Alright, I made it to week 2! That means that it is actually time to build my hydroponic system. I built the system over the weekend and I've created a video showing how it was built. That, along with the directions that I posted last week should have anyone well on their way to building their own system.
This video goes through all of the steps that were taken to build the system, and the materials, as well as provides reasoning behind most of the steps.
Minor Set-back:
Although I've finished my system, I haven't been able to start plants yet because I am still waiting for some silicon to dry. Although I didn't cover this step in the video, I used silicon to seal the area around the tubes for water movement to prevent them from leaking water into the area in between the two basins. Although it's been four days, the Silicon hasn't dried yet, which is unusual. I no longer expect it to, and will be buying some new silicon and redoing the seal (I know boring - but important if I want the system to run properly)
In Other News:
I have finally accumulated the rest of the materials that I need to get the plants going (as long as I can get that Silicon to work). The final materials that I needed was clay grow media, seeds, grow nutrients, pH buffer, and rock wool started plugs. I've also received a response from Joe Swartz, the vice
president of American hydroponics. He has agreed to answer some of my questions
about hydroponics (which have been sent) and when I get a response I will post
the questions and their answers on the blog.
Wish me luck!
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I AM DELAYED
1. Silicon. Why?
The issue with the mysteriously annoying, non-drying silicon has been solved (but not really). I still have no idea why it didn't dry, but when I got some new silicon, wiped away the old, and tried that out, it worked! So now the basic construction of the structure should be all ready to go. I tried to assemble the system already. All that I had to do with this was stack the grow basin on top of the other and...BAM! It looks done! But it isn't. I've still got a little way to go.
[Note for those using silicon: you can use your hands to spread out the silicon, but be warned: it does not wash off easily, so try and keep it from getting all over your hands (which I did and sequentially ended up spending 20 minutes trying wash my hands)]
2. Draining. Help?
On the first go around with the system flooding and draining itself (because it's secretly alive) using a self-timing outlet, it flooded, and not the way it's supposed to. Before doing this I added in the clay grow media (fired clay beads that act as a media for roots to wrap around). when draining, instead of actually draining, the clay ended up being sucked into the tube that allows it to drain, clogging it and over-flowing the grow table. when I held the media away from the drainage hole is drained exactly the way it was supposed to, but how to keep the clay from getting stuck without me sticking my hand in the basin for a half hour every day is still a fix yet to be discovered - although I do have some ideas. The first thing (and hopefully the last) that I will try to fix the system will be to put some netting (mesh or metal) over the drainage hole to keep the clay from falling into the drain and getting stuck, hopefully this will be sufficient to fix the problem. (fingers crossed)
3. Clay Media - also an issue
Despite having already ordered clay media (twice) to try and get enough to fill the grow basin, I still do not have enough. The clay media is only sold in terms of weight, making it very difficult to accurately judge how much is actually being ordered over the internet. Thus far I have acquired six pounds of grow media, and will probably need at least double of the amount for the table to be filled up all the way. At least now I have a more accurate frame of reference for how much I need and what a pound of grow media looks like (I'll give you a hint - it's not a lot). Thus far, buying clay media is adding up to be the most expensive single part of this project just because of the large amount that I need. So before I can put the plants in the system like I want to. Despite this, I still think that clay media is the best to go with and seems the easiest type of media to obtain for a decent price over the internet.
4. Water (not just water)
Another issue when dealing with hydroponics is setting up the water, because you can't just throw 10 gallons of tap water in and hope that it works out for you. Plants need specific conditions to grow, and these need to be provided through the water. Before my plants can go into the system, the water needs to be adjusted for pH and the nutrients that will allow the plants to grow to be healthy will have to be added (if plants ONLY needed water to grow, hydroponics would be as easy as throwing some seeds in a cup of tap water). In order to accomplish these two things I bought pH up/down (similar to what you would use to change the pH in an aquarium) and hydroponic nutrients (which I bought pre-made from GeneralHydroponics). The pH of my tap water (which I meausred with a pH meter that I just happened to own because I'm the kind of nerd who owns their own pH meter) was around 8, but the goal it to bring it down to about 5, where most herbs like the pH to be. It took a lot more down solution than I thought it would, but I eventually got the water where I need it to be. After that adding in the nutrients was easy-all I had to do was follow the instructions on the bottle. Now it's just waiting until I can get plants into the system and hoping that they don't die.
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So it turns out that instead of one day, this entire week will be spent tweaking my system into perfection (or at least as close as I can get). Thus far the silicon problem has been fixed (yay!).
The new batch worked perfectly. The second problem that I had earlier this week was the flooding problem. The clay media was being sucked into the drain, clogging. I was able to fix this by putting a piece of tile over the hole boosted up a little, just high enough that the water can get through, but tight enough that the clay media can't get in. This made the system drain much more quickly and kept it from overflowing, but led to another problem - the system isn't draining fast enough. The plan to fix this (not yet fully executed) is to build up more silicon around the outside of the drain, causing the water to drain slower. My next issue that I had to fix with the system involved clay media - I didn't think I had enough. Luckily, after putting in rock wool starter plugs (which I will explain in the next post) the clay that I had was more than enough, meaning no more ordering supplies!
Note: Before putting the clay media in the system, I put all of it in a strainer and washed all the dust/dirt off of it that was also dumped out of the bag the media was shipped in - this will keep this from getting into the water basin and clogging up the filter on the water pump. As for the water, that has yet to be addressed, because before I can starting making the water just right for the plants, the rest of the system needs to be running properly. When I get to planting (hopefully next week) I will go more in depth in everything that needs to be done in order to set up the water correctly once it's in the system.
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