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So first things first, I have good news and bad news. Bad news is that the chilies didn't make the cut. Like the tomatoes I'm going to try them again in the future. Good news is that my rig is finally up and running!  So the system is very simple: water is pumped from the tank up to the top of the tower.  At the top, it splits in two towards the pressure valves and the plant stacks.  Each feed line empties into the top of the plant stacks where the water flows down through the hydroton and down to the next level.  At the bottom of the stack the water flows down and back into the tank. The tube in the back is the pump output and the tube in the front with the blue tube are the tank intake and air pump output.  The six in the lid of the tank have the longest roots and thus were candidates for the main res.  So at this point, I'm going to let my peppers bloom and proceed from there. I'm surprised how quiet and smoothly it's flowing now.
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Jan 31, 2016 03:43
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Are you starting to collect data? You should, it's important for setting up a viable business. If you have some programming chops, or a willingness to learn, I can point you in the direction of some technologies that will help. Inexpensive, too.
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Jan 31, 2016 22:37
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I was until my TDS meter died then I got a little slack. Now that I have my official rig up, I'm definitely going to. I haven't programmed in years but I give it a go if you shoot me the info.
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Feb 1, 2016 02:46
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I'd buy a NodeMCU, download the Arduino IDE configured to work with the NodeMCU(which is ESP8266 based), and then a bunch of sensors to hook up to it. The ESP8266 is a small microcontroller that can communicate to all of the sensors, and then to wifi. There's a ton of example code and tutorials out there (especially if using the Arduino IDE), and China is pumping out all sorts of cheap modules that will work with them lately. For the web side, you want a way to collect the data in a meaningful way. I recommend InfluxDB to store it, and Grafana to display it. Install both on a server (whether at home or through a hosting company). That can result in some pretty gorgeous dashboards. So that's a big data dump to drop on you. For $10, the NodeMCU and DHT22 sensor is a good way to get started on playing around. You'll be able to view data that it collects through a serial port or whatever just to play around until you decide to start being a turbonerd about it.
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Feb 1, 2016 03:24
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Would a Miracle-Gro Aerogarden be a good/cost-effective way to try indoor hydroponics? At this point I'm most interested in some herbs and spices, maybe a cherry tomato plant if I'm feeling real ambitious. The setups in this thread look a lot more complicated and intimidating.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:07
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Blakkout posted:Would a Miracle-Gro Aerogarden be a good/cost-effective way to try indoor hydroponics? At this point I'm most interested in some herbs and spices, maybe a cherry tomato plant if I'm feeling real ambitious. The setups in this thread look a lot more complicated and intimidating. Having looked it up it looks like a fancy dutch bucket. If you don't feel creative that would work just fine. My tank based plants are basically using that system just on a slightly larger scale. To make your own all you need is bucket, something to cut a hole in the lid, plant food, water, and an air pump. Since herbs aren't that big, you could probably fit 4 or 5 plants in a single bucket without any issues. Cut holes in the bucket lid that are an inch or two in diameter and then put some mesh cups (which you can get super cheap at a garden store) in them. Put a small air stone (or other bubbler) in the bucket and hook up the air pump. Put your plants in the cups so that they're sitting at the bottom and then fill around the stem with a soiless medium (vermiculite, perlite, clay balls, etc) until they can stand up. Fill the bucket with water (usually just to the point where the water touches the bottom of the roots) and measure out whatever plant food you're using. Turn on the air pump and put the bucket in a window or somewhere suitably bright. Set and forget though every so often top off the tank with water. There's no point in paying for the light on the Areogarden if you have a bright window. I'm just using my light because my hydroponics rig is in the basement. That should put you at around $40 or $60 instead of $200 for the Aerogarden. For pictures I've decided to focus on something that has peeked my interest a bit. Here's the rig again. The trays to the side are my cacti in front (which are starting to sprout) and microgreens in the back (just planted).  Was somewhat wondering why the plants in the tanks weren't growing as tall as the ones in the stacks. Apparently it's because they're putting all their efforts into their roots.  Even some of the stack plants are building more roots. Here you can see one pushing its roots out the bottle nozzle.  One of the plants on the other side has done the same thing and is actively reaching into the clay balls of the plant below. I suspect war soon. 
