Pump Schedule?

A friend of mine has an Ebb and Flow system and is going to be starting 10 plants, 5 each in an X formation in about a 1.5'x3' rubbermade thing. The tubs take less than 2 minutes to fill with nothing in them. How often should he run the pump? I know there are a lot of options and you should just pay attention to the plants, but I remember reading something like 15 minutes every 2 hours, an hour before lights on, and nothing during the dark. Is that a good schedule to start with?

Sorry Dejayou, I run a dip system with Rockwool. Everyone says don't use Rockwool as a medium but I haven't experience any proplems. I run my pump for 10 min every 3 hours. Then cut that back in half when the lights are off.

I'm sure this doesn't help you for your application but didn't want to read and not reply with what someone was doing. Good luck. :thumbsup:

I use automation heres how it happens
this is for hydrocorn or 3/8 gravel Bloom cycle
pump comes on 1 hour after the light come on for 20 minutes
, than mid day, than 1 hour before the lights go out.
The growing cycle is in 25/75 vermiculite/perlite
They get 20 minutes 1 hour after the lights go on.
It takes about 3 days for the plants to tell you if its ok.
The real bottom line is to keep track of the ppm and ph of the system. The bigger the resivore the better, and always go slow when changing the ph and ppm.
ALWAYS REMEMBER IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG FLUSH THE HELL OUT OF THEM. They will even grow in just tap water. Automation makes it easy from the internet.
A person with one seed knows it all a person with a 1000 plants want to know more.

You don't need to get too complicated, just have as much off time as possible. Schedules vary greatly depending on many things but largely on the growing medium. You may need something like a total of 15 minutes on for every 24 hours when growing in rockwool, but 6 hours on for every 24 if using clay pellets (my suggestion).