Question for Hydro Growers?

[Fuzzy Duck]

Some where in the near future, i may embrace the dark side of growing...mwahauhau


Yup i may give up the organic 'n' dirt aproach for a period of time or intill i feel i've master hydro atleast.

So i'm pretty sold on the idea of an hempy bucket style of grow with 75% perlite & 25% vermiculite mix in a 10 litre bucket with aprox 2 litre mini reserva in base of bucket.

From what i understand about watering hempys is that you get 10% run off from drainage holes, this replaces lost nutrients & helps keep PH/EC stable intill you raise EC levels depending on stage of growth etc.

Which i'm planning on making it a D.I.Y recirculating system via a dripper feed.

This puts on par with nft/dripper/ebb & flood systems which use a reserva !


My question is how often do you guys monitor EC/PH levels to maintain optimal conditions ?


I plan to flush a small reserva 20l to 30l aprox once a week with the system supplying 4 plants only.

 

[Hiker]

Hey Duckman, how has this went unanswered?!?!?

I love hydro. I currently have ~20 plants in a mix of coco, verm, and perl. As I watered them last night, I realized that soil(less) is more work than hydro. I was able to flush out my reservoir for the whole flowering room in less time than it took to feed the babies. I always hear folks say hydro is more work, but it just seems easier to me to manage a single system with multiple plants than 20+ individual buckets. Anyway, that wasn't what you asked...

I have zero experience with hempy style, so I can't help there. I did want to comment on one part of your post.

Which i'm planning on making it a D.I.Y recirculating system via a dripper feed.

I don't think what you're describing is recirculating. If it is, are you sure you want to do that? I've never heard of anyone catching runoff and pumping it back through the system. While the hempy will be soiless, I still treat my soiless like a plant in dirt in most ways. I've never seen anyone recirculate the runoff water from soil or soiless.

If you just want to try out the shallow end of the Hydro pool, why not just build a single DWC bucket? Then you can just add it to what you're already doing and know well. I've not done DWC myself yet, but I'm planning to add one bucket to my room as an experiment.