clear allows light in so algae will grow allot quicker than dark that is why
they paint those cups on hydroponics with water base white paint. The cups develop
algae fast in direct sun light and no paint, most pop bottle are clear to start with.
How's plant growth in this system? Are you doing mostly leafy plants like lettuce or have have you done anything bigger? I would think that with some creative engineering you could craete a system that would almost be a work of art (like a sculpture) . Very Cool thanks for the pics.
I told you I was going to play with your idea about the siphon...
I had 2 F&D beds that I was lazy when I set them up... yeah I know but it was a really bad Fibro day and I really should have been in bed instead of fiddling with growbeds... I used a hot iron to burn 2 holes into 2 of those 7gal cement mixing trays from home depot... I put the holes nearly side by side, figuring that if they didnt work I could always make them larger for pvc pipe... (I was using 3/8 in black rubber tubing) Anyway, I figured that I could just use one as an input and the other as an overflow. put screen over both tubes and set the pump on a timer to run a half hour every 2 hours...
Anyway, it didnt take me long to figure out that was a bad idea as the water wasnt really circulating through the gravel the way I wanted, after all it was pretty much going in one hole and then right out the other while maintaining the height level... My Tomatoe clones hated it... refused to root, instead insisted on just sitting there and rotting under the gravel while the tops still looked pretty good... Not a way to clone your favorite Tomatoes..... I was just wasting my time and money...
So I was feeling pretty good yesterday so I decided to play around with it. I extended the water outlet hose so that it sprayed water over the back of the bed, and made the loop with the other tube.... and It worked!!! running like a dream now! The lettuces I left in there seem to be loving it, as they are noticably greener today than they were yesterday. Those sick tomatoe clones, I put into another F&D system that was working textbook and in 2 days have a TON of new roots!!!
You saved my clones and saved me time and effort in that I dont have to remove the lettuce, gravel and dismantel the system to fix a problem that I shouldnt have made in the first place!!! In other words... you let me still be lazy but in a creative way and fix the problem that would have otherwise taken me the whole day and a run to home depot to fix!
So not I have 6 of my favorite variety of heirloom tomato without having to buy 6 more plants... gotta love it!
I hear ya Sheryl you are as us X-smokers say "kicking ash"
OK first I want to mention some things I learned about plants and "roots".
Sheryl said refused to root, instead insisted on just sitting there
and rotting under the gravel plant roots MUST breath as well as be able
to uptake nutrient for plant. When a plant gets a balance of "oxygen and water" it thrives!
Also yes I grew tomatoes in those cups as well as green peppers and hot peppers and
believe it or not corn. Problems for cups and Ebb and Flow are the roots will crawl and seek that
nutrient and plug things up so you need to watch that. A root will always go DOWN not UP.
The flood and drain systems (And this is not good or bad it is just my preference)
is cool because it not only is constantly refreshing meaning when it refills there is
a "fresh batch of water" so it is never stale (make sense?)
Also (now watch this one this is important) each time the
water goes DOWN guess what happens? air (fresh oxygen) is drawn down into the cup
(or whatever it might be) because of water displacement in the pvc pipes.
let's look at it like this..the water was in the plant container then the flood and drain
went to "drain mode" so water get's sucked down and out so what follows the water?
That's right "AIR" because it is a siphon and that air does comes from the top as it
is sucked down along with that water that is leaving right? (the gurgle sound).
So now the roots get that much needed oxygen that we were talking about.
I look at roots in a flood and drain the same as lungs. It is all about breathing in and out.
Plus those roots get fed a food solution in FLOOD mode as well right? Perfect
Think about this statement:
A plant does not need soil to stay alive oh really? What does it need then?
Anyway, it didn't take me long to figure out that was a bad idea as the water wasn't really circulating through the gravel the way I wanted, after all it was pretty much going in one hole and then right out the other while maintaining the height level... My Tomatoe clones hated it... refused to root, instead insisted on just sitting there and rotting under the gravel while the tops still looked pretty good... Not a way to clone your favorite Tomatoes..... I was just wasting my time and money...
Those sick tomatoe clones, I put into another F&D system that was working textbook and in 2 days have a TON of new roots!!!
