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  1. #1
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    Hydroton shortage???

    Anyone have a source for hydroton or hydrocorn? I'm having challenges locating enough. I heard the major manufacturer of hydroton is no longer making it. I'd rather not use pea gravel due to the weight.

  2. #2
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    Going into the local hydroponics store the other day looking for a growing medium, I snagged the last two bags of hydroton that was in stock and the owner told me that the mine in Germany had ran dry, which is ashame because this is my first experience with the medium and hope it wont be my last.
    As to where to get more a very quick google search for hydroton led me to some deals on the very first link.

  3. #3
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    Quote Originally Posted by danksnax
    Going into the local hydroponics store the other day looking for a growing medium, I snagged the last two bags of hydroton that was in stock and the owner told me that the mine in Germany had ran dry, which is ashame because this is my first experience with the medium and hope it wont be my last.
    As to where to get more a very quick google search for hydroton led me to some deals on the very first link.
    Hydroton is manufactured in a factory not mined out of the ground. Holy s**t, I can't stop laughing!!!

  4. #4
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    Urbanfarmer......they bake the stuff in a factory but the clay they use comes from a mine. I've read much about it, apparently they only use a certain type of clay. I guess it's the mineral content er summptin.

  5. #5
    Members David - WI's Avatar
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    I finally gave up trying to find full pallets of "Hydroton" brand... so I bought Gold Label "Hydro Korrels" which appear to be almost the same; maybe less "uniform" but not bad.

    There was a kiln here making LECA (similar to hydroton) but it's also closed: http://www.minergy.com/technology/light ... egate-lwa/

    Minergy’s LWA production facility was constructed as a means to beneficially reuse coal combustion fly ash from a power plant located in Oak Creek, Wis. LWA was commercially produced between 1994 and 2000, at which time the properties of the fly ash changed as a result of a new source of coal, thus allowing the fly ash to be marketed directly into the concrete industry without additional processing. This plant combined the fly ash, paper mill sludge from a coated paper mill in Wisconsin and municipal sludge from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District to form a LWA product, meeting ASTM C330 and C331 LWA standards. The LWA was used in the local Milwaukee and Chicago construction markets.
    It's all about the fish, dude.

  6. #6
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    Quote Originally Posted by PonicDan
    Urbanfarmer......they bake the stuff in a factory but the clay they use comes from a mine. I've read much about it, apparently they only use a certain type of clay. I guess it's the mineral content er summptin.
    Said another way, it's like saying the car engine mine ran dry and there are no more car engines. Sure, car engines are manufactured out of raw materials that are mined, but...

    Soil is made of sand, silt, and clay. Clay is made out of very small colloidal particles of clay often less than 0.02 mm in size. The properties of clay are often dependent on its elemental constituents, or as you have correctly stated, the mineral content. However, I am not so sure the clay needed to make LECA is particularly scarce or rare on this Earth whereby a single clay deposit running dry would cause a company as large as Hydroton stop producing a profitable product.

  7. #7
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    Quote Originally Posted by urbanfarmer
    Quote Originally Posted by PonicDan
    Urbanfarmer......they bake the stuff in a factory but the clay they use comes from a mine. I've read much about it, apparently they only use a certain type of clay. I guess it's the mineral content er summptin.
    Said another way, it's like saying the car engine mine ran dry and there are no more car engines. Sure, car engines are manufactured out of raw materials that are mined, but...
    Well then I"m all ears, can you please educate me as to why there is a shortage of hydroton?? Sure you can google and see all types of deals. Try to actually ORDER some.

  8. #8
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    Quote Originally Posted by PonicDan
    Quote Originally Posted by urbanfarmer
    Quote Originally Posted by PonicDan
    Urbanfarmer......they bake the stuff in a factory but the clay they use comes from a mine. I've read much about it, apparently they only use a certain type of clay. I guess it's the mineral content er summptin.
    Said another way, it's like saying the car engine mine ran dry and there are no more car engines. Sure, car engines are manufactured out of raw materials that are mined, but...
    Well then I"m all ears, can you please educate me as to why there is a shortage of hydroton?? Sure you can google and see all types of deals. Try to actually ORDER some.
    I know that Hydroton/LECA are not mined out of the ground. I did not state I knew anything else, especially not about the company Hydroton.

  9. #9
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    Okay, I checked. Are you saying that none of these online retailers actually sell the products listed:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=hydroto ... 0&bih=1030

  10. #10
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Hydroton shortage???

    I guess I should try to be more helpful! Have you considered using gravelite? I believe it costs about the same for a 50L bag of Hydroton as it does for a 27 cubic foot truckload of gravelite. Hope that helps!

    The other David (not the one above) has used it, I believe. Maybe he will chime in on that.

    Gravelite spec sheet:
    http://www.bigriverind.com/pages/produc ... heet11.pdf

    This stuff is lighter than lava rock. A cubic yard of lava rock is about the same for me. You can try that too... lava rock!

    A 50 L hydroton bag is 1.76573 cubic feet; so, there are about 15.3 bags of Hydroton in volume per cubic yard. At $50 a bag that's over $750 per cubic yard of hydroton. I'm almost sure that a cubic yard of gravelite was well under $100 with tax and everything last time I checked.

    Lava rock for a cubic foot bag is about $3-$4 at my big box hardware store. That's still far cheaper than Hydroton.

    IF I HAD TO GUESS, those clay pebbles at $50 a bag is the reason they had to stop making it.

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