Hydroponics Online Home Home Store Blog Forums FAQs Lesson Plans Pictures

Go Back   Hydroponics Forums Discussions > Hydroponics Discussion Forums > Your Hydroponics Setup

My first setup - NFT and Ebb and Flow


 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
  #1  
Old 11-06-2013, 01:18 PM
ghostpepperstore ghostpepperstore is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: St. Louis Metro Area
Posts: 3
Default My first setup - NFT and Ebb and Flow

First off, hello everyone, this is my first post here. I am a professional grower that specializes in super hot peppers, but I also grow all types of vegetables for local markets. I have dabbled with DWC a little in the past, but never anything on the scale of which I am about to embark.

Due to some really inconsistent weather this year, our field grown lettuce was less than predictable so I made the investment into a 8-channel, 144 spot NFT system, a 4' x 8' x 7" flood table and a 4' x 4' x 7" flood table. All of these are located in my 14' x 16' greenhouse just outside of St. Louis. The hope is to supplement our weekly farmer's market sales with a bit of lettuce each week.


Untitled by GhostPepperStore.com, on Flickr

Unfortunately I do not have pictures of the flood tables right now, but I will come back and update with those and pictures of the NFT which is now plumbed on both sides.

The NFT setup is using a underground reservoir, which I thought would help with both algae growth and keeping the water temperatures down. I have a 1000gph pump which, surprisingly, is only getting me about 7L/m return at the drain pipe. Each channel is fed using (2) 1/4" microtube with an inline adjustable flow valve.

I will be using the smaller flood table to start my lettuce/spinach seedlings in 1.5" rockwool cubes then transfer them to the NFT once the roots are coming through the bottom. This tray will also double as a starting area for some of the other veggies in the Spring since it is quite an overkill since I will only be starting about 20 lettuce seeds each week.

I also have a 1000w MH light mounted centrally to provide supplemental light during the shorter days, I plan to keep it to about 14 hours/day. The greenhouse is heated and I keep night temperatures at around 62 degrees. Daytime temperatures, except in the Summer, stay below 85. I have invested in a pH meter and EC/TDS meter but at the moment I will be using tap water which is testing at 7.5 pH and 250ppm. I do not plan to change to RO water unless absolutely necessary.

So now for the questions.

This is my first time using rockwool. I sowed 8 varieties of lettuce, spinach and some herbs in the cubes on Sunday after soaking the rockwool in a 5.5pH bath. This morning, the cubes are still very wet. Is this normal? I realize the seedlings are not using any of the water yet, but since I will be giving these the flood and drain treatment, it concerns me that the cubes are staying wet for so long. The cubes are not covered since I have decent humidity in the greenhouse this time of year and it has been raining for the last couple of days to boot.

I know that for most NFT systems the recommended flow rate is 1L/minute per channel. I am not quite getting that rate at the moment, is this going to be an issue?

I am totally open to constructive criticism here, so please, if you see something wrong with my techniques, call it out.

Sorry for the long first post! Thanks for reading.

Reply With Quote
 

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 06:18 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.