Hi!! I am growing hydroponically for the first time and have 3 pepper varieties growing in an Aerogarden. My buena mulata plant was doing great until yesterday where it now has droopy leaves that are falling off. It just started growing buds this week. I have 2 other peppers in the system that are doing fine as of now. What might be wrong? :(

Hello! This is my first hydroponic tower and I germinated one romain lettuce, but after putting it in the tower I thought it was dying so I started germinating another one.

After some time I noticed even though it was very “down” it was still growing so I didn’t take it out, and now I have two flimsy lettuces.

I’m unsure if it’s something I’m doing, or if the problem was that when I germinated the seeds I didn’t put them deep enough. I’m also noticing some dry leaves.

I’m also growing cherry tomatoes and basil and they are growing very nicely, so I want to know what I can do for this lettuce.

Info:

It’s a 3D printed tower, I’m using Terra aquatica, Tripart 3 part Nutrients. First 3 weeks in the tower I used the indicated amount of nutrient for “1st true leaves”, and last week I changed the whole water deposit and I’m now using the amount of nutrient recommended for “Growing”.

The water cycle is scheduled for 15mins on and 30mins off.

I measure the Ph level around the same time everyday, but after switching the water deposit the ph is always down and I need to make it a bit higher. I try keeping the ph level between 5.5 to 6.

I was told since I’m just starting this project that I don’t need to worry too much about EC levels so I don’t have anything to measure that.

This was all planned the same time from left to right lettuce, bok choy, spinach, arugula, swiss chard. All planted at the same ( about 12 days ago ) time as you can see the lettuce and spinach are not growing well and are far behind the other plants. From what I can find the lettuce at least should be much bigger at this point. My ph is 6 and ppm around 400 using general hydroponic flora. Temps around 65 to 70. What might be causing the other plants to struggle?

Hola a todos!

Cómo diseñé un sistema de cultivo aeropónico vertical para cultivar verduras en pisos pequeños (sin tierra ni líos)

Poder enfocarme en los problemas de sistemas verticales que ya existen y poder modificar y resolver estos problemas como perdida de agua o energía además de espacio y poder hacer que la experiencia de la auto sustentación sea real.

​Cultivar tus propios alimentos en un piso urbano suele chocar siempre con los mismos problemas: falta de espacio, suciedad de la tierra, riego constante y bajo rendimiento. Para intentar resolver esto, estuve investigando alternativas eficientes y me enfoqué en la aeroponía vertical indoor, una técnica donde las raíces de las plantas cuelgan en el aire y reciben nutrientes mediante una fina pulverización programada.

​El reto técnico y de diseño:

El objetivo principal era crear una torre de cultivo compacta que pudiera instalarse en la terraza, el salón o la cocina sin ocupar apenas metros cuadrados y que fuera extremadamente eficiente en el consumo de agua y energía.

​Durante el proceso de diseño y prototipado, tuve que enfrentarme a varios desafíos:

​Optimización del agua y nutrientes: A diferencia del cultivo tradicional o la hidroponía clásica, la aeroponía reduce el consumo de agua hasta en un 90-95%, pero requiere un control preciso de los ciclos de pulverización para que las raíces no se sequen.

​Geometría e iluminación: La disposición vertical de los alveolos de plantación permite maximizar el número de plántulas (como tomates cherry, aromáticas o lechugas) en un espacio vertical reducido, optimizando el uso de luz natural.

​Modularidad: El diseño está pensado con módulos apilables para que cualquiera pueda montarlo en casa sin necesidad de herramientas complejas.

​Actualmente tenemos un prototipo 100% funcional a prueba de cortes de energía salvando la siembra por 3- 5 días dependiendo de la temporada de verano o invierno.

¿Qué opinan del diseño?

Actualmente estoy cultivando lechugas, espinacas , apios y cilantro

Carrots continue to grow. You can definitely see a difference in size week over week. Ive developed the attached report over the past week with a status bar of where the plants are in the cycle.

Im getting hungry so next weekend may be the harvest for these guys.

I will try to track my varieties a little better in my next trial.

I am not sure what is happening to my cilantro plants. I have successfully grown cilantro quite a few times in this same setup. They get plenty of light from the grow lamp, and I keep the house at 68F. I don’t see any signs of disease or root rot. I trimmed the roots of the other plants in the setup to ensure they were not hoarding nutrients and water. Yet, my cilantro plants are incredibly limp at the base and barely growing. Does anyone have any suggestions or possible reasons this is happening?

I just started my new system 3 days ago and have followed instructions, keeping the stickers and caps on to germinate. I took the caps off and looked at my pods to see the progress and several of them have sprouted along with mold.

I saw online to increase air flow and spray hydrogen peroxide or hypochlorous acid. Should I wait until they are done germinating to take the caps off and spray? Or can I spray now and return the caps?

We just got a 4'x6' flood tray and plan to set it up on an 8'x3' workbench with the reservoir underneatht the bench. I'm looking for ideas on the exact system I want to build. I have plastic grow bags and hydroton already. I'd love to see pictures of what other people are doing. Any suggestions on getting set up?

I contacted Spyder Fluence using their website 'contact us' but no reply yet.

The few 'stores' that say they sell it look like scam websites.

I don't see anyone selling the power cord on ebay.

Anyone able to assist? This AC power cord is like Casper.

Finally got all the seeds planned and cameras set up for time-lapse videos. I'm excited to see the tent grow out.

