First time, beginners DIY guide Ebb and Flow Table setup - Part 3 (Finishing Touches)

- Once you have finished those steps, now you need to decide how far apart you want your net cups. They need to be far enough apart that if you are growing lettuce for example, it has enough width to allow another plant to sit beside it.
- Now you are going to make your marks on the board and begin drilling your holes:

- Special note, just make sure that the hole you create, your net cups fit inside snug.
- Once you have completed this task, you are ready to go.
- Once you have seedlings that are ready to be transplanted over to your new system (around 1-2+ weeks after they sprout) you can place you rockwool cubes into the net cups with the growstones.

- You will want to hand water these plants 2-3 times a day with water from your reservoir until their roots can reach the water during the flood.

- As your plants sprout, and you begin to use this system, make sure that you are covering all holes  you are not using so you do not get mold growth.

This is right after I transplanted my first six plants into the setup. 3 Basil plants, and 3 lettuce plants. (Cinnamon Basil, Thai Basil, Lemon Basil, ButterCrunch lettuce, Romain Lettuce, and Leaf Lettuce)

Part 1

Part 2

First time, beginners DIY guide Ebb and Flow Table setup - Part 2 (Prep Work)

Now that you have all of the supplies your next steps are to get started on your new project!

- First you may want to soak your seeds for 24-48 hours in water, or a mixture of H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide)
- While those are soaking you can start drilling holes in your tote. Make sure that you use the whole saw size that is the same size as the ebb and flow fittings. You are going to place two holes in the top of that tote. I placed mine towards the middle. The Mason Mixing tub had a bit of a bow in the center of it, which is fine because that is where the lowest point is located. That means water will flow towards that area when it is draining.
- Remember that the lower ebb and flow fitting is what the pump hooks up to. The taller one is the drain.
- Here is a picture of the Mason Mixing tub on top of my reservoir:

- Once you have those holes drilled in the top of the tote, now you can line up the mixing tub on top of it, and drill those holes.( I took the lid off of the tote, lined up the holes, then drilled them to make sure everything lined up the way I wanted them to line up.
- Next, you will need to put the fittings in. I placed them around the mixing tub. They are free hanging into the tote.

- Here is another picture of the fittings on, and inside of tub:

- After that you can hook up your pump to the pipe, hook that pipe up to the small ebb and flow fitting.
- Next, you will want to fill up your reservoir. This is just for a test run. Make sure you have at least 25 gallons in your reservoir. Turn on your pump, and set a stop watch. Wait for it to get to around 18-19 gallons full, then stop your stop watch. How long did it take to fill up your reservoir? It takes around 8 minutes for mine to fill. Now you can set your timer to that time limit of "on" for 8 minutes.
- I let it flood the table three times a day. You can do two, or more than three if you would like, but I prefer 3 times a day.

- Setup your light, and your hangers. Adjust your light to the correct  height (can be as close as around 10-16 inches above the plants).
- Start soaking your rockwool, and growstones.
- Soak the growstones 48 hours in advanced. I soaked my initially in regular tap water in a bucket for 24 hours. Dumped that water, then added pH balanced water, plus 1/4 strength nutrients to the water. Let them soak for another 24 hours.
  - The first soak helps remove any dust.
  - The second soak preps the growstones for use.
- The rockwool can be soaked 24 hours prior to being used in pH balanced, 1/4 nutrient strength water.

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Part 3

First time, beginners DIY guide Ebb and Flow Table setup - Part 1 (Item list)

Here is a walk through that I did not have when I first started looking into Hydroponics. A complete, beginning to end documentation of the first Ebb and Flow table I built. It is a rough cost estimate as I waited for a lot of the items to go on sale prior to buying them. The prices below were just what the prices were when I looked them up during the creation of this post. 

This series is being created because I remember when I wanted to get into Hydroponics. I did lots, and lots of research into what I wanted, and needed. I thought that I had the list, and boom I started to buy items off of my list. It did not completely fit together correctly. I ran into issues, after issues. I wanted to make a guide to list out ALL of the items needed to not only get into hydroponics, but also build your first setup. 

Here is a simple way to create an ebb and flow (flood and drain)table. It is quick, easy, and cheap.

I used very specific items due to durability, and cost. You can choose other options, but it is up to you of course. 

Also location pending since you may not have the same stores near you.

