Good Afternoon from Minnesota!

[sarahtme]

Hello, Hello! Just a quick hi as I am perusing the boards. For years I have wanted to set up a hydroponic system at home, as we have such a short growing season up here in "Da Nort Wudz". I wanted to find a way to not feed my plants chemicals if I could avoid it. Found it! My husband will only let me start very small, just use my 10 gallon fish tank that has goldfish to start out. Thanks for sharing all the info! One quick question though. As I live on the Iron Range, we obviously have lots of iron in our water. Will that be a problem?

Sarah

[rfeiller]

Welcome to the forum. Sorry I can't help you with the iron. Maybe someone can help you.

[jcx]

10 gal tank is kinda small. Rubber made tubs from wal mart will work, if your going super cheep. Rubber made stock tubs really good. Iron is good, I don't know if you can really go over kill. People put like chain and nails in GBs to add iron.

Welcome to the forum.

[sarahtme]

Oh, I know its small and will be inefficient. But, this is what I have to work with at the moment. We are moving in 3 months(our house is being remodeled right now), and If I can show some success here and get my kids interested in this, I will be able to set up something on a larger scale in our home. This is just a test run for now. Thank you for your replies and the answer to my question. I know I will have a ton more.

[stucco]

Howdy Sarah I’ve seen lots of cool 10 gallon setups. I’m not sure if it is food safe, but kordon’s novaqua will remove metals from your water.

[sarahtme]

Thanks for the info, Stucco. Do you know how I would go about finding out if it is food safe?

[stucco]

Their website says that it is nontoxic to plants, pets and humans. If it doesn’t say that it is food safe then maybe they didn’t pay for the national sanitation federation approval.

[sarahtme]

Thank you very much!

[jcx]

Water volume effects P.H and temp stability, also something about hormones dwarfing fish. I have a tank running 13 gallons, using a side hanging fish filter to pump water into a "Grow Bed". P.H drops like a rock but the cucumber plant I have in seems happy. I'm not sure if small tanks are food safe ether. I'm just growing the cucumbers for turtle food and snail food.

[JCO]

Welcome to the show....pull up an easy chair, relax and stay awhile. New voices are always a welcome addition to our family..! Whatever questions you have on you mind, this is the place to get the answers so pick a topic of your interest and start your own thread and Enjoy..