when using an ebb and flow table, plants in rock wool, how often a day do you water in veg, how often in flower and for how long?
alot Ive used rockwool blocks on slabs in dutch leach trays an ran the pump continuously with no issues on my first hydro grow. I used the recipe for success from techniflora :thumbs-up:
I disagree with Mt.King. EnF is my "go to" system, been using it for over a decade. Flood frequency and flood duration are key in bringing out the most from your crop. Besides, leaving the pump on 24/7 makes a water culture system, not an EnF. First, start with flood duration. You don't want to flood for 15, 30 or 60 minutes at a time like some do. You want to flood for as little time as possible to reach the desired level in the table. Then drain immediately. Desired level is about 1/2 way up the rockwool cubes. In my systems, it takes about 3 mins to fill and another 3 mins to drain. Frequency - Freshly rooted clones get fed once a day for a week, staying in the clone tray. I like about 1" roots before transplanting. Once in the big rockwool, they are fed 2x a day for week 2, 3x a day for week 3, 4x a day for week 4 and so on up to 6x a day lights on and 2x during lights out. Hope that helps.
Thanks useless, that's exactly the information I was looking for. And just fyi, your formula works great for outdoors too.
thank you Useless Did not say that was optimal And was hoping you'd put your input in I just meant that I had no issues I had a 18 gallon tote With air stone in a small pump. And also a small recirculating pump and spaghetti lines Drip feed
pre veg I like to pre veg before I go into the veg stage. I hand said the clones in the rockwool cubes sitting in a cloning tray that way the roots with airprune themselves on the bottom until I transplanted the cubes to the slabs. it helps start with the bigger root mass inside the cube it's a trick used in nutrient film method it helps to cucumbers take off better Man I'm terrible about getting off subject When I was going to make is I would and water them once a day until they were a foot tall
These are obviously guidelines to start with but genetics, plant size, rate of growth, etc. will cause you to deviate slightly from your guidelines....so my question is, how do you learn the correct flood times without losing your crop? Would you sit with the plants all day to see what they are using and make adjustments from there? You have years experience with this system so i was wondering how you got to this point. Meaning, how did you learn your plants flood schedule? This is coming from someone who has never ran hydro but is going to very shortly and I plan on running the ebb and flow system as it seems like the easiest plug n play system around. I am meticulous and I definitely don't want to lose my plants so I was wondering hoe a newb would go about doing this. Thanks, DW
Years of experience. Trial and error. Good runs vs. bad or not so good runs. In general, any strain you grow in EnF will excel with the flood frequency and duration given. The only real trick is dialing the nutrient feed strength for the strain. Try it for 30 min floods next to my frequency/duration on any strain. See which cycle does better for you. :thumbs-up: Cheers
