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Old 01-21-2010, 06:27 PM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lake Havasu AZ.
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You might try this kit here, you can build any size Ebb & Flow you want to.
Interesting concept. The attached picture is of the way it is supposed to be set up if I am correct, although it all seems overly complicated to me. With 2 reservoirs 2 pumps 2 sets of on and off switches. Also, it doesn't specify, but I would hope it comes with a completely programmable timer. Because it wouldn't take long for the growing chambers to fill and trip the overflow switches. I'm sure that trips the overflow switches and the other pump.

Basically a quick fill and then drain, not necessarily a bad thing but will need many more cycles per day than a system that floods for a period of time (30 min or so) then drains (depending on type of plants and growing medium, exposed roots etc.). This could be a problem unless you had the capability to have as many cycles as you need. If it were able to fill and stay flooded for a while (say 30 min) the current configuration only allows water to circulate through the single inlet/outlet. That wouldn't allow any water circulation while it was flooded. To get that water circulation you would need to flood-drain, flood-drain, flood-drain, flood-drain, many more times a day and most timers don't have enough settings to allow that all day.

I see the inlet lines to the individual plants. To me, placing a overflow line from each growing container back to the reservoir would eliminate the need for all the electronics duplicate pump and reservoir. You could still have as many plants as you want. The only possible reason I could see for doing it with all the extra stuff is, if you were so confined in space that it was not possible to have the reservoir below the growing chambers. That is the only thing needed for the system to overflow and drain without all the extra stuff. The more moving parts, the more there is to malfunction and go wrong.
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