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Perpetual harvest... how would you flush at the end?

TDJester

New member
So after being out of the hobby for some years now I want to jump back in to growing my own.. First thing I had was build the kit. Here's what I came up with.

A 5x5 dark room tent
4x4 Ebb flow tray setup
600W HPS
Probably build my own aero cloner.

The intent is to grow a few solid mothers initially, take cuttings in batches and plant every 2-3 weeks based on the genetics I've chosen. Now I'd like to do a SOG method using 3" or 4" square mesh pots using hydroton for a medium.. I've used the clay pebbles before in the past and I like the fact it's a relatively clean reusable ph balanced medium.

Okay so with the background out of the way. When I grew last, the last 2 weeks were flushed with plain ph balanced water. If I'm continually planting in a wave looking SOG style, how does one flush? Obviously there will always be 1 cycle of plants in the flushing stage by my math. So would it prudent to use a more organic based liquid nute system to avoid the 'chemmy' taste I've had before on some bad homegrown batches? Sorry for the long read. Hope I explained my situation thoroughly :)
 
Set up 2 tables would be your best bet, so when you flip 1 set into flowering the other should be flushing, unless you want to hand flush, which would be much added work. Nutes are nutes, if you don't flush with ph'd water, you will taste them, and that's not what you want. I run perpetual multi strain, but I'm in coco and doing a recirculating drip, which works well for my purposes, and I run 2 tables, 2 reservoirs, one for the beginning and the other for the end. I tend to feed very lightly anyways, and House and garden has always given me great results. But again, I'm not doing hydroton, but the same ideas apply.
 

Crusader Rabbit

Active member
Veteran
My set up is a perpetual SOG on a 6' x 3' table holding three 2' x 3' trays (Lowes "Centrex" mortar mix tubs). Each tub has its own 19 gallon reservoir allowing me to move plants down along the line as they mature, with each reservoir holding an age appropriate nutrient solution. This way it's simple to have the last reservoir holding a nitrogen weak bloom solution, or even plain water for the flush.

If all your plants must be in one large tray, then you can take those plants needing the flush and nest each pot into a second container with no drain holes to keep your flood nutrient solution from getting to the media/roots. Hand water these plants with your flush solution and empty out the run off.
 

TDJester

New member
Wow okay so that definitely enlightened me as well as monkey wrenched the shit out of my plan. So in theory.. if I can find a 3X4 tray that will keep my nutes in the flowering plants, but when you think about it having a whole other pump and reservoir on a 1X4 tray would be tricky.. Would it not be easier to do a smaller reservoir underneath the table doing an NFT or drip using a dutch leach tray? That way the piping is simplified and reduces the chances of leaks?
 
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