Expanded Clay. Clay pebbles for grow

Expanded clay or arlite is very used for many and different types of cultivation but for marihuana it has an endless number of uses:

Put it at the bottom of your pots so that your plants always can have a good drainage, in order that the soil cannot be flooded outdoors if it rains a lot or if you overwater it.

We can put a few centimeters of clay on the base of the cutting propagators as if they were a barrier in order that our cuttings cannot get flooded by the water of the tray and the humidity can remain high due to the water evaporation from the bottom.

In hydroponics by filling the pot to the top and planting the cuttings or seeds in rock wool plugs. This inert medium can be reused as many times as you want by removing the remains of the roots of the plants that you have harvested. If you begin a new cultivation with new clay it is essential to stabilize the pH to 5.5 before putting the plants. Its preparation is somewhat laborious but once finished the pebbles keep the pH stable throughout the process.

Rinse it as much as possible with clean tap water by using a big sieve till you see the water comes down clear without its typical brown color; if it does, your deposit will become a swamp and the pump and even the drippers will get clogged.

Now prepare a tray by filling it with osmosis water or distilled with Ph adjusted to 5.5. (We need EC 0.0 because the clay is like a sponge that retains salts and does not release them until it is saturated). Then we pour all the previously rinsed clay and leave it to soak for about 24h or, better still, for 48 hours.

It will be necessary to lower the pH a few times until it descends to 5.5 as the clay pebbles will fight to get to pH 7, as they were at first. Once you have won the fight against pH you will have them ready to work without any added problems of fluctuation both of pH and EC.