Hello!
New season is coming very fast, so after break it's time to turn from passive reader to active user.
I'm going to grow lot more varietes than I've do this year (only 7). I'm very intrested in hydroponics.
I've got place so why not to give a shot. I've read few articles and know that EBB & flood system would be nice for me and my plants.
But to start from the beginning. The place is the same:



Last time, I've used only one side, but now I've got bigger plans and ambitions.
I know my fiance would like only one side to grow in soil pots, so it's still plenty of room
left 4 my purposes.
I'd like to project a hydrosystem for at least 30 plants, maybe more but i don't know
the proper seeding distance between chiles. This rectangle in the middle
measures about 7x2m, maybe more.
Anybody has an amateur or semi-pro EBB & flood project to help me?
Would be nice if anyone help me create something, I've seen only on photos so far.

If I recall correctly, other people have used distance like half meter between the plants. I think it depends greatly on the varietes you are growing.

it would be C.chinense mostly

That's actually something you have to learn from the varieties and for the envinromental factors, but half meters is good to start with in a greenhouse.

Better to have plants far away from each other than let them shadow each other.

You can always plant them close each other at the beginning and the simply pull them off of cut them when the season progresses, just by leaving the strongest ones.

OK,
and maybe someone has built homemade hydroponics system for more than 5-6 plants
any ideas, advices, maybe plans and photos would be good, and I'll be pleased for your help

I know what I want to do, but starting from nothing isn't easy 
I've also found 2 websites with hydro-plans, but chating with advanced "Fatalii.net" users is for sure faaaaaaaaar better.

I think you have seen this before, but
http://fatalii.net/growing/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=100 Fatalii has one article that has some pretty good pics and so on.

http://www.stinkbuddies.com/downloads.htm Here's one on some other  growing oriented page, which has pics and plans.

I don't have so much experience with hydro's myself, but those could be helpful.

I didn't know this second page, thx.

@Fatalii: How many plants, have you grown in this 4x1m container?

Hmm, here's an updated a better EBB I've built... the wide one wasn't too good.
http://fatalii.net/urban/u1-2.jpg
http://fatalii.net/urban/u3-4.jpg
http://fatalii.net/urban/u5-6.jpg

For that EBB, here's an example for the greenhouse:
http://fatalii.net/chile/?u=g&c=search&word=ebb&id=6432

It greatly depends on the variety but you can start very dense, just rougly pull off the extra plants when they keep growing and left only the best ones.

Hope it helps!

 Hi! I had my first chili season last year with a new GH and 21 ebbs. I should have used scissors but here´s some photos;





The ebbs are from a hardware store less then 10 euros each (90 l upper and 65 l reso). The overflow pipe should not be soft garden hose but harder stuff. Aquarium pump is 5W or so. In GH I used cheap clay also from hw store, too small granules, gets into the pump propeller.
The reservoirs in GH are hastily covered with black paper, next season I will put proper lids to cover from light.
The last 6 pics are from the same plant, Congo (which I certainly can recommend) but pics are not in order. Some pics from overwintering, I couldn´t resist putting it into an ebb before the season really begins. Notice the difference in roots after one summer in ebb and 3 months in peat. This individual plant produced 3 buckets of pods.(10 l bucket).

THX guys, nice to have good support from advanced!!
Now, I'm out of time, and our GH is 80km from Warsaw, where I live.
Good news is thx to You I know, that building EBBs isn't very time- and work-consuming,
when we have all proper materials.
I'll try my best in a few next weeks and post the progress

Cheers!

bluesman, looks great!

And yes, you definitely might need some scissors with EBBs!

I soon found out with ebbs that I needed to switch to bloom-based nutrient solution much earlier than with other systems,
otherwise I would have a greenhouse just filled with leaves!

I would suggest not to use clay as much.  (deep)
With ebb, only 10cm or so has been enough for all of the chile varieties I've tried with it so far.
That will save a lot of clay and also nutrient as you don't have to raise it so high.

With soil growing, 10cm is more like a joke, but not with ebb

Lainaus käyttäjältä: Fatalii - tammikuu 05, 2010, 06:33:46 ap
I would suggest not to use clay as much.  (deep)
With ebb, only 10cm or so has been enough for all of the chile varieties I've tried with it so far.


With soil growing, 10cm is more like a joke, but not with ebb

Only 10cm, it's good information, not to waste to much clay....and money .
And the same in big containers, where we have more plants?
I understand there is nothing wrong when roots interlace?

 If there is only 10cm of clay, how often you have to pump water on a hot summer day? I presume the clay works as a water reservoir too.
So if there is a malfunction of the pump, or electricity breakdown, you don`t have much tolerance time?
If I use the 12cm mesh pots, I put it straight to the bottom of the box and then add clay just to cover the pot?
Will the root formation be enough with 10cm of clay for eg.Habanero brown large;

The picture is after season when the box is turned upside down.
The 3 plants I had were 2m tall. The amount of producing branches was unbelievable.

That is why I didn´t prune them enough. Because there was pods everywhere! Now I understand that such tall plants with large foliage are very effective shaders of smaller ones.
If you look at the clay I was using, it is for building purposes and cheap but now if I count the amount of hydro clay I´d need it won´t be so much more expensive, 3 times more expensive but I use only third of the amount of clay - the same price! Thanks Fatalii!

You should use some sort of mesh or web on those hoses for preventing clay to enter reservoir.

Lainaus käyttäjältä: CyberDog - tammikuu 06, 2010, 14:44:55 ip
You should use some sort of mesh or web on those hoses for preventing clay to enter reservoir.

Yes I had mesh, mosquito net. But because my overflow pipes were garden hose (soft) they sometimes loosened and the clay was free to move to reso. Next year I´ll use stiffer material such as electrical wire shield pipe. And as I change the clay to hydro clay, the granules will be much larger; smallest are 8mm diameter.

Aaa. Now I got it.

I have thought that the smaller one doesn't aeries so well as larger ones. It will stay quite damp when the water flows away...

...and how high should be the water during flood, since the clay layer is only 10 cm?
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Lainaus käyttäjältä: AlexChupetinho - tammikuu 27, 2010, 00:13:22 ap
...and how high should be the water during flood, since the clay layer is only 10 cm?
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Less than 10cm, otherwise everything floats around.

It's good to have adjustable overflow so you can have the water level you want, depending on the growth stage.

you mean the water should be at say 8 cm during growth 
and at about 5 cm during flowering & ripening ? (having 10 cm clay)
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