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Bubbleplonics vs Hydro vs Aeroplonics

raver2008

raver2008

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 23, 2007
Messages
850
Location
New Brunswick, Canada
I would like to start growing my own pot soon and have been looking at verious systems online and still have no idea what I should use. Im just looking for pros and cons of each or why you think one is better than the other, experiances you've had with them, any info at all, thanks.
 
there is far too much for me to get started really.

but, building your own ebb & flood is great.

maximum oxygen co 2 exchange
once set up it is very self sustaining
clean
easier for vegetation
very fast growth
quick safe trouble shooting

setting up an e & f for flowering would take a bit more, but if you have the cash flood buckets are amazing
for flowering.

a nice soiless medium, running drip lines, from a single large reservoir which makes for a more stable nutrient mix, after an ebb & flood veg is what i settled on.
because of costs, production, and ease which is important for me, due to chronic pain.

aeroponics are best for clonning, but, there are many options that you can create, learning this through conning would be the best introduction and be productive at the same time.

bubble ponic? if you mean deep water culture, a recirculating dwc system is a serious serious producer. but is very finicky, and laborious, nothing to jump into.

temps must stay consistent
ph must stay monitored
changing out nutrient, is intensive
the root system is 100% able to grow freely and effortlessly, they absorb nutrients needed, as needed.

NFT nutrient film technique is another efficient system, i would chose larger yielding indica plants for this, but is economical, similar results/benefits as with ebb & flood, but takes some experience, as with dwc a lighter nute mix is needed, and would take a lot of monitoring before having dialed in.

hope thats helpful.
good luck.!
 
Thanks for answering, Do you mean aero is best for growing plants from clones not seeds or its better for just making the clones not growing them to bud?

Bubbleplonics according to this site is some new system that works incredible but I have never heard of it untill now. Heres a link--> http://www.stealthhydroponics.com/product.php?xProd=100&xSec=60

Also is it alot cheaper to make your own compared to buying a full system from a site like this? I've never grown b4, obviosuly it varies but vary ballpark guess if you did everything right how much bud might one expect to get per plant?
 
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an ebb and flood table us easy, and once you become familiar with the basics, you can take what you like about different systems and incorporate them to meet your needs.

i meant aeroponics are great for growing roots on cuts, developing the root system in general.
a 5 gallon bucket with 1/4" tubing with holes punched and 1/3" spaghetti tube bits poking out from the mainline spiraling inside the bucket, surrounding the root ball, set to spray for 1 minute every 3-5 minutes, with a practice/economical drainage system,
would give you great motherfucking bright white root big budding rapid growering plants, no doubt, OR, a labor intensive, high cost initial set up aeroponic system with a bunch of dead plants.


i prefer hydro, its fun, and a lot like doing electric work...
some stains do not belong in a full cycle hydro grow, for cloning, mother plants (ideally), and vegetation hydroponics are superior compared to soil.
with hydro, the growthspurt that occurs after 10-15 days can be freakishly rapid, you hope to notice an inch of new growth a day, at times, when everything is right, some days two or more inches of growth is notable,,, and intimidating sometimes tbh..!

a 15 gallon rubber made tote, a five inch deep flat surfaced top, a drain tube, and pump/fill tube, air pump, and nice bubble stone.
those are the basics as far as hard ware to build a vegetation flood table to fit up to 8 plants on, that will jump up around 20-25" in 35 40 days.
that, and then placed into a "substrate" soiless drip system to flower is what i settled on.

with the flood, you dont need to transfer containers, until before you flower. they can be in a 2L the entire veg cycle, i use a 1.7l round pot, with many tiney holes drilled around the base, then a square cut out of the bottom, and some fine "plastic" netting inside at the bottom.
then place into a square 1.5L with some hydroton pellets in the bottom of that, which also have small holes drilled at base with a dremel.

when the plants have doubled up in size, or are drying out there medium quicker, add another minute to a couple or few of the feedings.
usually 6/8 1 or 2 minute feeds.
 
I strongly recommend you use a fytocell hempy bucket as a beginner. More expensive/complicated systems are not necessarily any better than the simplest.

Here in the UK we're a sensible lot which is why a recirculating NFT system is by far the most popular. The grow tank by Nutriculture seems the best on the market and is good value.

DWC gives amazingly fast yields but is impractical as you have to lift the lid to test ec/ph every day. There are ways around this but I would go with with of the above systems and you won't look back. Aeroponics is the fastest but also prone to failure.

By the way, all hydro systems yield the same. Even soil yields the same, it's just that sone systems yield faster!

I'm in NFT at the moment, under a 1kw light and growth rates are so fast it's scary. I'm going away for five days and am worried that at this rate my tent will fill up full!!
 
raver2008 said:
how much bud might one expect to get per plant?
Click to expand...

