After the harvest ... what now??

We all come on to this site to share stories, talk about growing problems and post pics of those big buds just covered with beutiful Trichs. I want to see what people do after the harvest. You busted your arse off fighting PH drift, spider mites, high temps, ballast died, power went out and so on but it is all over and you were sucessful. You are done now ........ or are you. One of the hardest things to do is clean everything so you can get the next batch going but how do you do this?? Different types of systems but they all have to be clean to start again. Buying brand new after every grow is not feesible so how do we clean this to be sucessful again?? Lets get some input on this because it is probablly the most overlooked part of growing.
I still do not have a "great" way to clean rez and lines and such but with the Hydrotron what we do is put it all in the biggest stock pot I have, fill with water and bring to a boil. Let simmer on lower heat for about 20-30 minutes then empty a little at a time in to a collander to get the last remaining roots out. When clean let extra water drip out and put in 5 gal bucket till it is time to soak again.
We should be able to have more than 1 or 2 people contribute to this as we all have to do it.

Well, I have a flood n grow system, and use hydroton as a medium. The pots are 3 gal buckets with a net pot that pretty well covers the whole pail. I have tomato cages stuck into each pot. On the day I chop, I drain the nutes into the barrel, and start cutting the stems of each plant near the bottom. I bring the plants to where I trim and place the buds directly on a (fly) screen that has a 1"x2" frame around it. When that tray is full (nothing on top of each other) it is placed on a bakery rack on wheels. Once all is trimmed I wheel the rack with the buds back into the flower room, set it in a corner, and lay a large piece of plastic over it to keep the light away as much as possible. It sits there about 4 or 5 days drying. The buds are then removed and placed into sealed plastic containers (they were intended for LEGO toys). They cure for another week or two. ... Oh, I should mention that my buckets sit on rails. That means I took 2 1" angle irons and bolted them together with a piece of flat iron about 11" apart. I then put some caster wheels on them. That way if I need to get to a plant in the middle, I can just roll each row over to the side, and then roll them back under the light once finished.

After the trimming is all done the nutes are pumped out of the barrels, and the pots of hydroton are emptied into a laundry sink (less the roots and stems). As the laundry sink fills with water I dump a half cup of bleach into it to disinfect the rocks. I then rinse them and store them in a bin for re-use. Once the barrel is empty, I fill it with water and a bleach solution and cycle the system once or twice. I use a wet vac to remove and leaves between the pots as well as any water in the bottom of each bucket. Then I refill the barrel and add nutes (start out at 800-900ppm) leaving the lights high for the first day. The girls graduating to the flower room are then removed from my ebb and flow table and its 4" net pots and repotted into the larger net pots that cover the buckets. I have an insulated reflective pad that goes over the pots, and it also serves as protection from leaves falling directly onto the hydroton, as well as help with humidity and temperature control.. I change nutes twice before I flush them.

keylime

Well it looks like we have 1 person in the entire community of Hydro that cleans their equipment .............................. You guys most have some real funky looking stuff growing in your rez's :weedpoke:

I like this post you did, in some weeks to come I will need this info that comes from it. I am glad to hear you can reuse hydroton, my hydro store told me I should not reuse it. Guess they want repeat buisness

My question is keylime says he soaks them in a little bleach? How does not the bleach stay/soak into the hydroton and screw up plants later when you reuse? The rinsing gets out all the bleach out of the hydroton? Not busting balls, just asking the question.

Glad you like the topic I just wish more would contribute. There has been alot of new peeps pop up in the Hydro section and I figured this stuff would be great for all. I'm not goning to guess on the bleach thing as I dont use bleach.

For small amounts of hydroton we use a 5 gallon bucket with about 100 holes in it. We put the bucket with holes in another without holes to soak in the chlorine tap water. Then lift out and rinse and repeat.

For large amounts of hydroton like ebb and flow or gro we use one of those small electric cement mixers from slowes. It has a couple of hundred small 3/8 inch holes drilled all over. Turn it on and wash away. This method washes away more of the nutrient salt buildup than any other way.

All buckets and tubs are washed out with a physan20 solution and pumped out through the drain to keep it clean too.

Did I forget to mention that large amouts of medicine are need after every step.

After?? Wth happens with before and during?

Well I kind of drag after out all day. LOL

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Originally Posted by scottcc5s

I like this post you did, in some weeks to come I will need this info that comes from it. I am glad to hear you can reuse hydroton, my hydro store told me I should not reuse it. Guess they want repeat buisness

My question is keylime says he soaks them in a little bleach? How does not the bleach stay/soak into the hydroton and screw up plants later when you reuse? The rinsing gets out all the bleach out of the hydroton? Not busting balls, just asking the question.

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I never used bleach to clean my hydroton. Then a few months ago I saw some strange live critters in the nutrients in my buckets. I found out they were root aphyds from some instructors at the Oaksterdam University in Oakland Calif. I also found out what to use to get rid of them. I then asked him if I needed to destroy all my used hydroton since they probably have eggs in there. He said no, just wash the hydroton with some bleach and rinse well.

keylime
Well a few weeks ago I took a couple of courses at the Oaksterdam University in

what kind of mixture ratio are you talking with the Bleach??

I use about a half cup in the laundry sink... that might hold 20 gal of water and a bucket full of rocks. I use a 1" piece of PVC pipe I drilled some drain holes in (most of the way up the pipe) so the water can drain without plugging the sink. If I want to hold the water in, I have a 1 1/2" solid piece of Pvc pipe that slides over the drilled one and it keeps the water in. Then when I want to drain the water, I just slide the larger pipe up and out and the smaller one actually drains. I generally rinse twice and I'm done.

kL

Good Topic. I'm early in my growing experience and I finished my second grow last year and started another one recently. I was fearful of adding anything like bleach so I used straight tap water which I figured contained enough chlorine for my needs and then soaked for a day, thoroughly flushed three times and then spread out the hydroton to completely dry out.

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Originally Posted by byrdog55

Good Topic. I'm early in my growing experience and I finished my second grow last year and started another one recently. I was fearful of adding anything like bleach so I used straight tap water which I figured contained enough chlorine for my needs and then soaked for a day, thoroughly flushed three times and then spread out the hydroton to completely dry out.

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Well the instructor at the Oaksterdam University says he uses Bleach to disinfect everything, including walls etc.

I clean my rocks in 5g buckets with about a 10% bleach/water mixture. After that I rinse the rocks with clean water. Also use the same ratio mixture to clean the inside of my tent and everything else.

Also like LOC, I use the physan20. I usually only use it if there was any nasties during the grow just to make sure.

DON'T USE BLEACH! Use hydrogen peroxide.