You know what? This was meant to be an instructional log, not an argument over why I'm doing it wrong. So if you are interested in starting your own log showing noobs how to build, run, and maintain an ebb and flow system from scratch, that's great, and I promise I won't come in at the end and write an essay about why mine was better, okay?

-The timer may be self-explanatory as a piece of equipment, but the flood schedule is NOT. I've spent enough time in grow troubleshooting forums to see that yes, indeed, new growers have trouble matching their flood cycles to their plant size, temps, light intensity, and ambient humidity.

-For the same number of plants, the amount of water needed to flood a table vs. keep them constantly wetted using flow is much higher. Were I to have run flood n drain on this system, it would have been a 30 gallon res MINIMUM vs. the 4 gallons I used. This is a very efficient use of water and nutrients.

-You need an airstone in your reservoir to keep the nutrient solution aerated. That's what I was talking about. This prevents unwanted chemical reactions among nutrient components, and inhibits undesirable bacterial growth, as the level of dissolved gases is kept constant (=areobic).

-Hydroton WOULD do. I used to run a BED of hydroton. As with the reservoir, the system required a solid 5x the hydroton that the containerized one needed to be filled correctly. The idea behind the containers is that they not only hold the rootball, but protect it from light, using a bare minimum of pebbles. I also found that at the end of the grow, this system required much less cleaning. The flow action kept the pebbles completely free of algae and slime.

-Maybe you haven't met enough people who have flooded their grow areas. I have. A friend recently had to re-carpet his back room due to a reservoir problem. I believe it was a stray bit of hydroton blocking the drain pipe, and 50 gallons of Canna stains like a motherfucker when it dries.

-Yes. 'Over my way' a 5 gallon pail is $4 and a 40 gallon reservoir is the same as it is 'over your way' if the local hydro shop orders through NGW:
70716350 GAL EZ DRAIN LID$59.9570716450 GAL EZ DRAIN RESERVOIR$115.95That's about $175 for the set. Plus shipping.

If you had read earlier in it as well, you would have seen that another major goal was to develop a cheap system that would break down into small components and fit in the back of a compact car for ease of moving. Mine does just that- the entire volume of hydroton needed to run it just happens to EXACLTY fill up the 5 gallon pail that had been used as the res, all the tubing rolls up into a shopping bag, and the two leach trays nest together into a 4'x6"x6" package, whcih can be stuffed in a large duffel bag. Try doing that with a 4x4 ebb n flow table and the associated reservoir.

Hope this explains why I made this log.