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Feb 5, 2016 00:00
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Blakkout posted:Would a Miracle-Gro Aerogarden be a good/cost-effective way to try indoor hydroponics? At this point I'm most interested in some herbs and spices, maybe a cherry tomato plant if I'm feeling real ambitious. The setups in this thread look a lot more complicated and intimidating.
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Feb 5, 2016 01:26
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i like nice words
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Yeah don't think I'm trying to dissuade you.  That's a professional system so you wouldn't run into the same headaches as I have. I have to say I was really skeptical about buying an LED from aliexpress but I have to admit the 300W I bought has been doing really well and isn't that noisey (the fans inside). I'd like to buy more local but for $100 bucks you can't really beat when everything in NA is over $300 for the same thing.
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Feb 5, 2016 01:58
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Ehh, buying local is just paying some business to buy in bulk from Alibaba
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Feb 5, 2016 06:06
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Pretty much. Aliexpress's top line LED lights are from a company called Mars Hydro which I've seen in NA for a couple hundred more. When my farm comes to fruition I'll probably just buy bulk as well.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:47
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So question for those more knowledgeable than I. So remember how I mentioned that the plants are now growing their roots out of the bottles? Well one has taken that concept and has ran with it. Should I cut them back? I don't want their roots to get diseased from basically just hanging in the air here. Those roots have basically forced the water to run straight down them to the next plant. Doesn't seem to be affecting the plants; just curious.  And just because we had a storm yesterday, welcome to Canada. 
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Feb 6, 2016 22:37
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So something I've learned from my rig: plants in the stack grow taller and faster than the plants in the tank. It's actually created a problem. As mentioned before the roots are growing out of the spout of the bottles and are now clogging them. I've had to drill drainage holes in the bottles. Considering how well they are growing, I wish I had known because I would have made a larger stack based design which would have been narrower. It does give me something to think up. I might make a design and see if I can transfer my plants. In other news, the plugs that still had cactus seeds all sprouted. They seem to be going along well.
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Feb 13, 2016 03:27
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Time for pictures. My stack peppers are far more advanced than the tank peppers for some reason. Not sure if it's due to being closer to the light or their cramper spaces but they're already starting to bloom. Went through and did some pruning.   Some of the tank peppers have started budding flowers. Will need a bit more before trying to prune them.   Finally some cactus sprouts. Here are some of my Golden Torches up close.  And some Peruvian Torch sprouts.  One last one to show a size idea. The Goldens are a bit farther along than the Peruvians. Some of the seeds I though had splashed off their plugs when I filled the tank have started growing up through some of the hydroton so they may survive as well. 
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Feb 14, 2016 19:26
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Took a q-tip and hopefully was successful at pollinating my pepper flowers. I might need to think about future bee keeping.
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Feb 17, 2016 16:52
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What's this? Could it be? It is!  Excited for peppers!
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Feb 21, 2016 19:27
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Do you have a pump installed to circulate your water or do you change it out on a periodic basis? I was always under the impression hydroponics required some sort of flowing water (even if very slow).
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Feb 24, 2016 02:28
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ProfessorFrink! posted:Do you have a pump installed to circulate your water or do you change it out on a periodic basis? I was always under the impression hydroponics required some sort of flowing water (even if very slow). I'm actually doing both. There's a small 30 GPH fountain submersible pump in the tank that pumps water up to the top of the stack. The water then flows down through the hydroton in the stacks which oxygenates the water coming back into the tank at the bottom of the stacks. I also have an air pump that feeds a bubbler at the bottom of the tank to help the tank plants. As for flushing, I have FloraKleen coming in the next few days and I plan on emptying/cleaning the tank and then running that for a week to clean out the hydroponics. Now that the peppers are coming in I might hold off until they're fully grown to do the final flush all at once.
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Feb 24, 2016 04:06
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A couple of pepper status pictures. The top pair of plants are in full pepper mode now.  Here's the right most. I had a picture of the left but apparently it corrupted in my phone so I'll have to take another tomorrow.  My new pH and TDS meters arrive. Slightly better quailty. Was able to finally adjust my water again as it was sitting at around 4 pH that was only staying afloat as I was pouring water in to try to dilute until I could finally get a reading.
