E&F Watering (rockwool in geolite)

Ok. So I am using ebb&flow system, ~6 inch deep 2x4 flood table with 40 gallon resv. I am watering my plants four times a day, for 30 minutes at a time. First water starts 30 minutes after lights turn on. Last watering ends 3 hours before lights turn off. It seems I'm getting what LOOKS like overwatering. There are alot of other elements at play here and if your interested I have a long ass post in the "Plant Problems" section but what it boils down too is I'm testing on the current plants in there right now because I already am pretty much certain I've trashed them overall anyways but I have some seeds on the way and I'm getting close to transplant time so I'm wanting to make sure I don't end up overwatering the little guys. Seedlings are in rockwool right now, getting close to starting on their third set of true leaves. I will be putting them in 1 gallon plastic bags and covering the rockwool with geolite. Another question if I may....do you guys thing 1 gallon plastic bags is sufficient? And if so, on a medium harvest plant how much do you think I could theoretically harvest off of it? Just things I 'm trying to plan for going ahead here If I don't kill these seedlings off first. If I do I'm pretty much screwed and have to wait till the fall lol:wtf:

I have done 10 gallon tubs with 6 / 3 inch net pots. I let the plants get about 12 to 16 inches in veg and they end up between 2 and 3 feet at the end. At harvest I get about 3/4 to a pound from all 6. Some do better than others. Then it depends on the strain as well. 1 gallon bags could grow a big plant in E/F. Never done E/F so I can't help with watering , sorry.

If you get 1/2 a gram per watt of light your doing good. More than that is doing great.

So your saying you let them get 12 to 16 inches high before you swap them to a bloom cycle? I was kind of wondering about that myself, when I should swap them over. I kind of assumed letting them stayin Veg cycle till they had alot of leaves/nodes and then swap them over to bloom. The last tries I had I did swap them over to bloom at 12 inches however. The information I recieved instructed me to do it that way.

Ok, so I've done a little more research and have found out that rockwool retains up to 60% water. That being the case, should I not be watering so much? My seedlings are going to be ready to be transplanted in my e&f system by this weekend and I don't want to start overwatering them off the bat. I'm thinking maybe start them watering like twice a day at first for 15 minutes at a time and then slowly increase their watering schedule as the plants grow. Anyone that uses rockwool have any recommendations for a watering schedule in an e&f system?

Hey Bert!! I think your 30 min flood is to long. I do 15 min floods atm and as soon as I get a digital timer for the pump I might be cutting it down to 10 min flood times. I start germ'd seeds or clones in 1" RW and graduate to 4" cubes. Until they get set in the floodtray I hand dip each 1 in a bucket and even with the 4" cubes they only have to be dipped for about 5-10 secs before the cube is "watered". I think the next grow I do I will take the time it takes to flood the tray and add 5 mins to it and that will be the flood time.

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Originally Posted by bertoxxulous

So your saying you let them get 12 to 16 inches high before you swap them to a bloom cycle? I was kind of wondering about that myself, when I should swap them over. I kind of assumed letting them stayin Veg cycle till they had alot of leaves/nodes and then swap them over to bloom. The last tries I had I did swap them over to bloom at 12 inches however. The information I recieved instructed me to do it that way.

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Yes, that's right. Your plant should double in size during the flower period. You should not flower untill you have 4 sets of leaves. I have had some 4 footers but that was because they were ahead of the rest in the group. If you have a tall one that gets in the light just bend it over and tie the top down.

@Tinytoon - HEY TINY!! :) LOC mentioned in another thread that my rockwool cubes should be located above the flood level of the flood table. My question to you is, I'm about to transplant this weekend, my seedlings are working on their third set of true leaves and the ~12 I'll be transplanting have multiple roots growing out of their 2" cubes (They small I'm pretty sure about 2" as I picture them in my head). So tommorow (sat.) I'm going to transplant them in the evening, and change my lightening schedule from 8:00AM - 12:00AM to 5:00PM - 11:00AM due to the warming temperatures. Since I have my seedlings in rockwool cubes just sitting in one of those black trays the roots are compact mostly against the cubes comming out of the bottom. That being the case, if I go by LOCs advice and transplant them where the cube is above the flood level, how would I go about watering the plant until the roots grow down to where the flood level is? Or should I maybe have it partially submerged?

the way I have mine set up is tray with a layer of hydrotron, then 4" cubes and then more hydrotron about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way up the cube. so simple terms 1/3 to 1/4 of cube is "buried" in Hydrotron. the flood level goes about 3/4 the height of the cube. from day 1 I never water the cubes from the top I always hand dip them that way I believe I might be training the roots to go down looking for what they need. If the top section of block gets a lil dry I dont worry much since roots on bottom anyways but as we all know the whole RW cube is going to be "wet" to a certain point no matter how you water it I just try to concentrate on the lower half or so of block. :D

Like so :jointsmile: the last pic plz ignore the clear tub as that is an old pic and all tubs are now taped as to keep roots dark as I can

So here is what I've got then for my setup. I just did the transplant today so check these photo's out, I think I'm going to start a grow log but I haven't figured out my vent/ppm/flood schedule yet so I'm going to hash that out and then start on a grow log. Anyways here is some pictures of my 2 week old seedlings just transplanted today into my E&F system.

[attachment=o215492] [attachment=o215493] [attachment=o215494] [attachment=o215495]

Looking good. All the best and yes start a log. I love to follow logs.

Well, I just put the log in my new sig so you can sign up for it there! Thanks for the help LOC and Tiny!

I dont know squat about grow bags, are they perferated so water can flow in and out? Btw Bert, nice avatar lol :jointsmile:

@tinytoon - Yes they are, they have like 4 holes on each side...personally I like em, they work just like net pots I suppose but you can toss em' and don't have to worry about cleaning them or whatever. Also, they only cost me like 30 cents a bag so they are cheap as well. I buy the one gallon bags because I figured anything bigger the plants would get to big for my grow.