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Old 01-09-2017, 09:54 PM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lake Havasu AZ.
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Hello newhydro16,
Growing your own produce hydroponically is all about being economical. Pot growers make $1,000 to $2,000 a pound for their product so they don't have to care about being economical. But if your going to grow produce, you need to think about being economical, everything from the choice of hydroponic system and how you design it, to the type of growing media, to how you test pH, the nutrients and pH adjusters you use, and especially your lighting. It's all about maximizing your resources, and minimizing your costs.

But don't be discouraged, you learn by doing, and you'll learn more about how to be economical as you go as well. Almost every new hydroponic gardener winds up spending much more than they need in the beginning. Most Hydroponic shop salespeople don't help you be economical much either. They aren't in the business of helping you be economical, their in the business of selling as much product as they can. So they try and convince people you have to have the best of everything. Some of the sales people don't even know much about hydroponics to begin with and only work there. I'm not saying that hydroponic shops and/or all the people that work there are crooks. But they do have an agenda, and that is to sell products so they can make money and stay in business.

So it takes time to learn what you don't actually need and what you do need, as well as sourcing out economical products, and how you can repurpose things to build hydroponic systems with. The first lesson in being economical is only buy what you have to at a hydroponic supply shop. General that means only nutrients, pH adjusters, pH drops, possibly growing media depending on what type your using, and only if you have to and your not using florescent lights artificial lighting. Manufactures typically feel if you add the word "hydroponics" to the product, it's automatically worth twice as much. Even when you have to buy from a hydro shop, when it comes to nutrients and artificial lighting there's often a big difference in price depending on where you buy from. Just because it's expensive doesn't make it better. It's all about sourcing out the right vendors.

The optimum water temperature for plants is between 68 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just the optimum temperatures, you can easily be a little above or below that without any problem. if the water temps start regularly going below 60, and/or above 82-84 you'll want to start worrying about it. Lettuce is a cool weather plant, so you'll want your water temps to be on the low end (under 80).

I don't know where you ordered your heater or lights from, but a inexpensive fish tank heater you can get at any pet supply place and can get for $10-$20 is all you need. You can even get them at Wal-mart in their pet supply section. T5 lights you can get at any hardware store like Home Depot and Lowe's for about $35-$40 for a 4 foot twin bulb fixture with the bulbs included.

P,S.
One twin bulb T5 wont cover more than a one foot wide area. The maximum coverage area would be 1 foot wide by the length of the bulb.

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