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Feb 27, 2016 05:04
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Thought I'd update pepper watch 2016. Here's a quick picture of the plants.  Here is my upper right plant. I count 4 peppers so far.  My upper left has 2 that I can see.  And finally one of my lower plants on the stack has a pepper as well. The rest are ditching their flowers for leaf growth so far. 
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Mar 6, 2016 18:39
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Hello thread. I grew some plants! The last few years I have been growing from a DWC in my windowsill.  But last august I decided that only being able to grow for 4 months of the year was just not cutting it (  )So I went ahead and invested in some better gear.  Same bucket, different place. Bought a 90cm high growtent and a single T5. Not seen in picture is a small wall mounted fan on a timer. Planted a bunch of seeds.  Still not enough so I hooked up another DWC and bought two more lights. Peppers in the left bucket, herbs and salad in the right one.  40 days into the project and my herbs are loving it. Pruned back my peppers to create wider growth  First harvest!  57 days and the peppers are coming back from being pruned.  Designed my own herb labels, for future christmas gifts.  71 days. Beginning to become overgrown. Constantly moving the lights up for optimal coverage.  Huge basil.   85 days. Flowerporn  99 days. What happened.   134 days. First mature chili's and taste testing.  147 days. Overgrown and beginning to loose control  Yesterday. 196 days. Pruned back everything to regain control and get ready for the warm season, might try to move some things outside. Found a big bell pepper growing inside all the vegetation and dont have the heart to cut that branch yet, even though I probably should. Picked about 10 chili's of various sizes and made my first batch of dried chili flakes. Lessons learned so far: - T5's worked better than I expected. Wanted to try the cheapest option before investing in serious lights - Even though I have been very flimsy with controlling the PH things are still growing really good. - Changing water every 3 weeks is optimal, but they can survive for 5 without much refill (I might have been a bit careless the last months) - Fresh herbs are awesome - Peppers plants take up a lot of space - There is never enough space for all the things I want to grow - Dont plant mint So yeah, thats my life story. Also, really enjoying the updates Stretch Marx! Nblue fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 8, 2016 15:59
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That is awesome Nblue. I really enjoyed that. I would love to get a tent for a future setup I want to make. Anyway so big new. I spoke with a career counselor here who has redirected me to an individual who might be able to get me into a Canadian government program whereby they'll pay for my living expenses while I build my farm up. Hoping to here from them soon. In the mean time, PEPPERS. So this is after my second pruning. As Nblue said, peppers take up a lot of space. The top ones are starting to umbrella the ones below. I might set my 120 Ws back up on the sides to see if that helps.  Here are pepper shots with the light off. My research tells me that black is from being exposed to bright light which makes sense so I'm not stressing too much. 
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Mar 10, 2016 22:27
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Thats really cool. I would kill for an opportunity like that. What kind of size farm are you looking to start? Full scale pepper production or something smaller perhaps? Over here my peppers are slowly coming back from being pruned. Never cut them back so much, and its really terrifying, even though I have seen enough videos to know it will be fine. Also I started some salad and spinach seeds. Going to experiment with some small scale windowsill kratky pots now I am getting more than 0 hours of sun in my appartement. edit: I went a little crazy on aliexpress and bought all the things you listed Ante. Have been wanting to hook up some sensors for a while now, so I figured id just do it. Already looking forward to tearing out my hair trying to figure out how to set it up Nblue fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 10:21
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I would like to add that I too am surprised at the amount of plants you're able to cultivate off a single T5 bulb. How many Watts does it draw? Also can you post more about that getting the government to pay for your farm thing?
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Mar 14, 2016 18:13
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Tomorrow I'm meeting with an individual who is part of the Self-Employment Business program that apparently will pay for my living expenses for a year and I get to keep my profits. I'll tell you more once I know. As for the farm, I want to be a decent size. There are a lot of empty buildings here (being the Detroit of Eastern Canada) so I might be able to get a good scale going. I want to focus on staple foods (peppers, tomatoes, greens, etc) but I would like to eventually break into things like vanilla or coffee. As a funny aside, the girl I'm seeing is self-teaching herself Python and is going to the NB Community College this year for programming. I told her I'd hire her on to program my sensors. I moved my rig to the downstairs bathtub which is more reflective and less likely to cause a problem with leaks. Also as I learned it's kind of hard to get algae out of tubes. Remember to use opaque tubes boys and girls.
