So I figured to put out what I've learned, and add my own steps to some of this because I myself was clueless as to how to do some of the more tedious tasks involved in setting up correctly.

The first thing I noticed when I checked out the hydrotron balls was how much dust and small particles were in that 50L bag - DAMN! So after cleaning the 4th bag, I think I have something that is relatively quiet and clean.

1. Realize there is a LOT of dust in this stuff and it will get EVERYWHERE if not dampened quickly. I did this in the bathroom because I can't possibly go outside.
2. Look at the bag, there is a blue section on one side. You'll need to cut this a bit bigger than it is.
3. Fill a few 5 gal buckets a little less than half way with water, keep them in your tub/shower.
4. Fill these with balls. This will prevent so much dust flying everywhere.
5. If you don't use all of them at once or want to break the process down into manageable steps, then only use 1 or 2 bucketfulls at a time.
6. Get 2 more buckets, complete with the baskets that fit in them or a collander that will sit on the rim of the bucket.
7. Split up the balls so you have half in one bucket, half in another. The crucial part here is to only use enough to fill your collander or basket. Keep the rest separate.
8. Now you should have a couple of collander fulls and buckets to match. Take out one collander full and rinse under the faucet.
9. Now fill a bucket about half way and pour the collander into it.
10. Swish around and then pour back through collander.
11. Now repeat 8-10 a few times and you'll notice the water is getting cleaner. I do 8-10 about 5 times. Takes about 5 minutes.
12. Pour balls into a clean container, and go to work on the rest in the tub or shower.

I found that keeping water in the buckets while pouring the balls out prevents the clickety clack of balls on plastic and helps to wash them at the same time.:thumbsup:

To Ph them down, it gets a bit messy. I use a big storage container and can put all the balls in it plus a good amount of water. Then I put a 275+- gpm pump in the bottom to get the water churning. Begin to ph down slowly to desired level.

I use a collander to get the balls out of the big container and put them into 5 gals until needed.


Any other suggestions would be great, but this is how I have worked things out to keep things quiet (neighbors) and clean (roommates). It still takes about an hour or so to clean a 50L bag of hydrotron, but that's better than the 2-3 hours it used to take me. :wtf:

I'll post more of these as this log goes on to show how I do some background stuff. The CFL setup was easy, too, so I will explain that later as well.

Also adding Voodoo and Carbo load and am switching to a Fulvic Acid to use as a ph Down. Might try bud blood or big bud and even some Sensizym later.

Peace:rastasmoke: