The latter - it floods the table up to the point where the roots are submerged.
In the following pic, I’ve put a red line to where the water level rises when it’s fully flooded:
9 Likes
I’m curious to see the under side is it one big container separate buckets?
Let me see if I have some pics to illustrate, but until then, let me describe it.
The whole system is comprised of four major components:
- The reservoir (where all the water and nutrients stays during non-flood stages)
- The tray
- The stand for the table
- The lid
In the reservoir there is a water pump that is connected via tubing to the tray. I have a 3x3 Botanicare tray. Botanicare (and other tray makers) makes a connector to connect a hose from a pump into the tray. So when the pump is turned on, it pumps water up out of the reservoir and into the tray.
I use a 40 gallon Sterlite “Tough” Tote (the kind with the yellow lid). I cut holes in the lid to accomodate the two tubes that need to go back and forth from the tray.
So the pump floods the tray, and it floods it up to a height determined by an overflow valve. The overflow valve is also connected to tubing. Once the overflow depth is reached, overflow drains out of the overflow drain back down into the reservoir. With the pump I have, it takes about 3 minutes to flood the table, so the remaining 27 minutes I am just recirculating the solution between the tray and the reservoir.
The lid itself just rests on top of the tray, and the plants sit in the netpots on the tray with their roots dangling down into the tray. Here is a pic from before I started using it during my last grow:
11 Likes
Thanks. Do you keep reservoir in same room as table or out of room to keep temps down? Does the pump run long enough to make the reservoir solution warm up? Do you have to add frozen bottles to the solution? Sorry for all the questions.
1 Like
I haven’t bothered to worry about reservoir temps. I’ve never even checked them. The tote sits on the floor, so, at least for this grow, reservoir temps are actually on the cold side.
In any case I keep the reservoir in the tent (under the table). I have four 2" air stones in the reservoir pumping air at all times. I would think because the roots aren’t submerged in the water all the time that the water temp isn’t a huge deal… although with a 30 minute flood I could be drowning them for 30 minutes out of every two hours… hrm.
On that note, I started with 10 minute floods and they clearly looked underfed.
I should also note that I am currently running much higher PPMs than I usually would at this point due to the “starving” look they all had last week. This is my first time trying to grow this way on this table, so it’s all a learning process right now.
7 Likes
Ok I gotcha I see the reservoir now. Would love to see a video of it in action so I’ll be on YouTube here in a bit to see one. Again thanks for helping me understand.
3 Likes
You are gonna ROCK that space.
4 Likes
32 Days Since the First Seeds Germinated
This will be a lengthy update.
It has taken me way too long to figure out the flood cycle on this table, using this configuration. All along the answers were probably in the journal for my last grow. I just made some assumptions based on how I had changed the configuration (net pots hanging off a lid instead of cloth pots sitting on the tray) and those assumptions were not based on any fact or science… well it didn’t work out.
After taking healthy looking seedlings and putting them into the table in four separate instances, all of them have started to look like crap once they get on the table. I believe that they were being dramatically underfed. As a result, I have increased the flood cycle so now I am running 20 minutes on and 40 minutes off EVERY HOUR during lights on. Here were the plants a few days ago before I started increasing the flood cycles:
And here they are this morning, after two days with increased feeding intervals:
A close up:
All of the plants are developing nice root systems, even though they look like crap up top:
PPMs in my system are currently at 760ish, and PH has been steady in the 5.8x range. Humidity with lights on is hovering around 50% and 65% with lights off. Temps are ranging from 68F with lights off to 84F with lights on.
My plan is to flip the lights to 12/12 this week and start sexing the seedlings. The hope is to get a male and two females to put in the veg tent for parenting privileges. I might keep two males, depending on the phenotypes being displayed. Right now I have three or four plants that look very much like their dad (Alien Fruit Cake), a bunch that look a lot like mom (Cindy 99), and a few that look like both parents. I also have three weirdo plants that sprouted, either two single bladed leaves or a single two-blade leaf off the main stem, and then stopped growing off the main stem and pushed the first node branches up… basically they self-topped:
So once I have plants in the veg tent and see how many females are left on the table, I have two possible directions:
-
Try and fill the flower tent with the remaining females - i.e. reveg them and grow them big enough to train them and use the whole space
-
Fill the tray with clones from the moms - which means a staggered harvest/grow.
