Lets not give hydro to much credit. at the gh factory they just buy miracle grow compost bags and wash the nutes out and with a straw they suck up the different colors for each bottle. the trick is knowing what straw to use.
You'll be fine with any thing you use. god knows i use tons of it. but its nice to know how to make it yourself incase you have to.
I do find it funny on these posts talking about quality. its important but not so much. the gentics have way more control over the end result. i dont think i have picked a veggie and said dam those GH nutes are way better than this compost veggies?
Not that it matters but a thought just came to mind. i have been working on a drought resistant tomatoe for about 5 years. my mother plant i cross with i feed only water that is naturally about 82 ppm and i dont know what the make up is. i keep it under a florecent light 24/7 and it grows so slow and it puts on these amazingly tiny leaves from lack of food. but it grows perfectly just dwarfed from lack of food. not odd shaped not discolored simply tiny. but the stock keeps getting thicker like a old plant after seasons of growing an the root structure is perfect and norml size and shape.
so far my obesrvation is that the plant can thrive with minimal nutes, the basis for plants growing large root balls when they are lacking in nutes (searching) seems to be false in this model, health of the over all plant is not lacking in all of its characteristics its the correct shade of green the leaf is the correct shape the stock looks healthy.
this is after years of virtualy no food. i would guess it could be taken out by disease quickly but it would be aguess since the plant looks healthy.
So to have a plant that is in good shape and healthy appears to me to not be as much in the nutes it recieves but more from its inviroment. being the plant is in a perfect;y controlled climate and never seeing any thing change has allowed it to actaully prosper rather than die off as normal plant would.
next its important to note for all you PH and nute adjusting people that this plant is in a 10 gallon recirculating deep water system with a air
pump and auto fill valve for water and has never had the water dumped changed etc. it only gets what it evaporates. no build up of anything becuase nothing is added and the plant and water seem to be thriving together.
so now i say if i added some manure switch the lighting i would have deliciuos fruit in a few weekends. or gh or bat guanno. but the plant does not need the nutes to be a plant and my point is that i have been keeping this plant alive with nothing specific and it finds away.
its just food for thought. i know i have some wired dr jeckle stuff going on so i base my crazy ideas on what i find but really i feel like i'm seeing stuff that few in tehw orld have seen with plants that normally grow fro months and now are years old.
out dooors you have to love them you have short time to work with them and then there gone. indoors i take them to the edge of death bring them back make them into olympic ahtletes and do it again. there almost imortal and i'm hoping instead of GMO
seeds that we can just wake up some stronger older trates that may help parts of the world grow where they cant now.
Imagine a styrafoam block molded into a floating hydroponic planter with a food plant grwoiing on a nute rich river. it cant be flooded it culd be transported easily. it can be kept alive during transportaion. there are so many things that happen when we try new stuff.
blah blah blah i do hope you system is everthing you hope it will be.