How much space between pots in a rail?

I nearly made a huge mistake and put too many pots on a new rail system I am building. I have 3 square tubes 4.75" squared. I'm running them on a fog/aero and the tubes are in a series so that it's like a giant loop. At any rate, the sections are 32 inches long which is nearly 3 feet and like I said there are 3. I almost put 5 on each rail then decided 4 on each rail and now I think 3 is a better number. I have seen some of these roots balls that come out of these systems and even though my rail is slightly larger at nearly 5", if I jam the pots on top of each other, then I will likely end up having to throw everything out because I didn't leave enough roof for the roots. So, about how many inches of a 4.75 does each plant need? Assuming 4 inches for the pot, how much on either side do I need to leave room for in the rail? I should probably be very aware of when I start flowering too. I can see how the rails might become very crowded if I tried to veg to much so what's a safe height for starting flowering in a system like this?

Hey Prodaytrader,

I used 15" centers for the plant sites on my flower systems, basically 2 x 3 systems, for a total of 6 sites each. On the veg system I put the sites on 7" centers, for a 6 x 2 system for 12 sites. All systems use 3" net pots (same ones the aeroflow systems).

If you're going with 1 system for start to finish, I'd go with more room (15" spacing.. or so), because what is a 10-14" plant in veg can stretch up to more than 36" in total height and be fairly bushy dependent on how you do things. The reason I bring this up, the frames I use put my channels, 26" up, so this is a consideration in terms of total height, which and be over 5' if you're growing a tall strain.

Hope this helps.

Peace,

Farmer Rich

At least I put some thought into this prior to drilling the holes. Like you I was concerned about total height so I made sure I kept my starting height as low as possible. Now that I think on it, it's probably right there at 26" too. I think I needed 20" clearance for under the table so with the table top and the rail, it's probably right there.

Here's an example for you.. Sorry for the out of focus, and HPS lights, but this may give you an idea or 2.

Peace,

Farmer Rich