How long is a piece of string?

It depends on veg time, light power, training techniques (ie scrog yields more than freestyle) and many other factors. One plant under a single light can yield as much as a kilo, so as you can see, it depends.
 
Yeah I was looking at NTF systems and they do sound really great but I dont see many sites selling them prebuilt, im not all that trusting in myself to build any of these systems so would like to preferably just buy one if its not crazy crazy expensive. I will check out that nutriculture one you mentioned to. Thanks. Also if I were to use LED's would I not need all the expesive fans and shit for cooling? Sorry I have so many questinos that to most ppl on here are common sense, I have no experiance with growing anything lol and always want to know every last detail before embarking on something like this. I appreciate everyones input
 
forget the LED's, for the next decade or so any way.

a single 600w hps, or dual 400's isn't that costly to maintain, and well worth it, and any extras. my cool-tube rectangular box reflector, is able to be kept around 15" from the canopy, the 6" 24w fan was maybe $35.
my 400w halide is in an open aluminum wing reflector,
i just use an ordinary panning fan, or a little holmes cyclone.
if you are in a sealed environment or using 1kw lights things can get pretty involved, but in a tent, cab, closet, or spare room; youll be fine with most hardware you have at home already.
finding a nice PPM, EC, TDS, TEMP, PH meter is a good idea, thats one of the gadgets worth investing in once you decide growing is for you,,, or is a medically necessary. i have a NZ Hydroponics/Blue Labs ppm/temp meter, which has a 5' cable with a carbon meter that is to be left submerged in the rez, it has an alarm for if the ppm's sway by .5 from the set rate.
very simple, but $450, it connects to a mother board which is astronomical and for large green houses, so the gave it to me for 50...whos gonna be running that sort of system anyway?!?

so looking for a deal on a quality meter will make your life much much easier, grow healthier plants, know how much you are actually feeding/they are eating, and keep then alive,,, these things prevent lock-out, and other sudden death mishaps.

with hydro, if anything goes wrong, its going to go wrong fast, but the signs/symptoms show quickly and correcting them can be done in near real-time.
with soil, if anything goes wrong, its going to happen quietly and slowly, once the signs/symptoms do arise, they will be more progressed late stage symptoms.


ebb & flood with a 400w halide, then soiless drip with a 600w or 2 400w MH & HPS; with mh/hps the plants will continue growing (roots, leafs/chlorophyll, stems), and producing resin/flowering.
 
Why forget the LEDs? Not arguing just curious after everything I read online about how great they are.
Yeah right now im in college still havent found my own place to move into yet but once I do is once I want to start setting everything up. If I were growing in a basement would I need to worry about odor? Thanks alot for the tip on the meter I will look into that for sure.
Sorry I know this is probably a dumb question but what do you mean in the last thing you said? Then a soilless drip with a 600w or 2 400w MH & HPS. I get the lights part but what is a soilless drip? Is it another sort of system i'd use with the ebb & flood?
Also I know you mentioned DWC, of the two(DWC Ebb& flood) which would you say is best? I really appreciate you helping me with all this
 
there is lots of info about LED lighting in mmj growing on the web.

by soiless i mean rock wool, hydroton, cocoir, etc.
i mix up rock wool grow cubes, perlite, and coco, instead of soil. in three or five gallon pots with a pump that has an eight foot vinyl tube, plugged at the end, with five holes punched and spaghetti rubbing coming from that main line, then attached to a spike which is placed in the medium holding and directing the spaghetti tube drip line.

one or two per pot, running for one minute two or three tines a day.
very effective, and very easy.
you can buy pre mixed soiless mediums, in an E&F; 1.5-2G containers with some holes drilled around the sides, and Hydroton is the standard. youd never need to up size containers, because of the nature of the flood table, but you would for branching during flower.
2x the space.
 
Yeah I know and most of it seems to say its a good thing, I was just curious why you said I should forget it, obviously you know alot more than me lol im not questioning you if thats what it sounds like, I just wanna learn I guess lol

I get everything your saying butI just am confused why I'd need a drip system if its already being feed when it floods? Would the plants be able to stay in the same pot on the table the whole way through its growth cycle or would they be to close to get bigger? I definatly appreciate all the help you've givin me and apologize for my complete lack of knowledge on this
 
you could continue on a flood table, but youd need a second for them to stretch out.
transferring them into soiless mediums, with any clinging hydroton remaining into larger pots, with a more water retentive medium, dripping for three minutes a day is very effective, and so easy its boring... just change the rez as needed, monitor levels...

water rarely runs out from the bottom of my pots, but they are all in a large white square tub.
i have a large turtle sand box i want to utilize along side this...
once i pull that out, ill be pulling weight..!


there are many side by side grow reports and stuff online,, a lot better info than i can provide.
most people end up using them for side lighting, some vegetation, clones, but not full cycle or for flowering.
it just doesnt happen.

