Shown is a pic of my set up I am building. 8 5ft long PVC pipe with 5 holes for plants evenly spaced. Every 2 will be on the same flower schedule. I will begin filling the first 2 pipes with rooted clones. After 2 weeks, the next set and so forth. I'll have a seperate pump/res for each individual flower schedules so I can control the plants nute balance and ph easier - and this way i can flush each cycle with ease in the end. After 8 weeks I'll harvest and start a fresh round of clones in those pipes - so therefore a harvest every 2 weeks. Hopefully accumulating 7 oz in the beginning and growing to 10oz when things are stable. Questions: What pressure pump will I need to reach the pvc pipe? I will be using 4ft length of tubing from the pump to the pipe. One tube with split off at the pipe entrance to water both pipes. How long should water sessions be and how often? Will I need to put the rockwool in direct contact with the pvc pipe in the path of the running water since the roots wont be as large in the beginning? Or will it be fine as pictured? Thanks GC
i can't help with the pump but will help as best i can. When the roots are not yet growing down into the water, the rockwool will have to be in contect with that stream of water. Will your pvc pipes have aeroponic sprayer heads to spray the roots or are you just pumping the water like an ebb and flow table?
No sprayer heads, the pumps will pump water directly into the PVC pipe, water will flow down the pipe from the elevated end to the opposite end into a drainage hose. so it will be a stream of water in the pipe.
ooo i see what you mean. How high will the water level be in the pipe? The roots must be in contact with the water at all times so when the roots havent reached the bottom, they will need to somehow get water. What are your options to achieve this in your setup?
Its called nft. looks good.the only potential problem I see is your hole placement.The pipes look to close together with the holes spaced side by side.why not us a alternating pattern or spread the pipes abit farther apart? Nutrient Film Technique The Nutrient Film Technique or NFT system is an active recovery type hydroponic system. Again, using submersible pumps and reusing nutrient solutions. The NFT uses a reservoir with a submersible pump that pumps the nutrient solution into a grow-tube where the roots suspended. The grow-tube is at a slight downward angle so the nutrient solution runs over the roots and back into the reservoir. The nutrient solution flows over the roots up to 24 hours per day. Oxygen is needed in the grow-tube so capillary matting or air stones must be used. The plants are held up by a support collar or a grow-basket and no growing medium is used. The NFT system is very effective. Although, many novice hydroponic growers find it difficult to fine tune. It can also be very unforgiving, with no growing medium to hold any moisture, any long period of interruption in the nutrient flow can cause the roots to dry out and the plants to suffer and possibly die.
i understand the type of hydro it is. Im just saying that when the clones first go in and the roots are way up in the rockwool, the water will not get to it. Once the roots grow down into the pipe, it will work great.
Once the roots break through the rockwool would covering the bottom on the current rockwool with more so it could go into the pipe, be in contact with the flow of water, and act as a dip stick to suck the water up to the roots, possibly work? And reading what brokencage wrote, I will need airstones in each resivoir? And I'll have to have the water run probably once every 2 hours for like, 3 mins I'd guess just to keep the roots wet so they dont dry out?
that could suffice to suck thewater up to the roots. Could you not hook the pump up to spray heads and have them insert into holes on the pvc pipe so roots would get sprayed. Then the runoff could flow to a low side and back into the resuvouir. This way roots get maximum water and not just the lowest ones. But you can definitely rig it with extra rockwool easily.
I could rig sprayheads but I'd rather not take the time to rig up 8 pipes with them when the dipstick method sounds plausible. <QUOTE></QUOTE>And as for the hole spacing i was going to interchange the spacing on the holes I was just too lazy to do more than cut/paste and edit the spacing on the set up. I think the spacing will work either way in the SoG setup. Any other ideas? thoughts? problem areas anyone can see?
as far as your pump timing, i use a 15 minute on/ 15 minute off in minewhich is the same as your but it fills the res. with sprayer heads then drains back to the res. The time was about 20 bucks from my local hydro store and it works great.
high humidity is ideal for roots to stay moist. As long as the nute solution has air infused into it , water will always help the plants' roots. It will work awesome!