Hi guys,

So, I’m totally new to hydroponics. I’ve always had a garden and figured this would be a natural extension — and hopefully a more efficient way to grow. So far, low yields, quite manual and… it’s not exactly set-and-forget…

Anyway, I picked up one of those hydro towers from a certain Chinese site — saw something similar on Instagram where a guy was pulling massive cabbages out of a tower and my greedy little head said, “yes, that’s the one.” In hindsight, his setup was definitely bigger and probably better built and maybe this wasn't the right setup having seen peoples bucket setups for tomatoes for example.

Once I got mine set up, I quickly realised it had way too many planting holes for such a small system, and that plants grow fast… and like sunlight. So I cut back on how many I planted and filled the unused holes with packaging material. I used the default grow medium they provided.

What I’ve Got Growing:

6 tomatoes
12 strawberries
2 peppers
1 melon (yes, probably doomed as it needs more feed than strawbs and toms, but I’m curious)
Oh, and a wild rocket plant, I found, that seems to be happy.

I tried to pick plants with similar nutritional needs (toms and strawbs) — we often grow tomatoes and strawberries near each other in the soil — so I hoped it’d translate okay to hydro. I now get that this tower is probably better suited to lettuce or leafy greens, and I’ll likely pivot to that in autumn. Still, I want to persevere with what I’ve got this season.

Setup & Conditions:

Southern Portugal = very hot, often hitting 40°C. Sun all the time.
Water was getting very warm, so I’ve been tossing in frozen water bottles to cool it down a couple times a day.
Nutrients at ~440 PPM, pH around 6.
Topping up ~6L/day, using water we collect from our air conditioner — yay for recycling!
Mixing 40L batches now (learned the hard way).
I only just found this group and already feel like I missed out — seeing people using float valves and other clever hacks I wish I’d known about before.
Started on 8/5/25 from soil based plants I washed and stuffed into the growing cubes provided.

The white stuff you see in pics is diatomaceous earth. We had ants farming something off the plants — I assume sap or sugar.

A Few Questions & Lessons So Far:

Cooling the Reservoir Any solid (affordable) way to cool the water that doesn’t involve constantly freezing bottles? Searched “water cooler” and got drinking dispensers.
Plant Progress
- Tomatoes seem to be doing okay, but fruiting is a bit underwhelming — I think due to earlier watering/fertiliser issues.
- Strawberries are growing but slowly, and honestly they’re a bit ugly compared to my soil-grown ones. Any tips there?
Timer Setup Currently using a manual timer: during peak heat, it runs 15 mins on / 45 mins off, then less at night. I also have some smart plugs I haven’t set up yet. Is my current schedule okay, or could it be better?
Nutrients/Fertiliser Using Hesi Hydro and a cal-mag liquid. Should I be supplementing anything else? Open to brand suggestions or tweaks.
I'd bought rock wool to grow in, however the manufacturer of this tower sent me some foam medium cubes – are they better? Worse?

Honestly, I went in thinking this might be an easier way to grow — but it’s definitely been a learning curve. Keen to hear what’s worked for others, especially in hot climates, and any setup tweaks you’d recommend.

Thanks in advance, looking forward to learning more l! 😰

by eyezeh

Academic_Youth3794 9 months ago

I feel you, I got into hydroponics the same way you did. I gave up on the tower because of my climate (south Florida hot and humid). From my experience, tomatoes will grow well in the tower, herbs, chard, and some leafy greens. Tomatoes like a high nutrient concentration especially while fruiting 2.5 to 4 EC but that will not go well with your strawberries leafy greens or herbs. Also, they will grow and get unmanageable and can topple the tower over. that’s why the bucket system works better for them.

Peppers and eggplants never really took off for me. I think the exposed roots at high temperatures stresses the plant and hinders growth.

I also read that strawberries are very particular in hydro and do not like excessive water nor total dry backs. So, a gutter system would be better suited for them.

If your weather is dry, you can try using an insulated container and a fan for some evaporative cooling. Wont work unless you are in a very dry climate.
Insulation by itself wont cool down the water. Once the water circulates in the tower it absorbs heat, so you need active cooling. A chiller would be ideal. Frozen bottles work but are a ton of work. You can try buying a reservoir about 1 m deep and use geothermal effects (have not tried this, but very curious to know how much it can cool down and what depths are needed. 1m is based on my preliminary research and my location, yours will be different)

Your timer should be fine as long as you dont see plants stressing during peak heat. I had to run it 15/15 during peak heat here. Plants will go limp so you should see and adjust accordingly. This is were you will have to optimize.

Your nutrients should be fine as long as they are a complete hydroponic profile. You cash get formulations for specific plants or something more generic. You will have to look at the plants for signs of nutrient deficiencies and make your adjustments. But I would recommend you not mixing plants that have such different EC and pH requirements.

I have seen people do well with those cheap foams, but they don’t retain much moisture. Rockwool might be slightly better but can have dust and get your lines clogged. You can try peat moss plugs too (rapid rooter?). Once the roots are grown outside of the cube, the media makes no difference as the roots will be exposed inside the tower. It’s just for the seedling stage.

Send me a direct message if you want and we can chat more about my experience with the tower. I have now started a coco coir and perlite tower (mr stacky) and have some dutch buckets going. They are significantly better than the tower but the heat still makes it hard. It might have a longer season compared to the tower that does well during the winter time

1 Comment

Academic_Youth3794 9 months ago

I feel you, I got into hydroponics the same way you did. I gave up on the tower because of my climate (south Florida hot and humid). From my experience, tomatoes will grow well in the tower, herbs, chard, and some leafy greens. Tomatoes like a high nutrient concentration especially while fruiting 2.5 to 4 EC but that will not go well with your strawberries leafy greens or herbs. Also, they will grow and get unmanageable and can topple the tower over. that’s why the bucket system works better for them.

Peppers and eggplants never really took off for me. I think the exposed roots at high temperatures stresses the plant and hinders growth.

I also read that strawberries are very particular in hydro and do not like excessive water nor total dry backs. So, a gutter system would be better suited for them.

If your weather is dry, you can try using an insulated container and a fan for some evaporative cooling. Wont work unless you are in a very dry climate.
Insulation by itself wont cool down the water. Once the water circulates in the tower it absorbs heat, so you need active cooling. A chiller would be ideal. Frozen bottles work but are a ton of work. You can try buying a reservoir about 1 m deep and use geothermal effects (have not tried this, but very curious to know how much it can cool down and what depths are needed. 1m is based on my preliminary research and my location, yours will be different)

Your timer should be fine as long as you dont see plants stressing during peak heat. I had to run it 15/15 during peak heat here. Plants will go limp so you should see and adjust accordingly. This is were you will have to optimize.

Your nutrients should be fine as long as they are a complete hydroponic profile. You cash get formulations for specific plants or something more generic. You will have to look at the plants for signs of nutrient deficiencies and make your adjustments. But I would recommend you not mixing plants that have such different EC and pH requirements.

I have seen people do well with those cheap foams, but they don’t retain much moisture. Rockwool might be slightly better but can have dust and get your lines clogged. You can try peat moss plugs too (rapid rooter?). Once the roots are grown outside of the cube, the media makes no difference as the roots will be exposed inside the tower. It’s just for the seedling stage.

Send me a direct message if you want and we can chat more about my experience with the tower. I have now started a coco coir and perlite tower (mr stacky) and have some dutch buckets going. They are significantly better than the tower but the heat still makes it hard. It might have a longer season compared to the tower that does well during the winter time

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