Greetings Sandpebbles,

This is my very first post to GardenWeb. I tried to make a similar post here and somehow it was lost. I'm new to hydro as well and have tortured my family with the light issue for months now. When any package is delivered to our home, someone inevitably says, "It's probably a light."

I barely knew an incandescent from a fluorescent when I started. I purchased FIVE (yes 5)different light systems before I found one I though would suit my purposes. I even asked my husband use his super cool power tools to help me create a hydro container with the little holes on top. We failed. Standing in the garage and pouring with sweat, he asked me, "Sweetheart how much does one of these cost?" I purchased a small aeroponic system off Ebay.

The poor seller has answered some questions and helped me along. He probably hopes I lose his email address. I will, however, be most happy to help my fellow HydroNewb.

My goal is growing herbs and lettuce. The final decision on the light, drumroll please, is a 200 Watt Cfl (Compact Fluorescent) light in a Hydrofarm fixture. I chose the 6,500 Kelvin lighting temperature for my purposes.

What are your specific plans?

I'll be more than happy to elucidate my grow light nightmare in detail and explain why I made my final, I hope and pray, decision. With my luck, someone will post here that I have made a horrible lighting decision and I'll be off finding another. (Oh no, do you think I should have gone with Metal Halide : )

Best of luck and shiny side up!

Mars

hydrogirlmars for herbs and small lettuces, the CFL should work fine. anything bigger and, yeah, you'll end up with a metal halide (MH). Generally, this time of year is slow. the off season so to speak, but eventually someone will pop in and try to answer your questions. Sorry your initial post was lost.
sandpebbles to my knowledge, there is no class offered teaching hydroponics. However, there is an abundance of useful info both in print and on line.
With that said, welcome both of you to the forum!
if you want to sample hydro inexpensively you should first grow something that doesn't require artificial lights. In fact, if you want hydroponics to remain inexpensive, you'll want to develop you systems around sunlight. yes I said systems as in plural. Invariably, if you stick with hydro, you will build more than one system. luckily most are cheap to build and parts are generally inter-changable.
so for a quick sample here's what you need to buy:
a disposable tupperware container (approx. 6"x8"x4"hi):walmart housing dept
two cups of yogurt: walmart grocery
some marbles:walmart crafts
an air pump, hose, and air stone: walmart pet supplies
an exacto knife: walmart crafts
hot glue or silicon: walmart or lowe's
some electrical tape and or black garbage bag.
some general purpose miracle grow: walmart garden or lowe's
some epsom salts: walmart pharmacy
Here's what you'll be building:
before adding plastic and electrical tape
{{gwi:1004964}}

with plastic and tape on the outside
{{gwi:1014798}}
assuming you don't have any of that stuff on hand, that'd run you about $20 plus the pump. a cheap pump is $6, but I'd recommend the nice one for $20.
It's almost 5:00 now so I have to split. I'll come back later (or tomorrow) and elaborate further.
Again, welcome both of you!
cheers.

Hydroponics, like gardening is hard to learn from a book or in lectures. Make or buy an hydro system and keep data; it's not rocket science and, if you don't use artificial lighting, it's not very expensive. If you can build a DIY system, it's even less expensive.

Hydro is simply growing plants in water instead of dirt. They grow faster, have less pathogens and less bugs than with dirt.

harleygirlmars
LOL... i know what you mean. i got to a point where the more i read, the more confusing it all became/ the more questions i asked the more it all sounded like Cleon. the closest i came to an understanding was from a knowledgeable and patient blogger on the chili forum. found a great site, turns out they're located in Montana so shipping became an issue. finally, i found a local store and behold...a grow room??? Nawww, couldn't be. so while that smiling face was very patient with me, i'm sure he exhaled upon my exit. LOL.
when it was all said and done, i bought a HPS 600W since my garage is heat and light challenged and i'm having seperation issues with some of my established still fruiting plants (organic/ soil). this is not to say that there won't be a future purchase of a T5, as it was my first choice. as far as plants, i grow multiple herbs, thyme/basil/rosemary/lemon balm, etc. i'm partial to tomatoes minus the hookworms (disgusting beyond belief) and ofcourse, my first interest, hot peppers/chili.

