Question about ebb and flow mediums.

[Hypomaniac]

Prepare yourself for a really dumb question. Can a soiless mix or dirt be used in pots on an ebb and flow system?

[tinytoon]

You can NOT use a granular medium in E&F, will clog pump in a heartbeat. Must use something like Rockwool(i dont recommend this), STG cubes, Rapid Rooters with Hydrotron, just Tron by itself and so on.

[keylime]

HYDROPONICS is a system of soiless growing. In other words nutrients are not in the medium, but in the water. So of course there's soiless medium such as clay pebbles such as hydroton, there's rockwool as well as coco and others. The point is they are mainly there to support the plant, not to feed the plant. Depending on the medium, a watering schedule needs to be used. Hydroton does not absorb water (nutrients) as well as rockwool, so in order not 'drown' them, you would not run you E/F system as often using rockwool.

As far as soil is concerned, I suppose you could water your plants using the E/F, but what would be the point? Your nutrients are in the soil, not in the water. So you would have a glorified watering system for your plants growing in soil. A system such as that would at the very least wash some of the soil back into your water, and may start plugging pumps, drains etc.

keylime

[seventhchild]

Prepare yourself for a really dumb question. Can a soiless mix or dirt be used in pots on an ebb and flow system?
not a dumb question at all Hypo. soil or soiless can MOST DEFINITELY be used on a flood and drain table. place landscaping fabric or paper towels in the bottom of your pots , mix your medium a little dryer, make sure the pots are NEVER in standing water ,and your good to go.setting the timer for the pump is the trickiest part......be careful not to over water. for flushing you will still have to pour the water into the top of the pot.it may not be considered hydro but it beats hand watering a large number of plants as in a sea of green.

[MaryJaneSpeakin]

tinytoon- Why would you not recommend rock wool??

I use it with consistent results. Id recommend it most for this system as it makes for a shockless transplant and its super easy to clean. They get watered once for about 10 mins a day. I grow my clones completely through their veggie stage in the rockwool; then when I go to flower I transplant the rockwool into buckets with expanded clay pebbles on a multiflow bucket system. Works like a charm!!

[Prodaytrader]

I'm not entirely sure about some of these statements. I use ebb and flow and I also use coco which is about as granulated as they come. The trick there is to line the bottom of the pots with hydroton and then use pots with only a few holes on the side instead of the net pots. From there you can either decide to clean out the floating particulates or not, like I do. I have a good cup worth of coco that sticks to the sides of my table, pots, and finally to the bottom of the table once the water drains. There seem to be two types of particles in coco, a finer substance like chocolate syrup that falls to the bottom of a glass of milk and then the chunky particles but those almost always float. The pasty stuff settles to the bottom of the table and res pretty quickly and the chunky stuff floats. I may be headed for disaster someday but after 4 months still no issues. Not sure you can get away with this with anything other then coco though as I would imagine everything else would sink.

[tinytoon]

read about and also experienced alot of salt build up and seemed harder to keep PH stabile. I use Rapid Rooters now and no problems what so ever.

[MaryJaneSpeakin]

I love coco but i've always been scared to stick it in the ebb flow system.(didnt want to ruin my pump or clean the crust) I guess the hydroton would take care of blocking the coco from coming through buckets but it seems like more of a hassle to clean. My concern is recycling the hydroton which is already a bitch to clean the roots off and I couldn't imagine sifting through it with coco. Do you reuse your hydroton or just get a new bag?
The only real cons I find with coco is that the root ball gets so massive that its too time consuming to sift through it and re use it.(I imagine enzymes could break it down but sounds even more time consuming). And it grows a bit slower then hydroton/rock wool but faster then soil(indoor). Other then that loooove the coco! (half my plants are in coco/rockwool vs hydroton/rockwool) I find it more bug resistant and easier to maintain plus you can go really organic with it!!

[mrbigair600]

Well Im glad I can step in and offer some input since that is exactly my Ebb setup I am currently running. I am using 15 3 gallon pot system with a 32 gal res. These are my first successful batch of Kushberry clones I took off the previous run. My setup is going from 1 gallon pots filled with coco during veg under Badboy T5 flourescents, then transplanting the 1 gallon coco into the 3 gallon buckets filled with hydroton. Pics are shitty .off my camera fone but Im into week three with just rediculous results. Using Cutting Edge Solutions 3 part with additives. So far I have had no issues with clogging or coco breaking completley apart in the hydroton. When I raise up the plant bucket from the flood bucket there is minimal coco particles floating, not even enough to make it back through the bucket hole. Ill keep some more pics posted later. This is my first hydro setup and I am loving it! Will never go back to the drain to waste setup!