HID lights turn into a better deal overall compared to floros even.
a nice HPS lamp will pop many crops.
a year or two.
 
Ive herd Fogponics is the way to go. I havent used it personally but ive herd very high yields, and super healthy gigantic plants.
 
i heard of this once, was like duh how simple, and forgot.

most of the plants around here live on fog and misty rain.
im sure this will be more popular later, for farmers and large 30-50 plant productions.
 
raver2008 said:
Yeah I was looking at NTF systems and they do sound really great but I dont see many sites selling them prebuilt, im not all that trusting in myself to build any of these systems so would like to preferably just buy one if its not crazy crazy expensive. I will check out that nutriculture one you mentioned to. Thanks. Also if I were to use LED's would I not need all the expesive fans and shit for cooling? Sorry I have so many questinos that to most ppl on here are common sense, I have no experiance with growing anything lol and always want to know every last detail before embarking on something like this. I appreciate everyones input
Click to expand...

The main function of extraction/intake fans is to remove stale air and to bring in fresh air rich in carbon dioxide. Cooling is secondary.

People have been saying LED lights might be good enough to use within a few years for the last ten years or so. I don't think they'll ever be as good as HIDs personally. I think there are other technologies like sulphur plasma bulbs that show more potential.

DWC is great and yields well but it's impelractical for more than a couple of plants. Having to lift out the plants when they're big can cause damage to the delicate plant and needing to check EC and pH every day becomes tiresome. Having to do this for more than a few plants becomes too difficult for it to be worth it.

If you're going down the DWC rout I would look I to recirculating deep water culture with a separate res. This is a lot more practical. Search Google for Blazeoneup's rDWC building project and you should find a good DIY guide. This guide is so popular it's on Google's suggested search terms since it's been searched for so many times.

Nutriculture NFT systems are the best overall NFT systems on the market in terms of value for money and function. They're much easier to use than most systems and don't require expensive media you have to replace each grow. All that's needed is a spreader mat. You should be able to find one easily from the right grow shop as they sell everywhere. My three plants are growing so quickly in my GT424 system it's rediculous. I sometimes have to pinch myself ti mak sure I'm not imagining the supercharged growth. It's the most popular hydroponic system in the UK for a very good reason.
 
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Big)Sky said:
Ive herd Fogponics is the way to go. I havent used it personally but ive herd very high yields, and super healthy gigantic plants.
Click to expand...

If you mean what I think you mean, the systems I've seen were prohibitively expensive but the main flaw is the high susceptibility to failure due to nutrient salt buildup. Although not true aeroponics, systems using 360 degree misters with a high water pressure work pretty much as well but are cheaper and not so prone to failure. They don't fail if you clean the misters with warm water periodically. The Amazon system is a good model in my opinion and is cheap for what it is. The system will give you the explosive growth rates you're after.

There are other factors to consider other than yield. Most hydro systems are similar in growth rates and all yield the same in the end. The only difference is that some yield more in a given length of time i.e. the plant's growth rate is higher. I think ease of use (so your plants won't suffer or die if you don't attend to them each and every single day for example) and cost is more important. Some systems are also more awkward and finnicky (spelling?) to use than others and you might not realise how much of an issue this can be until you try a given system as it can play a big part in how well your grow goes, trust me.
 
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Yeah I wasnt thinking I should have wrote how many I planned on growing as it does make a difference, somewhere in the range of 20-40 most likely. Glad to find out about the LED's that would have been a big waste of money, Thanks alot for all the input, have learned alot even though im sure I have much more to do. I will also have to look into Fogponics as well. Are NFT systems fairly low maintenance ?
 
I wouldn't go for fogponics aka aeroponics as a beginner. Those systems are highly prone to failure and are expensive, I suspect. I'd you're going to go for an aeroponic system I'd fo for the Amazon system, although I wouldn't as a beginner at all.

I would go for an NFT sog I'd you're going to grow that number of plants.

If you set up an NFT system that's topped up with 50% nutrient solution using an auto-top-up float valve then it's the ultimate in low maintenance systems. It virtually takes care of itself for most of the time. This makes growing easier for the beginner.
 
Yeah after looking into them they do seem really great but out of my leauge. Only thing im wondering about NFT is in all the ones i've seen each plant doesnt have much space,I would like to get as much yeild as possible. But NFT definatly seems easier than 40 buckets for a DWC kit
 
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