it was good of you to jump in. thank you. it maybe awhile before i have anything real to contribute however we can always trade newfound tips. :) by the way, the lettuce display was also incredible. makes one think of the many possibilities/ clean gardening. i espiecally liked that cloning machine. very cool.

grizzman
thanks for your reply. perhaps this maybe a good time to mention that i can be technically challenged so questions may at times be of a repetitive nature. :)
i do like the idea of building my own system, may learn more that way. i do have a question however, how important is it to use "food grade" grow boxes/materials or is that also hype.

willard3
when i refer to a class or live resource, my thoughts rest somewhere along 2-4 hrs. you know, see it/hands on it/clear the grey areas. i think i pretty much got the "hydro" part, but what of the various organic options. leaves one to wonder, why the seperation...not a given. and aquaponics, what's that about. so DIY is it. thanks, i'll look into it.

I've never concerned myself with the kind of plastic I use. I use sterlite and rubbermaid products for my reservoirs and I use plastic rain gutters for my plant runs.
this Link will take you to my summer systems thread and you can see the systems I ran this year.
There was a discussion about plastics previously. If I recall correctly, anything 4-6 was okay to use. do a search for "safe plastic container" to read the discussion. (the search function is at the bottom of the forum page list once you're logged in)
In regards to my previous post, if you've already got a 600W HPS, that little tub I showed you is not nearly big enough for you. I believe 600W covers about a 3'x3' area. Also note however, that HPS are not generally the light of choice for growing greens as they produce a lot of red light and not a lot of blue (which affects green growth the most) unless you buy a special bulb for it.

Grizzman

WoW, is what comes to mind. i may have to break out the power tools. i get kidd alot because while i manage to put together a small collection, i've not a clue as to how to use them. LOL. i'm amazed at your plant size in relation to the base and with good fruiting as well. i'm thinking of the display i saw and wondered what happens when plants matured. i'm refering to your middle row of plants although they looked healthy. i grew my plants in 10 or 20 gallon pots (i'm never really sure of the size) to avoid transplanting in the middle of the season allowing for optimum growth. potting up in the middle of fruiting can be tricky.

it looks like rocks are being used...and your use of water and minerals, no promix or a medium of unknown name to me has presented no problems. not sure how your peppers managed to thrive in mineral enriched, "constant" water bath. a huge grey area for me...you mentioned something about changing water. my thought that it's related to algae growth much like a pond/pool? is this where this aquaponics became an added alternative. how are the need for other nutrients determined other than the ph. and by how much. this part seems tricky/scary to me. and is it safe to say that aeroponics and hydroponics are interchangeable as some type of pump/filter is required. another thing. tomatoes are by far vigorous growers particularly your indeterminates or anything capable of producing amazing tomatoes much like the ones you posted. what kind of room one would have to alot allowing optimal root/growth. is this where your term cropping would be desirable. i'm thinking a controlled environment, might just be a possible solution to avoid those stomach turning/ugly face response upon sight hookworms/things. a sure halt/stop in my tracks killer for me. Ughhh! sorry, a squeamish gardener. LOL.

Grizzman, so you say it's possible i can build something like this... very cool. oh, it sounds like i may have to purchase that T5 afterall. i understand they can accommodate both types of bulbs/light spectrum. meanwhile i did manage to buy some basic plant lights from lowes. would that work for now.

P.S. hope i didn't put you off with my many questions. while my book is full of info, it does leave one with many questions. thank you!