1.) Hdx 27 gallon storage tote ($11.97) - Home Depot (Reservoir)
2.) Mason mixing tub 3x2 21 gallon ($12.98) - Home Depot (Flood table)

3.) 400 gph pump ($22.92) - Amazon
4.) Rockwool  ($10.33) - Amazon 
5.) Foam topper($5.99 a piece x 2) - I used something similar to this but it was 2ft x 2ft and I snagged two of them - Home Depot (Goes on top of the Flood table)
6.) 100 net cups 2 inch ($11.95) - Amazon
7.) Growstones ($29.99) - local hydro store, or Amazon 
8.) Bontanicaire ebb and flow fittings ($8.95) - Amazon
9.) Pipe for the pump ($0.10 per foot) - Local Hydro Store
10.) Timers (13.99)x2 - Amazon
11.) Grow light ($110.00) - Amazon
12.) Nutrients ($37.99) - Amazon
13.) pH up/down ($15.59)- Amazon
14.) TDS meter ($13.99) - Amazon

15.) Power Drill

16.) Whole saw kit (something like this Amazon)
17.) Seeds (Price depends on what you are growing)

Total: (Minus the Seeds, Power Drill, and Whole saw kit) = $327.62 

There is ways to go cheaper:

- Make your own light. DIY CFL setups can be very cheap. DIY LEDs could be a little cheaper.

- Use something other than Growstones. You could any inert material.(The sky is the limit)

- Only use 1 timer (this means you HAVE to remember to turn on your light, and shut it off.)

- Only buy only the "grow" nutrient instead of the three pack (only if you are growing vegetative items that do not bloom such as lettuce, basil, etc.) 

- Skip the TDS meter for now. You can go by how much they describe to put in the water, but these are handy if you start having any issues in your setup, what your water's base is, and what it is after adding your nutrients. It helps you solve too issues of too little nutrient, or issues if your nutrients are too high.

- Skip rockwool, if you have another alternative that is inert and retains water. 

**Do note, by changing these variables, you are going to affect the outcome, in which could be negative, or positive. 

There is cheaper ways to go about Hydroponics, and if you have the option of a local hydroponic store, they usually have nutrients, timers, pumps, airstones, etc cheaper than Amazon. 

If you are already growing hydroponically, or have some of these supplies like I did then it is far cheaper to build an Ebb and Flow table: 

1.) Hdx 27 gallon storage tote ($11.97) - Home Depot (Reservoir)
2.) Mason mixing tub 3x2 21 gallon ($12.98) - Home Depot (Flood table)

3.) 400 gph pump ($22.92) - Amazon

4.) Bontanicaire ebb and flow fittings ($8.95) - Amazon 

5.) Timer (13.99) - Amazon

6.) Pipe for the pump ($0.10 per foot (~$1) - Local Hydro Store

7.) Foam topper($5.99 a piece x 2) - I used something similar to this but it was 2ft x 2ft and I snagged two of them - Home Depot (Goes on top of the Flood table)

Total: $83.79

Part 2 
Part 3

Ebb and Flow

Ebb and Flow - Hydroponics

Ebb and Flow is a very common, well known type of Hydroponics. This form of Hydroponics is also known as Flood and Drain.  This is very easy to build, and cheap. The theory behind this system is very simple. It is actually as the name suggests. The system is simple, a water tight vessel in which the roots are suspended into, is flooded with the nutrient solution. Typically a "flood" lasts 5-10 minutes, then it drains back down to the nutrient solution reservoir.

Ebb and Flow is really good for certain plants, but not so much others. For example Strawberries do not work very well for Ebb and Flow systems. The roots do not like dry periods. Other plants such as tomatoes will work in this environment.


Ebb and Flow Advantages:

• Easy to build
• Easy to understand 
• Abundance of nutrients
• Cheap to build
• Highly reliable

Ebb and Flow Disadvantages:

• Pump break downs
• Issues with Salt buildup on root systems causing deficiencies.
• Unstable pH levels for all plants
• Shared water can lead to all plants becoming infected with disease very easily. The same water is flooded across all plants then drained back to a reservoir, then cycled over and over again. 

Different Styles of Hydroponics

There are many different styles of Hydroponics growing. Here are some of the most basic:

• Aquaponics - Aquaponics / Fishpoonics Overview
• DWC (Deep Water Culture) - Deep Water Culture Overview
• TFDWC(Top-fed Deep Water Culture) / Bubbleponics
• Static Solution Culture 
• Continuous-flow Solution Culture
• Aeroponics - Aeroponics Overview
• Passive Sub-Irrigation
• Ebb and Flow / Flood and Drain - Ebb and Flow Overview
• Run to Waste
• Fogponics - Fogponics Overview
• Rotary

As you can see from above, these are the foundation of how the water/nutrient solution is getting to the plants roots systems. There are many different ways to grow plants Hydroponically. There is not necessarily a cut and dry answer for what you should use for your scenario. You will more than likely want to choose a combination that fits what you are growing. 

For example Lettuce works well with almost all of the above styles, but there are some that are better than others. One solution may take up more space than another, or waste a lot of water in comparison to another. 

You will want to weigh the Pros, and Cons of each one prior to making your decision. There are some of these methods more for specific plants than others. For example, bubbleponics is really good for larger plants such as tomatoes, or lemon trees, where as Fogponics is really well suited for cloning purposes. 

Each one of these could have a book written on them separately. 

We will be reviewing each method in more depth here shortly.

Keep an eye out for our later posts explaining each one in more detail.