ebb & flow??

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daf

up in smoke!!!
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hey peps, i have several questions, im thinking about doing a ebb& flow setup but want to know if u get more yield and better buds than soil. another question i have is if i where thinking of building a 3x3 tray, how many plants can i grow on that space and what is the best way to set can i seperate each in 3" netpots or 5" or should i just fill it with hydroton and just plant each one in rockwool which on of these methods is better, thanx for any suggestions
 
if i use the netpots, do i still have to fill up the tray with hydroton or can i just leave them just in the netpot
 
When using a 3x3 flood table, you have enough space for 24-36 plants. One popular method is to use 6" Rockwool cubes and fill the tray up. Another person might use 5.5" - 6" Square pots and fill the table with those, using either hydroton or some other media.

I myself would go for either 6" round or square pots, use hydroton or rockwool cubes. This would make moving them around easier. And I think my tray would have 24-35 plants in them, depending on the strain.
 
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but if i put them in netpots do i have to fill tray with hydroton i wanted to make holes on the lid to suspend each pot
 
24-35 plants for flowering would they fit in a tray that size was thinking about getting greenhouse great white shark or white rhino seeds
 
daf said:
24-35 plants for flowering would they fit in a tray that size was thinking about getting greenhouse great white shark or white rhino seeds

lol hell no i got a ebb&flow 3x2 and i can only fit 6 tops

i had 4 and found a male today so i got 3 check out my sig

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I'm currently doing a 9 plant ebb and flow with square plastic pots. I put them in rockwool starter cubes and filled the rest with hydroton. This gives the plants a good bit of room for root growth and is in my opinion the most space efficient. I just started the set up so i can't tell you how much i'll get a plant, but the way i see it is putting more plants in less space may give you less yield per plant, but you win by pure numbers. With a DWC you may get much more per plant but you can fit far fewer plants per area.
Like I said, I don't know how mine will turn out, but its way more space efficient than pothead4life's set up is. no disrespect, just why put 4 plants, when you can put 25 smaller plants? Better odds when starting from seedling too.
 
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NewbieG said:
why put 4 plants, when you can put 25 smaller plant.

i used to have 12 in my veg room in that same tub, but when you get to flowering you need more room, i could push maybe 8 plants max in my 3x2 tub. i was going for 4 but found a male and ended up with 3 :) and i am happy. is my first time :)
 
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so start of 6" of 4" rockwool and fiil the tub with hydroton
 
I personally opted for plastic containers full of hydroton. I got the square ones measuring about 6" across.

I personally am under the belief that having your plants grow in hydroton is superior to rockwool in an Ebb system as you want drainage. The reason for it is it helps provide more air to the roots. Wouldn't be bad for starting to root, but I would do the tiny little cubes if anything. Those who I know who used Rockwool had to water much less frequently but you sacrifice air.

Another nice aspect of the ebb system is the ability to move your plants so easily. I rotated my plants daily to help cut back on stretching and to get nice full buds on all sides.

The plastic containers also made flushing the medium much easier. I would run tap water through the tubs for about a minute each res. change.

As far as space goes, my tray is just a little under 4x4 and I started with 12 plants and cut back to 9. I realistically could have had more plants in there if I raised my lights, but I had an air cooled 600w hps 6" above the plants and they loved it.

Feel free to message me with any questions or check out my old grow for reference.

My experience may be lacking but my results were amazing. Speaking of which, I think I'll go enjoy a bowl of that grow now.

Good luck
 
pothead4life said:
i used to have 12 in my veg room in that same tub, but when you get to flowering you need more room, i could push maybe 8 plants max in my 3x2 tub. i was going for 4 but found a male and ended up with 3 :) and i am happy. is my first time :)

yeah man nothing against you bud. I just think that with plants: more = better. I'm sure the individual plants may suffer from lack of space, but at the end of the day you'll get more from the two squeezed. To each their own :)
 
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so start them out with rockwool starter cubes
 
Pot growing 101:

The space needed for plants depends on many variables.