My understanding of this is that since the water wasn't circulating properly, the roots weren't getting any/enuff oxygen. I read somewhere that the reason you can't grow plants hydroponically (or Aquaponically in our case) without adding oxygen (an air pump, down-flow, spraying etc.) is that the roots will rot without oxygen to keep them fresh ..... they stagnate. So, what you experienced is that by adding oxygen to the grow-bed water by spraying the water thru the air, your lettuce perked up, and, had you left your tomatoes there, they would have also .... but since you moved them to a grow-bed where there was an abundance of oxygen (and nutrients), they are now flourishing! Congrats!!
In my lower gravel grow-beds, I have run the inflow down under the gravel, and drilled a siphon-break in the pipe coming down, so that when the upper siphon draws out all of the water in the bottles, it also breaks the siphon in the lower grow-beds (which doesn't affect the no-holes siphons), and they in turn are allowed to fill with air to the lower water level. when the upper bottles begin another drain cycle, the trapped air is forced into the lower grow-beds (which, by this time still have about 3 inches of water in them) and the lower grow-beds are thus aerated additionally by the trapped air.
I currently have an 11 bottle system up above, but I'm planning to expand that to about 21 bottles ..... then, as I can find more bottles, I will add another 21 bottle system above that (I have a good step-ladder), so I will have the potential of growing about 60+ plants in a 2' x 4' space. I told the wife that this summer, I plan to line the whole 70' wall with the same type of systems .... she freaked at the thought of over 1000 additional gurgles, so we stretched our credit card a little further and bought an older mobile home to fix up and live in for our final years ........... plus, now that we have a mobile home, she came up with the idea that instead of replacing the rotting floor, we just shore up the walls, and make the floor a mass of Tilapia tanks to provide nutrients for all the grow-beds I have planned ...... ......... which is great, because now, I'll be able to line the other 70' wall, and the 20' rear wall, and a couple/three units down the middle and ......... and.......... and .......................
NOTE: (this ex-saloon we live in is over 100 years old .... just think of the beer and drinks that have been spilled on this floor, not counting the fact that this has been a house of ill repute, bars, restaurants, buffet, ice cream shop, hotel, etc., etc., ... this floor has really seen it's day ........... so far, I've dug down thru as many as 4 layers in my endeavors to replace parts of the floor) Hmmmmm, I wonder how many Tilapia will fit into the tanks I can get in a 20' x 70' space with all the plants growing above ........... hmmmmmm ............. hmmmmmmm .....................
I use the Linux Operating System ...... Free as in beer!
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Helena, Montana - Home of the Northernmost Monument to the Confederacy
1000 additional gurgles!!
Who knows you might l end up having to give tours some day and charge for feeding them
as they come plus the education fees. I am getting allot of interest in my area for compost
now and 2 years ago I tried to market this and people were not interested or seemed like
it was just some strange product but that was "before high food prices" so now they all
want a garden see? And who knows what else 1 or 2 gurgles out back?
Actually the gurgle sound has become addictive to me for some reason much like listening
to compost tea brewer swirling and sloshing I feel "life" all around
With the origional system the plants would receive oxygen to the roots when the flood cycle finished. but the shortest time I could find a timer to do was 30 minutes, so the system would flood for a half hour then drain and reflood 2 hours later. While some plants seem to do ok in this others do not seem to do as well and forget about making clones this way it just rots the stems. The 4 flood and drain tubs I have in the greenhouse work this way and do fine by it, I also have set up 5 "dutch buckets" that run the same way and do ok. But I am in the process of redoing those systems to make them cycle on their own.
With luck that will fix any problems I have so far. Funny the onions, celery and garlic seem to love things set up this way...
yeah, gotta go kick some ASH... LOL it has been a long time since I heard that one, but I have been a nonsmoker now for soooo long...
If the solution (or water) get's too warm like let's say 90/F then the oxygen available to root
drops off and when your working in a green house or hoop barn heat can build up fast. I had this happen to me and could not figure out why the roots were brown and cruddy when I was giving them such a good soultion. Then I found problem was that the ambient air around the system was heating up containers and pipes so by the time the water arrived with the pump the water was way too warm to be absorbed and the plant could not drink it , I would not want it either when
it is 90/F I would puke it up.