I’m likely to go with the latter option… if I can figure out the timing and figure out how to train and grow the plants properly to use my space and get good yields out of it, then I can maybe just roll into perpetually keeping the flower tent running.
I intend to use the outdoor season to grow out a bunch more of these seeds and do some pheno hunting that way as well.
I’m due for a res change this weekend as well. I’ll be upping the PPMs a tad bit going to full Lucas plus calmag and silica. Assuming no issues with that bump, I’ll add-in Liquid Koolbloom. Initial thought is to get PPMs around 1000 once I flip the lights and work my way up from there.
Last go around I ended reducing flood cycles a lot during the flower period, with no ill affects on the plants. It seems like when they get big, healthy root systems they don’t require the same flooding frequency as when they are smaller - but this is only my second attempt using this system, so that’s just one man’s very inexperienced judgement thus far.
Side note: increasing the flood frequency boosted RH in the tent by around 5-7% with lights on.
10 Likes
It’s funny how merely adapting as you go can open up a lot of different opportunities. I remember discussing the potential for cycling plants onto the table when you were building it. Then kind of getting away from that, and now seemingly having run full circle and potentially getting back to it.
6 Likes
Certainly that is where I’d like to go with the table… I’m just down the rabbit hole with this whole breeding thing right now. Heh.
I also should start considering how much weed I really need to grow, considering my usage, etc. Perpetual seems awesome and all and I like the idea of doing it… but doing a cost benefit analysis on it would probably tell me it’s not financially smart to keep the tent going all the time. I will undoubtedly shut down the tent for the summer this summer, and probably delaying my winter grow until February next year instead of starting up in Dec or Jan due to environmental conditions.
Once I get the basement space finished and in its own HVAC zone, then I can re-evaluate growing during the hottest and coldest months of the year.
9 Likes
Kinda funny how that works out too. You spend so much time and money building up your space specifically for those two seasons. Then get good enough to not have to even grow in them.
The breeding project is super cool, i hope there is enough success there for you to keep it going. You do plan on keeping mother plant or two around while you take the seasons off right?
5 Likes
That depends - but yes I intends to keep mother plants around at least until I can breed them. I have to keep them around anyway until I can get some bud and test them… going to be a fun year. 
I’m thinking I might just take a dozen of each hybrid and just plant them in the ground on the hill behind my house for shits and giggles once Mothers Day rolls around. Let mother nature work on them and see what happens. No reason not to other than the # of plant law.
I’ll probably try to clone every female I get, throw them in one gallon pots to hold on to until I can determine if they are worth keeping around… I can fit a lot of one gallon pots in my 4x4. Heh.
7 Likes
I like it!
3 Likes
That reminds me, if it stays warm enough this weekend I need to get outside and mix up some dirt.
3 Likes
The learning curve is part of the fun. I wanna know how the hell you got that root mass bigger than the plant.
4 Likes
Apparently if you don’t feed them they grow massive roots trying to find food. 
5 Likes
I think I’m through the “figure this new growing strategy” phase. Looks like all of the plants are now fully recovered or well on their way from my earlier foibles. I will be flipping the table to 12/12 this weekend.
I dimmed the lights down to 400w last night.
11 Likes
What is distance from cobs to canopy? I meant to comment on this yesterday over yonder, but squirreled out on something.
@Covertgrower was running his 4x4 cob rig at 160 watts at roughly 10". I know you’re higher than that and not wanting to mess with heights. But you probably could’ve done a little less and just be into range where you were starting to boost them up a little.
2 Likes
I have the rails fixed near the top of the roof - same distance as the last grow on the table. I am not 100% sure but I think they are 24" away from the lid. I will measure tonight when lights come on.
2 Likes