Today's quote:
"The past, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived; but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – M. Angelou
I want to start by saying thank you very much for all the likes and STEMs in my previous post. It helps.
There are MANY types of hydroponic systems. I was amazed at the volume of research I found on the topic.
These are two of my favorite designs:
Run-to-waste system, in which the water in the container is then filtered as runoff (note the diagram, the container water now has a complex microbiome, filter the water and reuse) this would reduce pathogens and maintain some of the nutrients of the root's water. This method would be more favored by large commercial grow. Future thinkers would likely opt for an AI-controlled system.
Top-fed deep water culture ( the system that I'll be using). The plant roots will hang down into a water reservoir, an air stone is present in the environment to pump oxygen-rich nutrient solution directly to the roots of the plant. This will result in faster rooting, cutting grow time by a considerable amount.
These were my criteria for choosing a deep water culture: CHEAP lol xD, easy to use, small area, easy to maintain. I started with an Amazon search that showed overly priced systems (which annoyed me), but also encouraged me to build my own. That's a 1 dollar water bottle I found at the store, I cut the top to let the net cup sit inside, paper towel to prevent the seeds from falling inside and the other cups are just to prevent it from tipping over.
Very messy video of my construction process.
References
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6668597
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6530066
https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2672.2006.02883.x