What are the downsides to flood and drain?

S

Surfer Joe

Well-Known Member
I am interested in trying the iws flood and drain system and it looks like a good idea but I was wondering what are the downsides, since all methods have plusses and minuses.
I grow in soil pots. I tried a bubble bucket hydro grow once and it was so much work keeping the ph and the level in the bucket correct that I could never see me doing more than one bubble bucket at a time.
 

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That's the same type of system I run. I moved to that type of system from tables and DWC for ease of use and love it.

One 55gal res works for up to 18 plants in my system, so I only have to do one res change vs many in dwc. It also is closer to the ground than a flood/drain table so if you have height restrictions that's a plus. Also I never have to move the plants like in dwc, less stress. The ph in the system stays around 6.0, I really don't have to mess with it, so to me this system works great. At the end of each flower cycle I just shop vac all the water out of the pots, then wipe down with rubbing alcohol, and go again. I haven't had to break the system down for cleaning or anything really.

The only real problem I could see would be if a timer or one of the float shut-off devices failed. Then you'd flood the house. That hasn't happened to me yet (knocks on wood)
 
Mr.Goodtimes said:
That's the same type of system I run. I moved to that type of system from tables and DWC for ease of use and love it.

One 55gal res works for up to 18 plants in my system, so I only have to do one res change vs many in dwc. It also is closer to the ground than a flood/drain table so if you have height restrictions that's a plus. Also I never have to move the plants like in dwc, less stress. The ph in the system stays around 6.0, I really don't have to mess with it, so to me this system works great. At the end of each flower cycle I just shop vac all the water out of the pots, then wipe down with rubbing alcohol, and go again. I haven't had to break the system down for cleaning or anything really.

The only real problem I could see would be if a timer or one of the float shut-off devices failed. Then you'd flood the house. That hasn't happened to me yet (knocks on wood)
Click to expand...
What's the cost on a system like that? I'm probably going to do a scrog and watering becomes a pain.
 
Thanks. I would like to only use 4 of the pots since my tent won't accommodate 6. Is it possible to only connect some of the pots to the control bucket?
I like the idea of only dealing with one res tank rather than fiddling around with each bubble bucket.
One question is about the recirculated nutes.
If you keep reusing the nute solution for flooding and then it drains back into the res tank, how do you keep the nutes in the res tank fresh or correctly mixed? Do you need to dump the whole res tank each week and mix fresh nutes? Do you just keep topping up the res tank with freshly mixed nutes? How do you know what is in the nutes after it has been recirculated for a while?
 
Yes you can connect only 4 buckets, and there's room to upgrade when your ready :bigjoint:

I empty and change the res once per week, and top it off with either RO water or nutrient water every few days if I need to
 
Mr.Goodtimes said:
Yes you can connect only 4 buckets, and there's room to upgrade when your ready :bigjoint:

I empty and change the res once per week, and top it off with either RO water or nutrient water every few days if I need to
Click to expand...
Do you run additives to prevent contamination? I've heard of people using pool shock (chlorine?) and hygrozyme.
Can you still use organic stuff like guano, seaweed, and kelp?
 
i used to grow in soil in felt bags on a flood n drain table and it worked great,, but i got sick of hawling dirt and mixing so i just switched to rock wool,, same flood table, same nutrients, just a different ph.. ive tried every method and flood n drain or todays hybrid systems are the easiest,cleanest ways to go
 
Chunky Stool said:
Do you run additives to prevent contamination? I've heard of people using pool shock (chlorine?) and hygrozyme.
Can you still use organic stuff like guano, seaweed, and kelp?
Click to expand...

Yeah I use hydrogaurd. I wouldnt use pool shock on my plants lol

I haven't tried organics
 
round bukets make buids hard, my cousin has a cat and gives me her tidey cat buckets,, they are square 5 gal buckets you can make all kinds of builds with them...
 
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