I was wondering if anybody here at OG has ever grown or tried growing in hydroton all by itself, let it be on a Hempy Bucket or in an ebb and flow, or have you known anybody that did it with great results?
I think i might run an experiment of sorts by doing a 3 gallon square hempy bucket and see where that goes, might actually take a clone from my Pineapple Chunk from Barney’s i got vegetating right now…
Grew in it for 20+ years. Certainly saves on purchasing new medium every grow, but is quite labor intensive when it comes to clean up. Also not the easiest to get rid of in large quantities. Requires the grower to be on their game and maintain PH to a tee.
Like i said i would like to try with a hempy bucket but instead of perlite do it with hydroton. I got like a ten liter bag of it laying around.
Keep in mind it does have some acidity to it “can” cause issues if your nutrients aren’t spot on.
What would you recommend the water to be pH’ed at? Like every watering i would put in new nutes and pH controlled…
I know i need rinse the hydroton thoroughly, would it be a good idea to soak it in pH’ed water?
I’d say as an average try to stay around 5.8. Soaking no, rinsing yes and very well until you can see the water run clear. I used to use like a 3 gallon food strainer and do about a gallon at a time so you can shake it around and remove all the dust.
I used to watch people grow in only hydroton on youtube when i was a hydro freak. Like led seedz said you gotta be ontop of your ph game with it. With almost any inert media like perlte, hydroton, rockwool etc You need to be extra careful with feedings. Id like to see ya experiment forsure!
To this day my favorite system we’ve run was an ebb n flow in straight hydroton, fed by a ~50 gal / <200 liter, live organic reservoir. Airstones, beneficial bacteria, and plant based nutrients kept everything in order, just top off with water and a little nutes regularly. The system ran itself.
From my soil grows I moved into hydroponics. I started out with lava rocks (20 years ago) and that worked decent. However, I found hydroton clay pellets and I was hooked. There is no other medium I would choose (except rockwool for seeds and clones, but after they root they go directly into the hydroton).
Many years ago I ran an ebb & flow system with a table full to the top of hydroton. No net pots or anything just straight clay pellets. It was a great and worked for my SOG operations. Much like @Worcestershire_Farms I also used organics in my res to create water culture beneficial to the plants. And yes, once your res is stable it runs itself, I checked it maybe once a week.
Just switch out the water, add fresh nutrients, and clean the res every 2 weeks. I usually top off the res inbetween changes with plain water, but you can add in nutrients to bump it back up to the PPM mark you want for your plant if you’d like.
I use it now in my DWC buckets now and they work great. (its the same hydroton from 18 years ago). I’m currently building a custom ebb & flow table for my flowering tent with the same concept of a hydroton flower bed as I had all those years ago.
Hope you get to experience it yourself @MadScientist, might change the way you grow forever 
I am really excited cos’ i have everything i need right now, will have to wait maybe a week or two, to clone my Pineapple Chunk and run it with 100% hydroton. Just need the 3 gallon squared bucket, will get it later and will update as i construct the hempy bucket (drill a hole on the pot, LOL)
Wash the hydroton real good and good to go, will be doing it with Technaflora Nutes and rockwool.
Gonna start a thread for that grow…
i just ordered 2400 liters of hydroton. let me know any questions you have.
That is a lot of hydroton, imagine having to wash that! LOL
Just bring it in by the truck load 
Had a feeling you would pop in on this thread.
Yea, I am gonna buy another 2400 liters right before harvest so I can just swap it out, than I have two months to clean it. 
I am wanting to build a washing tunnel to make it More automated and less labor intensive.
Side note, I believe hydroton is a brand name of a german factory no longer in business.
Kinda like the whole “Band-aids” and “adhesive bandage strips” sort of thing
was it cheap chinese hydroton??
imagine it’s heavy to ship! i really want a flood drain table eventually but i think it’ll just be net pots with hydroton suspended by a cover over the ebb/flow table to let the roots freely grow as described in this thread
nope, expensive Mexican hydroton. 
i just transplanted into hydroton drip table in two weeks I had 0 growth and very little rooting in 16 days i rinsed the clay twice did not soak it. it seemed like a ph problem purple stocks after the first 3 days i changed the res 4 times over 2 weeks, have held the p.h. at 6.2 every day. still they kept on dieng. i just pulled the table to start over with new clones this morning. i still have 2 days before my clones have rooted (aeroponic) as of now i have soaked them for 24 hours in tap water to knock off a layer of dust, then rinced them off, now they are sitting in a vat of R.O. water p.h.ed to 5.5 and will sit there until the clones are ready for transplant. if this doesn’t work i will have to abandon hydroton as i cannot afford any more down time. i’'l just go back to peat or coco. (sad pot grower noises) i want a better flush and more consistent plant health that i never get with peat and coco
I have best results rooting in PH 5.4 - 5.6… PH 6.2 is waay too high for dwc/e&f. Would only do that in full on flower, otherwise 5.8 is a good basis to stay around.
my second try took for 3 or 4 days then went the other way. It looks like a nutrient lock out. i ran the system at 450-600 ppm until they looked hungry them bumped it up to 1000 ppm and lost them soon after. yesterday I flushed each plant. They aren’t dead yet just light and curling down word. I cut the nutrients back to 550ppm, ph 5.8, water temp 71 degrees F. fingers crossed that they pull through