cleaning hydroton

[Opie Yutts]

What other medium did you put around the roots. It shouldn't matter what the medium is, since after a few weeks the roots are out of the medium anyway, and being kept moist by the nutrient solution itself. Rockwool sucks IMO because it holds way too much water. Hydroton (a brand name) holds just the right amount. No rotting.

[growfosho]

1. Go to Home Depot and but (2) 5 Gallon buckets.

2. Take one of your larger drill bits (not one larger than your pellets of course..) and drill about 20 holes in the bottom of the bucket. Make sure you drill enough holes that the water can drain quickly or you'll be standing their for quite some time, haha

3. Place the bucket with holes within the other bucket. Go in your back yard and spray the hydroton you placed in your new system with fresh water. Use logic on the amount.

4. Pull bucket 1 out and set aside. Dump bucket 2 with waste water.

5. Repeat steps 3 thru 4 until you feel your new, or old, hydroton is ready for use.

6. Have Fun! "Spread the love" - Stinkbud

[vonwolfen]

Hydroton washing is a pain the arse...I have an ebb and flo system with a 50 gallon res(CAP). I just throw the hydroton into the res with a little biofriendly dishsoap(seems to break down faster then normal dishsoap) and mix it around. Let it sit for a few hours...dump it in my bubble hash bag(the 220) 5 gallons at a time(spray it with a hose). most of the roots goto the bottom(70-80%)..dump the bubble bag into a 50 gallon garbage bag...and done..of course it is time consuming, and not perfect...But it cleans the res and hydroton at the same time...

[Daddynobucks]

makes it a lot easier to deal with the normally high Ph. the new stuff needs soaking forever

Daddy

[evil]

I know this post is old but for anyone who comes across it. A few people said to clean with a flushing agent but for the most part all that stuff is just empty chelates that help the plant eat up everything in the root zone then after that you would flush with just water to finish. That doesnt help clean hydroton unless maybe theres a soap added like in royal flush, and even then I wouldnt waste the product on it. Someone else said not to use bleech because its a salt. I have to say Im pretty sick of all these salt snobs. Bleech is awesome because it absolutely kills everything and not that I would compare bleech to nutes but what excactly is it you organic nuts think plants eat. They eat inorganic mineral salts. The only difference is how they get them. If your having trouble with large amounts of hydroton I would swich to smaller nets that hold less. The only problem with having more roots exposed to the water though is root infection unless you have a chiller, use mycorrhizae and zyme or dont use any organic stuff at all. As far as cleaning go's if you have alot of plant matter in the hydroton I would soak it in zyme and then clean with bleach after. If your not using mycorrhizae and zyme in your hydro system you want to make sure to get rid of as much organic matter from the hydroton as possible and than purify it good. Zyme and then bleech does that nicely. I have an ebb and flow but instead of using the full inserts that come with it I use smaller 6 inch ones and its amazing how much less hydroton you use. When cleaning I take the full size nets filled with dirty hydroton and put those in five gallon buckets filled with water and zyme. I let that sit untill the zyme breaks down anything left over and then I soak with bleech and rinse very very very well. One full insert of hydroton gets me six 6" small inserts so its alot less to deal with. If you go with the smaller inserts just remember that its easier to get root infections when more of the roots are completely exposed to the water like in a dwc system. Either just use base nutes and h2o2 with absolutly no organic additives or get rid of the h2o2 and use mycorrhizae and zyme. You could also get a chiller but they are realy expensive and as long as you keep clean and either use h2o2 with no organic additives or use mycorrhizae and zyme you should be ok.

Opie Yutts idea sounds good too if you dont have the money for zyme and can stand spending a little more time messing with the hydroton. I might try that method next time.