Super Simple Ebb & Flow Hydroponics System

New Gardening Method: 10 Times The Plants, 90% Less Work: http://thelocalwebsolution.com/aquaponics4you_al.html

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• hydro
• hydroponic
• cannabis
• marijuana
• hemp
• weed
• aquaculture
• ebb
• flow
• flood
• drain
• lightwave
• layout
• 3d
• animation
• modeler
• cgi
• art
• grow
• indoor

[islander170]

Thanks! That makes perfect sense; I totally get it. May I ask one other question - how high do you recommend placing the bottoms of the pots, relative to the static (non-pumping) water level in the reservoir. My guess would be base of pot (at drain hole) should be just above the rez water surface, when not pumping.

[alflud]

@islander170 yeah, definitely. The higher you place your pots the more the pump has to work to shift the liquid. It's not absolutely vital to do this though - you can take some leeway depending on your chosen pump. If you got a powerful pump then you have more freedom to arrange your system however you like. Key thing to note is that vertical liquid displacement requires more energy than horizontal liquid displacement. Also, your pots must be higher than the highest liquid level in the reservoir

[alflud]

@islander170 ... in order to allow gravity to do it's work and pull everything back down into the reservoir when the pump goes off. The system represented here is a simple one but the concepts involved can be applied to much bigger and more complicated systems. What's important is understanding how to move the nutrient mix in around the plants roots and how to bring it back to the reservoir at timed intervals - which, as a side effect draws oxygen rich air in around the plants roots too.

[Kenderkin711]

Bwa haha mua ha haahaa hahaha ha... heha.. ha.... heh... ha......

Does anyone else realize that the plants in this video are Marijuana?!

Omg, that's funny..

[islander170]

OK, so keep height difference to minimum to avoid unecessary pumping.

I'm actually going to go the other direction with this, i.e. downsizing it to grow a few vegetables in a basement. I may try to do this with 3/4" PEX tubing. Easy to work with, flexible, and no glue. BTW, you may be aware of this, but their is a handy, *flexible*, PVC pipe product, called Spa-Flex. Bendable, andsized for common PVC fittings. I think would work well in systems such as you describe. Thanks again for your help.

[alflud]

@kirkikane ... if you forget to feed your plants they have nothing to fall back on. The air that's surrounding the plants roots has nothing to get the plant by. With regards to lighting - it depends on what you are planning to grow and how big a yield you would like to harvest. Small plants like Basil will grow perfectly well under fluorescent lights whereas tomato or cannabis plants will require at least a 400w HID and if you want a bigger yield you'd use a 600w or even 1000w HID lamp.

[alflud]

@kirkikane you can water manually but I don't recommend it. A common hydroponic feeding schedule would require a feeding once every 90 or 120 minutes - that's not something a lot of people can stick to. The one serious drawback about growing anything hydroponically is that your plants can die very quickly if not sufficiently fed. With soil if you forget to water well the soil has some trace amounts of nutrients in it that can get the plant by until the next feed. When growing hydroponically ...

[alflud]

@73C4N0 pump is a matter of choice - there are many, many pumps capable of lifting water through this system. There's tons of info regarding pumps out there. Google is your friend :) some aquarium pumps might do but I'd do a search for pond pumps - they're hardy - use more energy but they're built to last.

[alflud]

@islander170 Thanks for the kind words. That's not actually a cap - it's a collar. If you follow it across to the side of the rez you can see there's a plug there .... well if you take out that plug and insert a length of pipe you can connect it to the collar and easily empty the system using the pump. Otherwise the water comes out of that collar piece and falls back into the tank :)

[islander170]

Alflud - Great video and I like the system! It looks like the PVC overflow return to the reservoir is capped off, though. There must be some way for the fluid to return from the overflow line to the reservoir, no? Why have you illustrated it this way?