I recently got into hydroponics and I followed this tutorial since I 3d printed the tower https://www.printables.com/model/882115-modular-hydroponics-tower-w-grow-lights.
I started with spinach, lettuce and arugula as tests and I only build 2 levels for start to try it out. I put pebbles in, than the plant and than pebbles around to fill up the space.
I have grow lights that are mostly turned on for a couple of hours a day and I have water pump that works 5 minutes a day since the base for plants tends to be too wet if it is turned on for too long – and the roots are not big enough to need more watering currently (at least I think).
Additionally with lights I have a fan that works when they do as well because I had issues with mold since there was not enough air flow through that space.
I tried hydrogen peroxide for mold as well but it killed the plants a bit so I decided to try with this method.
The bucket has water, grow fertiliser and the pH is kept around 5.8 currently.
Now, my issue is that I think the plants are barely growing and I am trying to hit that sweet spot of how long the fan needs to work with the lights and how much water do they need at the start. What am I doing wrong in this setup?
by skuxe
2 Comments
I would not recommed starting seedlings in this tower.
Put them where they get 16-18 hours of sunlight or under a growing light. Ambident temp preferbly +24°C . Dont let the rockwool dry out. When you see roots coming out on the other side of the rockwool you can move it to the tower.
I have similar settup and run my pump 15min every hour, your is smaller so maybe 5 min every hour would be enough.
You need to establish the plants in a seedling tray prior to planting into the tower