I love hydroponic gardening because there are so many ways to go about setting up a system. In this post I hope to show you all your options and the different ways you too can grow plants hydroponically!
Deep Water Culture (DWC)
Deep water cultures are what I use and are probably the easiest to setup. You can basically use any container provided it is dark in color. For small plants such as lettuce, kale and herbs a small storage bin is all you need, along with an air pump, air hose and air stones. If your going to want to have more than one DWC id opt to get a commercial grade air pump with a manifold so you can have multiple airlines coming from the air pump. Of course you would need some sort of light source if growing inside but you can easily do this outside and use natural light!
DWC can also be used to grow bigger plants such as tomatoes using a single 5 gallon bucket per plant. Same concept just on a bigger scale.
Here is one of mine :
Pretty simple right all you you have to do is cut a few holes with a hole saw in the desired size for your netcups an your golden. I have seen people even just use plastic cups and cut a few holes instead of using standard netcups.
Nutrient Film Technique (NFT)
NFT systems are built with a trough system or piping with holes cut in them to place the netcups. Pipes work, however using something as plastic gutters or another type of trough works. The reason is the flat bottom gives you a bigger surface area of water. NFT systems work good for lots of plants, however depending on the root system they are not the best because of the smaller space. Also NFT systems rely on pumps running 24/7 or on a schedule usually every 15 min or half hour or continuous.
Example:
Ebb and Flow / Drip and Drain
Ebb and Flow systems also know as Drip and Drain systems are simple in design. They consist of a tray filled with your preferred hydroponic grow material and your plants placed in the train in their seed starting material. The tray is flooded with nutrient solution on a timed schedule using a timer. The tray fills with nutrient solution and then drains back into your holding tank to be pumped back into the trays.
Example:
Aeroponics
Aeroponics use a special high pressure pump that mists the bottom of the plants roots. This has a huge advantage as the mist is absorbed must faster and plants tend to grow a much more dense and bigger roots and because of that tend to get much bigger also. You need much less water and nutrients. This systems however are much more complicated. Require a special light timer as misting schedules can be every 5 min or less and only stay on for seconds before cycling off.
Example:
Hydroponics can be a fun and enjoying way to grow plants. I love to DIY so building a system from scratch makes it a great achievement when your plants grow big and beautiful.
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