutes, and My max target ppm is say 1300... Does that mean my max target ppm should actually be 1550 after adding my nutes? Tap water ppm(250) + nutes(1300) = 1550?

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Dont use distilled water.

Your PPM of 250 is a LITTLE high, it isnt terrible. Some people grow with 600-800ppm out of a tap. It just isnt the best, is all.

Your target ppm should be the total final #. When your ppm meter says 1550, your done adding anything. If it gets too high just ad PPM DOWN (aka H2O aka Water! ).

As for the validity to letting the water settle 24 hours, it just gets rid of the chlorene and allows it to naturally evaporate. I've done both, pulled from a rez that has just water in it and straight from the tap and I cant ever tell a difference of which one sat and which one didnt. I dont really think it actually matters much.............

Thank you once again Kitty!!!!

Hammer21,

I am thoroughly impressed by what you have created.

I made the ebb&flow kit from aquahub. It wasn't too hard following their directions and using a label machine.

I want to know more how to build these types of devices using mechanical relays, transformers, etc. Any suggestions? Please private message me on the site! I know I should just practice probably huh?

hammer21 said:

I`m building my own controller for ebb system after running a cap it is very plain no adjustments and cheap etc. My controller use`s a top off tank when my 55 gallon barrel gets low it pumps solution from the top off tank to the 55 gallon barrel . When the top off tank gets low the controller has output that i connect to a phone dailer to call me to let me know. Also it will call me if water level is to high or has leaks also more leds to let you know what is happening. Also i can adjust the floats to any height i want or need.
View attachment 1368896View attachment 1368894View attachment 1368895

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OK, I posted a question about doing a rez change and letting the water sit for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate before feeding again. Kitty you answered and said that you didn't think it would make a difference. Well, my lights come on at 10am and I had a feeding cycle set for 10:30am. After that feeding I decided to do my rez change and just let it sit for 24 hours with no additional feedings. This is my question....Is it possible that by NOT feeding my plants in that 24 hour period that they actually grew? I mean I swear that I can see a noticeable difference. This really intrigues me. I have my controller set to 4 feedings a day. Is this too much? Would I get better results cutting back on the feedings? I was worried that if i didn't feed them for 24 hours that they might droop or dry out, and it seems like the opposite happen and they actually did better.

cooley150 said:

OK, I posted a question about doing a rez change and letting the water sit for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate before feeding again. Kitty you answered and said that you didn't think it would make a difference. Well, my lights come on at 10am and I had a feeding cycle set for 10:30am. After that feeding I decided to do my rez change and just let it sit for 24 hours with no additional feedings. This is my question....Is it possible that by NOT feeding my plants in that 24 hour period that they actually grew? I mean I swear that I can see a noticeable difference. This really intrigues me. I have my controller set to 4 feedings a day. Is this too much? Would I get better results cutting back on the feedings? I was worried that if i didn't feed them for 24 hours that they might droop or dry out, and it seems like the opposite happen and they actually did better.

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Without a photograph of the plant to gauge its health, its tough to say cut back or increase on watering. My plants in veg are droopy because of a "try 2x a day" instead of "just once a day" watering. They'll be fine in a few days, but thats how you gauge what your plants need.

Of course, plants that grow in early life grow less inches per day than a plant thats already older. If you veg them for a few weeks you'll start to see them grow an inch a day!

Now you said you didnt want them to get dry and droopy -- they wont. They'd get dry and *crispy* and curl upward a little bit. If they claw, or curl down and are still green moist plants that are starting to look weak, that's when its overwatering.

Happy to report that my Ebb & Gro is up and running as of yesterday. I had no issues setting it up, except my hands and fingers got a great workout from squeezing the tubing over all the fittings. I had a bowl full of hot, soapy water that I dunked each hose end into before fitting, and it helped A LOT.

I have 16 sites under 4 x 1k HPS.... running some Grape Stomper at the moment. I took rooted cuttings straight from an aero cloner (bareroot) and buried them in the hydroton. They all had at least a foot of roots (left them in there a bit long...lol), and 3-4 of the plants got pretty droopy between their first and second waterings in the buckets. Today, none of the plants are drooping, and it looks like there is some new, healthy growth on all of the plants.

Nutes started at 280 ppm (180 ppm from the tap), and just consists of the Technaflora Root 66 and Sugar Daddy that came with the unit at the moment. PPM is now sitting at 330. Looks like the plants are taking up more water than nutrients.....Im assuming this is primarily because the Root 66 and Sugar Daddy only contain trace amounts of plant food, and have more additives (carbs, kelp) that arent taken up by the plant? What should be considered a "large" jump in PPM that should be addressed? Is flushing and re-mixing necessary, or just a res dump/scrub/refill?

pH started at 5.5, but crept up to 6.2 overnight. Adjusted back down to 5.5, and keeping an eye on it.

So far....Im loving it.

horsepower850 said:

I usually use 2 ml per gallon of the 30% H2O2. It works great.

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Where can a person find 30%? I only ever see it at the store at 3%.

BiteSizeFreak said:

Where can a person find 30%? I only ever see it at the store at 3%.

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any hydro shop

researchkitty said:

any hydro shop

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Haha, should have seen that coming. I never go to my local shop unless I HAVE to. Overpriced and understocked. Guess I'll be making a trip, thanks Kitty!

im using 29% at 7ml a gal every 3 day and I cant keep this whitish brown foam
from my rez, ive flushed twice and cleaned the systen out each time
View attachment 1390586ive got filter bags on my pumps but its still geting into my control box, rez temp is 69 to 70 and its making it hell to stablize my ph anybody else having this problem? the only thing i put in there is GH floral 3 part and h202, first time i flush with floral
shield then refilled with h202 and GH mix

this is my first time with the ebb and grow system. i have the expansion set. i'm using the general hydroponics expert recirculating program. floragro (12.5ml) floramicro (7.5ml) florabloom (2.5ml) diamond nector (10ml) floralicious grow (2.5ml) this is all mixed up for 45 gallons i also added after all was mixed humboldt verde (40ml) and gh ca mg+ (40ml) okay for monitoring reasons i'm using nutradip trimeter. my temp is staying at 67 in the rez ph is at 6.1 and ppm is 1400ish. in the buckets i'm using the suretogrow inserts that fit. i'm using inline fan and a large goblin filter for smell. my room temp and humidity are where they should be. i moniter this using a active air hygro thermometer. as for lighting i'm using 4 xtrasun reflectors with 600hps bulbs and phantom digi ballasts. my plants are doing really bad two have died and ive done everything the way i should have. any pointers?