Mephisto Genetics Strawberry Nuggets, single plant Ebb and Flow

[Animatey]

Hi All,

I am doing my first auto in a long while as I have been doing photos for the past few grows.

I have been eyeing strawberry nuggets for a while now and decided to pull the trigger.

She is at day 11. I wasn't sure how this would go, as I have only done ebb and flow once and not with hydroton, but I think I have the system all working now.

The rez is 10 gallons, and she is in a 5 liter pot filled with hydroton.

200 Watts of Cobs, dimmed to 55 watts right now.

I'm using GH trio + rapid start and kool bloom during flower. CaMg always on hand if needed.

Thanks for stopping by, and good luck in your gardens!

 

[AutoWonders]

She be looking good at this point. Lots o' luck the rest of the way.

 

[HashFlags]

Looking strong

 

[MattyMatt726]

Hi All,

I am doing my first auto in a long while as I have been doing photos for the past few grows.

I have been eyeing strawberry nuggets for a while now and decided to pull the trigger.

She is at day 11. I wasn't sure how this would go, as I have only done ebb and flow once and not with hydroton, but I think I have the system all working now.

The rez is 10 gallons, and she is in a 5 liter pot filled with hydroton.

200 Watts of Cobs, dimmed to 55 watts right now.

I'm using GH trio + rapid start and kool bloom during flower. CaMg always on hand if needed.

View attachment 1095337
View attachment 1095338
View attachment 1095336
View attachment 1095340
View attachment 1095339
View attachment 1095341

Thanks for stopping by, and good luck in your gardens!

Where's the pump that floods the top chamber? Always liked the idea of ebb and flow systems.

 

[Animatey]

Where's the pump that floods the top chamber? Always liked the idea of ebb and flow systems.

Ebb and flow has always interested me as well and seems to be an awesome system for hydroponics. There are definitely advantages over DWC and TFR (pros and cons).

The pump is in the bottom container.

There are holes in the lid of the bottom container that line up with holes in the floor of the flood chamber. The pump has tubing through one of these holes, and the other is the drain.

I actually just accidentally broke the lid of the bottom container...

No biggie, plant is still ok and system still working, but I will need to replace the rez.

When I put it all back together, I'll try to get some pictures of how it all works.

 

[Soulflower]

It looks like a really cool way to grow, watching the thread to see what ebb and flow is all about!

 

[RivetGrrl]

Nice, I grew out a Strawberry Nuggets and enjoyed her, I have one more seed to pop at some point. Looking forward to seeing how she does in your system

 

[Animatey]

I managed to replace the rez last night in about an hour and a half.

The previous rez was always a little weak, and I worried how long it would last.

The new rez is much more beefy, and feels like it should last a long time.

So the first thing I did was cut holes in the lid of the rez. The 2 big round holes are for the ebb and flow fittings. The smaller hole is where the pump cord will go through.

The largest cutout is so I have a space to check pH/EC and add/remove water (use a shop vac to empty rez, dump water in with a bucket to fill it).

I cut up another lid I wasn't using so I'd have a cover for the large cutout area so that water doesn't evaporate too rapidly:

The flood chamber is a 5 gallon storage tote and will sit on top of the rez like this (see how the holes line up):

After I put the ebb and flow fittings into the flood chamber:

If you are not familiar with the fittings, the one on the left is a drain at ground level that the pump pushes water up through.
The fitting on the right is a taller fitting, with a larger drain size. This determines the flood height.

Here you can see that the caps for the fittings on the bottom of the chamber are pretty large, and that's why I needed large holes in the rez lid:

Everything lined up OK, and the flood chamber sits on the rez nice and flat and I still have room for the large cutout so I can pH etc:

One last thing needs to go into the flood chamber, a stilt of sorts to keep the pot off the ground so that roots don't grow into the chamber.
I made this one out of 1 inch pvc and 4 fittings. The pot will sit directly on this:

I put the pump inside the rez with a small piece of tubing, and connected the tubing to the small fitting. Here it is all finished:

When I put it in the tent, I have a cover for the flood chamber. This prevents algae from growing on the floor of the chamber where some water is left after a flood:

You can see it is cut down the middle so I can take it off easily without disturbing the plant.

