In my experience air is the only thing that really seems to stops roots. I’m running a top feed recirculating now, and have had minimal problems with roots in the drain so far.
I drilled a hole in the top of the drain to let air in, and it seems to have worked. I’m almost 50 days from sprout now.
I also use the hole to snake the drain with a zip tie if i notice it isn’t draining as quick as usual.
That’s the drain on the bottom left of the bucket:
I would be scared to do the air hole the way mine is but this is something to think about for me. Have have to do the snake thing as well.
Gotcha yeah, the way mine drains it just drips out the bottom so works good, but I can see how it might be tricky depending on setup.
I tried painters mesh on the inside of the pot to prevent roots and hydroton from getting in the drain and I think all it did was help clog things up… Drained real slowly it seemed like. I won’t use it next time and see if things are better/worse.
Can you simplyfy the pot? Vader uses a ebb anf flow process. His pots are not reusable, i think. How about a large mesh pot with coco?
I was going to say the material in a octopot a fabric that allows root pruning possibly?
Old thread @liebigbarrel_US
Yeah, i know, but its a great idea for a bump.
I’ve seen some of Vader’s videos on YouTube, great stuff. He’s the guy I think of for coco flood and drain.
I actually mainly use rockwool now and just recently switched back to flood and drain.
Doesn’t seem to take much to keep the roots inside the rockwool cubes, they just need to be raised about a half inch up of the food tray.
For some reason it’s harder to keep roots inside a pot of hydroton. They are always searching for a way out…
I did a couple grows with hydroton before I decided it didn’t really fit the way I prefer to grow.
