Quote:
Originally Posted by GpsFrontier
If you are starting from seeds I would suggest that you don't put them in that system until they get bigger. The grow rock wont be able able to keep the seeds in place and will most likely just wash away. You can use small rockwool cubes inserted in the grow rocks to keep this from happening. This would work but nutrients are expensive and you would need to mix a lot of nutrients in the time it will take seeds to go from seeds to about 2 inches tall. Probably about a month and that would be just a waist of money to me. If you are on a budget like I am I would just start them in potting soil, then when it comes time to transplant just carefully wash off the potting soil from the roots. All my hydroponic plants I got from home Depot in soil, then washes the soil off before transplanting. This doesn't hurt them but you should be careful with them.
I need to look it up to find out the name of the system that you plan on using but I have come across a few pictures that might give you some ideas. I call it a floating system because the most common way of doing it that I know of is inserting the baskets in Styrofoam and just floating the Styrofoam in the nutrient solution. You can easily change the height of the baskets by changing the thickness of the Styrofoam. In these pictures you can see a homemade system as well as a commercially built system. |
i read the FAQ on this site and the system i will be running is called a passive system. the roots will sit in the water with nutrients and there is an air
pump to supply oxygen. i will be starting my seeds in rockwool cubes and then transferring them to the pot with grow rocks.