Flood and drain (or ebb and flow) hydroponic systems are the most popular hydroponic systems. In nutshell, they are versatile, suited to a wide range of plants, simple and efficient.
Flood and drain systems are “media-based” hydroponic systems. This means that plants are grown in a planting tray filled with moisture-retaining material (“grow media”) such as vermiculite, expanded clay pebbles or coconut fibre, rather than water alone.
Flood and drain (or ebb and flow) hydroponics systems are easy to build but how often - how many times - do you flood and drain the system? As with other types of gardening, there are no hard-and-fast rules.
How many times you will need to flood and drain (the number of “cycles”) depends on several factors which will vary from one hydroponic garden to the next. Here we look at what these factors are to help you estimate how often you will need to flood and drain your own hydroponics garden. Once you get growing, observe you plants and tweak your flood and drain cycles to perfection.
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