Here you can see how I would access the rez with the rez cover off:

One of the cool things about this system is I can take the plant out for training/pictures at any time:

She is just in a bucket filled with hydroton that has holes drilled in the bottom.


So, on a side note, I'm glad I took this all apart and put it back together. I was using a smaller stilt last time and the pot was not high enough off the ground....

So roots were growing out of it into the flood chamber. I trimmed these roots off, and I hope that doesn't trigger flowering... that would suck LOL, but I'm glad I caught it early(ish). She was definitely a little wonky this morning, but she has since recovered. Let's hope the root stress was not enough to put her into flower mode while she is only a baby.

 

[MattyMatt726]

I managed to replace the rez last night in about an hour and a half.

The previous rez was always a little weak, and I worried how long it would last.

The new rez is much more beefy, and feels like it should last a long time.

So the first thing I did was cut holes in the lid of the rez. The 2 big round holes are for the ebb and flow fittings. The smaller hole is where the pump cord will go through.

The largest cutout is so I have a space to check pH/EC and add/remove water (use a shop vac to empty rez, dump water in with a bucket to fill it).
View attachment 1096102

I cut up another lid I wasn't using so I'd have a cover for the large cutout area so that water doesn't evaporate too rapidly:
View attachment 1096103
The flood chamber is a 5 gallon storage tote and will sit on top of the rez like this (see how the holes line up):
View attachment 1096104
After I put the ebb and flow fittings into the flood chamber:
View attachment 1096106
If you are not familiar with the fittings, the one on the left is a drain at ground level that the pump pushes water up through.
The fitting on the right is a taller fitting, with a larger drain size. This determines the flood height.

Here you can see that the caps for the fittings on the bottom of the chamber are pretty large, and that's why I needed large holes in the rez lid:
View attachment 1096105

Everything lined up OK, and the flood chamber sits on the rez nice and flat and I still have room for the large cutout so I can pH etc:
View attachment 1096107

One last thing needs to go into the flood chamber, a stilt of sorts to keep the pot off the ground so that roots don't grow into the chamber.
I made this one out of 1 inch pvc and 4 fittings. The pot will sit directly on this:
View attachment 1096108

I put the pump inside the rez with a small piece of tubing, and connected the tubing to the small fitting. Here it is all finished:

View attachment 1096110

When I put it in the tent, I have a cover for the flood chamber. This prevents algae from growing on the floor of the chamber where some water is left after a flood:
View attachment 1096112

You can see it is cut down the middle so I can take it off easily without disturbing the plant.

Here you can see how I would access the rez with the rez cover off:

View attachment 1096113


One of the cool things about this system is I can take the plant out for training/pictures at any time:
View attachment 1096101

She is just in a bucket filled with hydroton that has holes drilled in the bottom.


So, on a side note, I'm glad I took this all apart and put it back together. I was using a smaller stilt last time and the pot was not high enough off the ground....

So roots were growing out of it into the flood chamber. I trimmed these roots off, and I hope that doesn't trigger flowering... that would suck LOL, but I'm glad I caught it early(ish). She was definitely a little wonky this morning, but she has since recovered. Let's hope the root stress was not enough to put her into flower mode while she is only a baby.

Really nice setup and thanks for explaining it in detail.

 

[Animatey]

Welllll this isn't going all that great from a maintenance standpoint.

The plant is healthy(ish), but I'm getting really tired of manually pruning the roots every 2 days and so is she getting tired of it.

Every 2 days i trim off a bunch of roots, try a new stilt or a new flood cycle with an increasing dry period but roots continue to grow out of the pot.

I probably wont tolerate this much longer honestly, I'll go back to dwc and deal with those issues as these are actually more annoying... I'm not ready to give up on her yet, but I'll only experiment a couple more days with increasing dry times before she gets the boot and I consider this a worthwhile but failed experiment.

This is what she looks like (day 16) after I trim the roots. The leaves get all turned and wonked out.