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Mar 14, 2016 22:44
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DreadLlama posted:I would like to add that I too am surprised at the amount of plants you're able to cultivate off a single T5 bulb. How many Watts does it draw? I actually use three T5's for the setup, these are the ones I am using. 24w http://www.propagateplants.com/?q=node/2834 I figured I would try them and if they didn't actually produce anything I would buy some more beefy lights and use these for seedlings or something. But they are working like a charm! Stretch Marx posted:Tomorrow I'm meeting with an individual who is part of the Self-Employment Business program that apparently will pay for my living expenses for a year and I get to keep my profits. I'll tell you more once I know. Really exciting, best of luck! Peppers, tomatoes and greens sound like a safe bet. There should probably be a marked for selling herbs and stuff to local restaurants that want something a little more beefy than grocery store herb plants.
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Mar 15, 2016 10:23
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Just a passing goon here, but this thread has been inspiring. Health problems suck but it looks like you're doing some awesome things for yourself and the community in spite of it. I wish you the best luck!
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Mar 18, 2016 11:15
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Avocados posted:Just a passing goon here, but this thread has been inspiring. Health problems suck but it looks like you're doing some awesome things for yourself and the community in spite of it. I wish you the best luck! Thank you. While I never considered Crohn's more than something I had to beat, my dad got diagnosed with Parkinsons and that's scary. Puts things into perspective. Anyways, news. So I met with the guy about the SEB program. While he likes the idea, he has concerns that I'll probably not make a ton of money in this area, which I'm fine with. The only other aspect about the plan is that I don't have a formal education of any type in farming or botany which he feels will cause issues with the application. As such, I let the job counselor for the people with disabilities and they might be able to get me on at a nursery in the area to work with the plants. Moved the rig to the downstairs bathtub to free up space in the laundry room and deal with flushes / leaks. Finished my flush and then put in fresh nutrients. Now for the good: peppers are pepping along nicely in the stacks. I count 9 peppers pods for just three of my plants so far. I also set up more lights in the bathroom because why not?     I'm going to have to prune again any day now. These things are beasts.  Now for the bad: One of my pepper pods fell off in the move. Was very firm though. I'm going to save it for the seeds.  Also one of the tank plant didn't survive the move (cats) and another got crushed by a grow light... And then to top it off after I refilled the tank I noticed black ooze on the roots of the tank plants. After research I determined it was probably root rot so I dosed the water with peroxide to kill the fungus. It seems to have done it as the roots look better but I don't think it'll save the plants.  It hit super fast. They were like this after a day. I think after my experiences with the tank, I think I'm going to stick to stacks for peppers in the future. I have designs in my head for what I want when I have the extra money. In the mean time I might try the chilies again or possible get a vanilla orchid. Finally, I gave the cactus babbies their first full dose of sun light today. I think they look like little gel packs. Some also have their first spikes.     So yeah. Things.
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Mar 20, 2016 17:53
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Stretch Marx posted:As such, I let the job counselor for the people with disabilities and they might be able to get me on at a nursery in the area to work with the plants. Working at a nursery sounds good! Probably lots of opportunities to get experience and experiment. Thats some nice looking peppers you have there! Sucks about the root rot, any idea about what might have caused it?  Im getting ready for spring and went shopping for plants this weekend. Picked up a strawberry seedling to see how it works out in the tent. Washed off the soil and transplanted it into a rockwool cube. Its been sitting in there for 3 days now and it looks like its managing the transition fine. Also amazed on how much new growth I have gotten in such a short time from trimming the peppers way down. New branches and leaves are popping out all the time. Experimenting with cloning some basil as well. The one I have now has grown really thick and is starting to get bark on it. I fear it might go into flower as soon as it grows out, so best to start some new ones as I dont have the patience to wait for them to grow from seed.
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Mar 22, 2016 15:12
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No idea where the root rot came form but I removed all dead plants and checked over my stack plants and they seem fine. As for new plants, I'm debating waiting for my next pay and maybe finally get my vanilla vines.