1. How tall do you want the plants to be at harvest?

2. Strain of weed

3. Will you be using LST to maximize space?

4. How long do you want to keep the plants in the vegetative cycle?

5. How large is your grow area in square feet?

6. What type and wattage of lights are you using for the vegetative cycle and also what type and wattage of lights are you going to use to flower?

After you've answered each of those questions, I can tell you EXACTLY how many plants you should have in your grow area.

To answer you without that information would be called "guessing". I don't think you want a guess if you can find out how many you can grow correctly with no doubt at all.

Stoney.
 
Hi guys,
POTUS is right on, there are so many variables. It is possible to do 36 plants in that area if you flower within a few days after birth and grow just single colas, which is not a bad way to go. It is easier to do with clones than seed I think for that many. I would jump right down to 9 plants if you veg for 3 weeks or more. I would use a 600HPS for a 3' by 3' area. Hope this helps... :p

PS I would use separate net pots so that they can be moved around and males extracted easy when the time comes as their roots would get intertwined if allowed to grow together. The size of the pots depends on how long you plan on vegging, 3" are fine if you go right into flower and I would use 5" for longer veg times.
 
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oltomnoddy said:
Alright then. I'm game.

1. 36"-48" max. 2. Mainly Indica (now, Blueberry, before A.I.) 3.Just super-cropping, and trim off lower branches (less popcorn and more cola) 4. Till sex is determined and plant is sexually mature. (Hopefully no more than 12" tall.) 5. 2' x 4' Hydro drip stick method. 6. Veg, 3200 lumen's of 6500K CFL's. Flower, 2 400W HPS.

Reason for my inquisitiveness, during my A.I. grows, plants grew in excess of 65" tall.
Mind you, 24" colas were nice, but I started to run out of heighth for the lights!

I don't understand how people can stick 20-30 plants in a 2 x 3 or 2 x 4
space and expect to grow them to maturity, unless they put them to flower at 4" to 6" in heighth.
Well alrighty then! Great information!

1. With a max height of only 36" and using the other variables you've mentioned, I would advise you to start your flowering cycle at no more than 8" in average height.

2. With a 2' x 4' area, using your methods, I would put 4 plants, or a maximum of 6 plants into your grow room. This will allow you enough room to work on the plants, lights and hydro system without bashing your plants around. It also gives them enough room to develop buds to their fullest capability. More plants than that and it becomes crowded.

Another way to look at it is that since you aren't growing weed to sell to people on the street and are looking to maximize your own stash, a cured pound of weed is very possible in your grow area. You can do this 3 times a year. If you smoke more than 3 pounds of weed a year, another room would make more sense than crowding too many plants into a confined area.

Of course, if you were the type of person who sells at street level and wanted to maximize your 50 grow rooms to produce as much as possible, then I would suggest the same exact method.

If you put ten plants in the same area, your cured weight won't change. The size and quality of your buds would change in a downward direction.

The cured weight would be almost the same and change slightly, crop to crop, depending on plant health and individual characteristics.

Put twenty plants in that area and you could start calling yourself a popcorn distributor.
 
oltomnoddy said:
Thanks for the answer.
Actually, I usually only grow 2 plants at a time,
1 per light, quality over quantity.
Only reason for 3 this time, germed 5 beans, got 4 females, 1's a mother.
3 plants in 2 2'x2' trays, 1 plant is somewhat suffering from it, but I
didn't want to toss away a good female.

At 400 watts a plant, it seems to me like you aren't really maximizing what you could be getting with little to no sacrifice on quality. 800 watts for 2 plants? that's alot...
 
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NewbieG said:
At 400 watts a plant, it seems to me like you aren't really maximizing what you could be getting with little to no sacrifice on quality. 800 watts for 2 plants? that's alot...
Light isn't calculated by the plant.

It's calculated by the square feet of canopy area.

3,000 lumens per/sq ft is the minimum I would use at full vegetative or flowering cycles.

5,000 is much better.
 
oltomnoddy said:
And right now 8 square feet is being taken up nicely by 3 plants.
Pics and grow journal linked below.
It sounds like you got it goin on, man.

:postpicsworthless:
 
how high is the table suppose to flood 5"
 

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