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alex281
11-29-2011, 12:44 PM
Hey all! im sure you all know about the 55 gallon flood and drain system i have going on, but i was thinking about expanding now.
We have a desk that was almost going to get trashed until i noticed that it would be perfect for an nft system :D
My questions are,

How effective is nft at growing compared to flood and drain.(i understand some plants arent very good with nft, but what about the ones that are?)

If instead of using its own tank, could i connect the nft system to my current 55 gallon that is running to my flood and drain?

If i were to connect them, would i still need a filter or would the grow bed for my flood and drain suffice?

Thanks :D

keith_r
11-29-2011, 01:17 PM
the growbed should provide enough filtration for nft, and lots of stuff does just fine in nft systems..
but if you start noticing stuff building up in the nft tubes, you'll definitely need to add some filtration..
nft tubes will also heat up the water a lot more than the gb

alex281
12-01-2011, 05:51 PM
Thanks! Im going to get a bunch of pipe and see how it goes :D

Now Im off to research design plans :D

alex281
12-08-2011, 08:23 PM
Bad news.
Home depot only carries black abs if its gonna be 4 inches or greater.
Another problem was the stupid connectors, they were 15 bucks for a stupid 90 degree elbow! that costs more than the 10' of pipe itself and i need so many of those, they also make the spacing to wide to accomodate the amount of pipes i want on the table.

Although i have found a way to work around this, (Drill holes in the side of each pipe and have one 1" pipe run through all of them with a hole to drain in each pipe.)

However i still need the end caps which are quite expensive.

Is abs going to cause water heating problems?

Also if im using rockwool as a medium, is it ok to let it sit submersed in the water all the time, and how deep should my flow be?

keith_r
12-08-2011, 08:48 PM
look for pvc "test" caps.. about a buck..