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Mar 24, 2016 01:53
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So I decided to do some impromptu pruning between periods of the hockey game I was watching. I took a branch off the one of the top plants that was bigger than any of the plants in the tanks were. It still has two more just as large. All my peppers are flowering now. I count I should get about another 7 or so based soley on open flowers. Tons just budding. Had to tack up another plant. They're beasts. I really underestimated how large these things would get. Hopefully my new phone battery arrives on Tuesday so I can take pictures.
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Mar 26, 2016 23:25
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Not specially hydroponics related but could potentially lead to things, but I am officially a medical marijuana patient.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to grow personal plants. I still don't want to go into that business at the moment though.
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Mar 30, 2016 02:13
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If there is some sort of cosmic power out there, apparently they like me lately. The guy who sent me my cacti seeds just sent me this care package. I had sent him pictures of my cacti setup and he seemed interested. I'm super pumped to start these. 
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Mar 31, 2016 00:56
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Thats really cool! Now you can watch 90% of the hydroponic videos out there without having to guess if the technique's they use actually work for vegetables, and not just for growing the dankest weed known to man  Over here I have been picking all the buds of my peppers to give them more energy to grow foliage before I allow them to bear fruit. Doubt I manage to contain it for long, cause it is popping them out like crazy. Nblue fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 12:58
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Nblue posted:Thats really cool! Now you can watch 90% of the hydroponic videos out there without having to guess if the technique's they use actually work for vegetables, and not just for growing the dankest weed known to man Yeah I've decided to have about 4 good size ones per plant. Pick off the rest. This week has been moving a mile a minute for me but I'll take some pictures this weekend. One of my plants is massive and just decided now is a good time to bloom.
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Apr 7, 2016 01:23
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And now for the main event! Did my first harvest of tub peppers. I had to pick them today to catch them before they all started going orange. The smaller ones came off my bottom pepper. As you can see by the branches, I did some pruning.  I've chopped off a lot of excess off my top plant and start to bonzai it and the middle so that the bottom can finally get some strong light.  I left a few that were really orange on the plants. I'll harvest them later to see if there is a significant taste difference.   So I'm keeping the biggest pepper for a demonstration to Options since I told my counselor I'd give her one. Amazingly the pepper that fell off that I've kept in the crisper is still firm even now. I kind of now what to keep it as a control to see how long these will last in refrigeration.  The rest are my first official taste test. I am both excited and terrified. 
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Apr 9, 2016 17:09
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This seems interesting as hell. I'd love the idea of fresh vegetables all year round. Only thing is that my basement is a typical New Jersey basement - unheated, a tad drafty but no worse than others I've been in. How does one go about regulating temperatures in a hydroponic garden?
MJP fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 18:35
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I use a space heater that's pointed off a bit to keep the general area above room temp. You'll want to try to keep them as high above the cold concrete as you definitely don't want their roots getting cold. You may want to think about getting a small aquarium heater if you noticed the water getting chilly.
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Apr 12, 2016 02:08
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And is it only the water/root temp that matters? Or would I have to space-heat the entire basement?
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Apr 12, 2016 16:24
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MJP posted:And is it only the water/root temp that matters? Or would I have to space-heat the entire basement? I wouldn't unless you plan on putting a lot of plants in there. If you set the rig in the corner and point the space heater towards it they should be fine. Since it's harder to keep water at room temp, if the space heater doesn't do it I would just get a small aquarium heater.
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Apr 12, 2016 16:40
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How reasonable is this setup if I were to get a clamp light with a grow lamp and set it to a timer so that it's on for 6 hours a day, with this heating the sprinkler water? The setup: http://www.instructables.com/id/Hydroponic-Drip-Growing-Starter-Kit-featuring-Chil/ The heater: http://www.petsmart.com/fish/heater...=pfm%3Dcategory The nutrient: http://www.advancednutrients.com/secret-menu/iguana-juice/ (I am open to suggestions otherwise - a bit of token googling pointed to this stuff and it really looks like ordering it would put me on some kind of federal list0 I might try starting a plant or two from seed in normal soil by way of a Solo cup with holes drilled out of the bottom and suspended in another cup for drainage, just to get a nice root system going.
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Apr 12, 2016 19:18
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