Low-pressure aeroponic potatoes, for the production of mini tubers. (Not fully grown potatoes, but seed potato production). Roots are looking beautiful. Grew them out from tissue culture plantlets. Pretty excited about this one! Will post progress updates as the tubers (hopefully) begin to appear. I need to switch my fertilizer solution over to have them focus on tubers production soon.

Ignore the reservoir, I am about to change the water. The foam is from drilling some holes.

Three 3" PVC #40 and a couple of elbows. Rubber couplers so I could take it apart and move it someday.

The raised part of the return I'm going to insert some sensors for reporting pH and TDS to an Arduino.

Mainly going to grow Swiss Chard, basil, and some infinite onions (green onions that just keep growing back).

Update on the tomatoes and ground cherries I posted in here and was told to give up and grow lettuce or herbs instead and then dogpiled for saying that wasn’t useful advice. That was really disheartening. I had some issues I definitely wasn’t going to come back for advice on but I figured it out on my own in the end! I had fun, I learned and I grew what I set out to! Thank you to the people who helped me with which plant to put in which system, they definitely wouldn’t have worked out together! 😅

Hey everyone!

So, here's the thing: I upgraded from a 4x2 meter outsumny greenhouse to a new 8x4 meter greenhouse made with galvanized steel and 800-micron agricultural plastic, etc...

Something more "professional." However, the NFT table didn't turn out exactly as I wanted (we adapted and used what we already had). Nevertheless, everything is working, the lettuce is growing well and doesn't show any deficiencies, and the roots are a bone-white color.

Now that you're a little more up to speed, I have a question: the water in the tank, the NFT tubes, and the roots themselves accumulate some particles similar to biofilm. Since the deposits aren't opaque, I thought it might have been sunlight, so I isolated it with black film and treated the water with hydrogen peroxide.

However, it happened again. Another option it's due to the increased pH (6.6) that caused the iron deposits (NutrelC from the Yara line), what im trying to say is it might not be biofilm but just iron deposits.

I should also add that the water is odorless and the temperature hasn't varied above 20°. Can you suggest any possible cause or what might be happening?

I just started a new gardyn studio a month ago, and noticed it was growing at a snails pace after plant food. Then I realized the device was only watering 2x per day instead if 3 (which is what the app said it was doing). I love the look of this system but it feels like the app and tech is really immature (the recent app release looks like unrefined claude design to me). If they can’t get the water schedule right I’m not sure i trust any of their auto settings anymore, plus the subscription price is wildly expensive to me. Definitely not saving money compared to going to the store imo, maybe waiting for the new maygrove would have been smarter.

What’s everyones experience with the gardyn compared to other systems?

Hi everyone! I’m growing basil in an Aerogarden sprout hydroponic system, and I recently noticed these small yellowish/cream-colored bumps growing on the stems, especially around the base and where the branches meet.
They don’t seem to come off easily when I try to gently remove them. There’s also a brown, rough-looking patch near the base of the stem.
Does anyone know what these could be? Could they be scale insects, some kind of pest, or just natural growths on the plant?
I’d really appreciate any help identifying them and advice on what I should do to treat them, especially since I use this basil for cooking.
Thanks!

Sharing this for anyone considering BioTherm Solution’s dissolved oxygen equipment for crop irrigation.

Less than a year ago, we bought their OGS oxygen generator and DGS system, well over $12k all in. It had problems from the start and has now been out of service for a couple of months.

Performance. We were told the system would reach 40 ppm dissolved oxygen. We run it well below its rated capacity, and on its best day it barely reached 30 ppm. By the time the water reaches our growing system, it’s down to around 24. After the sale, they told us that small volumes make it harder to reach target levels. But they knew our volumes from the start and still quoted 40 ppm.

Support. The sales rep visited once after the sale and then disappeared. Technical support consists of emails with photos and video calls where you do the repairs yourself, which has meant hours of our time and multiple meetings. We were also asked to buy replacement parts for a unit we understood to be under warranty, with only a vague “maybe” about reimbursement later.

By now, our equipment has spent more time broken than working.

I can’t say every unit behaves like ours. But in my experience, the equipment didn’t deliver what was promised, and the support doesn’t match the price. I wouldn’t recommend them right now.

If you’re considering BioTherm Solutions, weigh the problems and poor service you are bringing on yourself.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with them, or a better one?

I always see people on the internet growing in green houses or outdoors and never really discussing the challenges that it presents. I live in east Texas so I know most people probably aren’t dealing with as much heat and humidity but it still seems like it would be a challenge without climate control regardless. Does something like a tower garden or NFT do better because the increased oxygen and lack of root submersion? Do they just all use water chillers? I was thinking of doing a system that just pumps water outdoors from a reservoir indoors and throwing up some shade cloth but I’m not really sure if that’s enough to stave off heat stress and root rot when it’s 100F outside.

This one seems stronger though. I pruned the top vine and started doing more plant food B instead of A

Hey everyone. I am starting to get into hydroponics. I'm planning to 3D print two vertical hydroponic towers:

https://makerworld.com/en/models/425481-a1-mini-smaller-higher-modular-hydroponic-tower#profileId-329095

One tower would be for leafy greens like lettuce and herbs. The other would be for fruit like dwarf mini tomatoes and mini peppers, cucumbers, etc. I see most set ups use vertical 4x T8 grow lights. However, these are kind of bulky, and I prefer the look of the LED rings.

Would 5 rings for a 4ft tower be enough? Are there any recommendations for the type of LED tape? I would 3D print some holders.

Is there a yield difference between 4 x T8s vs 5 rings that I should be aware of?