I don't mind answering questions and will do the best I can. I will add though that I don't specifically see many questions, so I'm just responding to what I think you're asking in everything you said above.
And with that, here it goes;
the plants in the middle did eventually bear decent fruit though not nearly as well as the outer rows. I believe the growth was stunted from not enough sun.
you were probably using either 3 gallon or 6 gallon pots. for reference, the grey rubbermaid trashcan I grew tomatoes in is only 32 gallons.
the rocks I used for medium are called lava rocks. they are very cheap and available at Lowe's hardware. However, since then I have started to use hydroton as my medium. I only use 2" net pots normally, so I kept having to smash the lava rock to make workable size pieces. If you have a hydroponic store locally, I would recommend the hydroton. a 10L bag was only $12.
I don't use a promix in the sense of a nutrient concentration marketed for hydroponics, but it is still a commercial fertilizer. I use soluble hydroponic solution(mftd by southernAG), greenhouse grade calcium nitrate, and epsom salts. the first two I bought from a landscape supply company. I believe they ran about $80 total and they will probably last me for 10 years or more if I only grow about what I did this past summer.
the plants (or their root systems at least) are not constantly submerged in nutrient. the initial system flooded then drained maybe every 1.1/2 hours. this is a pretty standard technique called ebb n flo.
nutrient solution is changed every two weeks because with time, the plants consume the nutrients out of the water. Without the appropriate testing equipment I have no way of knowing what is left. Thus, I change the solution every 2 weeks (preferred) to 4 weeks (when I'm slack)to ensure the plants have enough minerals to survive thrive.
pH is not used to provide nutrients to the plants. it is a measure of the acidity of the water. depending on the acidity of the water, some minerals become more of less available. find any post by freemangreens, follow the link to his web page and you can find a chart showing this relationship. I am fortunate in where I live, I don't have to check pH if I don't want to. in my experience, tomatoes and peppers will thrive in a pH range of about 5.8 to 7.5. without any modification, my water is always in that range.
Algae growth was a bit of a problem, but not so much that it inhibited my plants. I will paint the gray tub black before next season and with the better aeration from going with an NFT (nutrient film technique)system, I don't expect it to be a problem.
aquaponics is its own little entity. from what I've seen, you tend to have a lot more fish than you do plants because you're trying to create a symbiotic relationship between them. Not really my thing. If I want fish, I'll go to the coast.
Aeroponics is a form of hydroponics just like EnF(ebb n flo), NFT, and DWC (Deep Water Culture). with Aero, the roots are suspended in the air and a fine mist is sprayed on them. larger pumps are generally required because a higher pressure is required. also, the plants must be sprayed very frequently so the roots don't try out. I consider true aeroponics an advanced technique.
supper cropping is where you squeeze and twist the stem between leaf nodes to crush the cell wall. this forces the plant to repair the area before continuing to grow upward. the result is much stronger stems and shorter nodal length which means shorter plants.
you can grow a full size tomato plant in a 5 gallon paint bucket, never putting more that 3 gallons in it. at full size and flowering, however that plant will consume approx 1/2 gallon of water per day, do you have to pay attention to it.
bugs aren't that bad. they take longer to get on the plants because I keep them a decent distance off the ground. Plus with them raised, it's easy to look under the leaves for them. then I simply thump them onto the ground (or lid as the case may be) and use a rock/stick/knife to end their struggle.
I don't grow with lights. . . yet. but my understanding is T5 is a high output flourescent. so a HPS (high pressure sodium) or MH(metal halide) is not interchangable with them. they both require a larger ballast and produce a lot more light.

I hope I have answered your questions. Feel free to post more if you'd like.
a bit of further browsing:My bucket reservoir build instructions.

yikes sorry...way too much. looks like i struck again. feel like a heel...thanks just the same.

My understanding of using "food grade" materials is that it is only necessary if your plastics are exposed to very high heat.

There are some other concerns about the food-safety of certain plastic materials or in our case, the plant-safety of them. Containers that aren't food safe may leach or outgas chemicals when filled with water. The risk is more likely that your plants will be killed than growing food that contains poisons or chemicals since the plants are very unlikely to survive anything that would be unhealthy for you.

Here's a pretty good description of the food safety of various plastics (you can compare the information on this website to the number that appears on the bottom of various plastic containers inside the diagram of the recycle symbol)

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/which-plastics-are-safe.html#

I have been growing plants all year in Deep Water Culture systems that consist of nothing more than Home Depot buckets (which are marked as #2 High Density Polyethylene, which is food safe) and regular aquarium pumps and airstones. I know that good nutrients and good lighting are worth the money but the markup on containers and growing systems is absolutely ridiculous. You can fairly easily make perfectly fine hydroponic systems on your own and very cheaply.

This is my first year learning about hydroponics and I have tried a lot of different things before hitting on products and methods that work well for me. I've included a link to my blog if you want to read up on the things I've learned this year. We just harvested our first batch of peppers!

-Cecil

Here is a link that might be useful: BucketFarmer Blog

bucketfarmer
your info and blog is much appreciated. it can be a bit frustrating trying to figure out where to start. and yes, those prices do lend to pause. ridiculous really. thank you for the info on the plastics. invaluable.

Liz

P.S. impressive blog!!!