Flood and Drain

[midlifegardner]

I'm setting up a type of flood and drain. It's a plastic kiddies pool (flood tray) and I'm not intending to drill holes in it if I can avoid it. From the heart I'll have water going in via a pump and then an aquarium pump to pump out of the kiddies pool. I'm in all perlite 3gal fabric pots. I'll flood 6 to 8 times a day.

On draining the kiddies pool, there will be about 2 or 3cm of water that the pump won't suck up. The fabric pots will be sitting in this 3cm of water at all times. That 3cm will be exposed to my hps light.

I know there are better solutions (drilling a hole etc) but with the current setup would it be a problem? I'm leaning towards no as the water gets refreshed every 3 to 4 hrs but wondering due to the light hitting the roots in the water (as they'll grow through the fabric pot base) am I asking for root rot?

Cheers all.

MLG

 

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[Frank Reynolds]

Getting some plastic to cover the flood table should help keep algae away from the water and your res

[Serrated edge]

This stuff will work ok with cutouts for pots and hoses.

 

https://www.bunnings.com.au/foilboard-10-x-2700-x-1200mm-standard-10-insulation_p0810088

[Dan J]

figure your using rockwool starter to start the plants off not just straight perlite ?

i've been running a new small flood and drain for seedlings and early veg for about 1 month or so, my flood "tables" would have less than 1cm, more like 5mm really, of water left over from the flood that light is hitting directly so i just run 2.5ml/L of 50% h2o2 with no algae problems but i dont change my res for a month so i fugure 0.7ml/L would last a week.

best bet try covering it all as suggested above and try the h2o2 if you get problems