Hello everyone and well met.
I am trying hydroponics for the first time as my wife will not let me take out any of the grass at out new house. This first year is more of an experiment than anything else. I have two 5 gallon buckets. one has 2 tomato plants (one lemon boy and the other is big beef). and the other has 4 bean plants (purple string beans that i have been growing for many years, always letting some pods go to seed for the next year). The buckets are black with black lids so there is no issue with algae. I am using a zeer cooling setup to ensure that the roots do not get too hot in the black buckets. I am using the EcoPlus Commercial Air
pump I got online. When I started I added a cup on azomite in each bucket and maxigro at one tsp per gallon. I want to go simple so I have not even check ph. I also am not changing the liquid. I use a dip stick in a hole to check the level of the water. I use this same hole add water when the system get low. when adding water for the first 4 weeks I used the maxigro and the weeks after I have been using maxibloom. I am very happy with the plants. Very large, producing well (no harvest yet). only slight problems with bugs. Not enough to take action against the bugs. Here a couple of pics from week 3.
I have not taken any newer pics.
So what is my problem. I am using 5 gallons of water every two days for only two buckets. Is this normal? It seems like a lot for just two buckets.