Nft hydroponics systems have been round since the mid 60’s Allen cooper of England developed nutrient film technique.
The fact that nutrient film technique hydroponics has many advantages other soil culture, but the biggest is the fact that the root system of the plants have constant access to oxygen and that plants have access to as much or as little water as they need, this is important as one of the most common errors when growing is over/and under watering, and that hydroponics prevents this from occurring as large amounts of water can be made available to the plants roots and water that’s not used simply drains away, recalculating and then actively aerated, which eliminates anoxic conditions which can cause problems in root systems.
In siol, a grower needs to be very experienced to know exactly how much to feed there plants, too much and the plants will not be able to access oxygen, too little and the plants will lose the ability to transport nutrients, which are typically moved into the root while in the solution.
MAKING YOUR OWN NFT HYDROPONICS SYSTEM
One of the biggest mistakes “not the only one though” is using oval guttering for your homemade system, as the very nature of this system is to have a film of water “between 1mm & 3mm” over a fairly wide surface area, so as you can see, using a round water gully is somewhat pointless.
As you can imagine, using a squire gully makes life a lot easer as the fidally job of light proofing your water channel, by other means has already been taken care of, all that’s left for you is to blank of the end and cutting out some holes for your plants to grow in, also a way for the nutrients to recalculate back to your nutrient tank
My NFT hydroponics system that’s used in my greenhouse, I’ve built as a vertical NFT hydroponics system, as space is very limited, although I have managed to use every inch available, with 68 plant spaces available for my crop plants, and that just one half of my greenhouse, with plenty of room for more on the same side to add channels too.
Making your hydroponic NFT system water tight, at the same time as being able to remove the channels from a homemade NFT hydroponic setup is easy enough as long as you give a little thought into how.
As your water needs only to be 1mm to 2mm depth within the water gully channel, so any lip/ edges need to be as flat as the base of the gully, any extra height will increase the depth of the water dramatically, and may cause some water logging at the far end.
· NFT WATER PUMP to large/powerful
Using the right water pump is also very important, as having on that to large/powerful, will mean you having to restrict the flow from your reservoir, which will put a strain on the water pump and at the same time, may over heat your nutrient solution too as the max temperature for the water solution is 21c, any hotter and nutrient lock out will take over and some algae may start growing too.
· NFT WATER PUMP to small/underpowered
Depending on the high or distance your water nutrient solution needs to travel, take my vertical NFT hydroponics system for example, the height of which the water needs to travel is two meters, so a 1000 Litre an hour water pump is just right for the job, although with a horizontal NFT hydroponics growing system, getting hold of a pump that’s to small to manage the small vertical clime is fairly difficult, as I’ve even used a bird bath fountain pump before, but I don’t recommend these pumps as there not all that cheap and also break down more than most pumps too.
· NFT WATER TANK
Choose a Tank that’s no higher than your lowest gully, and of course it need to be light proofed to fervent algae growth and also large enough for lots of nutrient enriched water.
Because NFT hydroponic systems are so susceptible to pump and other failures, I use soaka felt that’s used in bench top growing to soak up excess water and to help with stopping plants from falling over, as plant roots grow into the felt side of the matting, and its ideal for NFT systems as a fail safe, if placed in the bottoms of the NFT channels it will help eliminate any dry spots accruing as the roots grow within the growing channels, as the roots grow, some damming of the water solution may accrue, and at least this felt will help with damming and also pump failure.
· NFT HYDROPONICS HOMEMADE MEDIUM “TOP TIP”
You’ll probably have noticed from looking at other nft hydroponics homemade system setups that square rock wool cubes are mainly used, but as my NFT system is a also homemade, I’ve tried keeping the cost down as 70 rockwool cubes would have cost a few quid. so to avoid this expense, my alternative, Earthwool zero carbon loft insulation, the roll covers 8sq meters, so I’m guessing that’s enough to fill my pots and the best part is that the hole roll cost me 5 quid from my local hardware store.
· REMEMBER
All rock wool fibre has a high PH value, which if not balanced to your hydroponic nutrients solutions PH value before use, will throw you your hydro fertilizer off wake, “above 6.5” so soak in a water solution of 3 Ph, over night in a bucket first, then squeeze out the excess water before installing.
Pots that I’ve made for the NFT gullies, all the PVC pipe is, 40mm waste piping, that cut to length, plus a bit extra so’s I can pull the pot out when needed, oh yeah a small groove that will let water underneath the pots easily, Earthwool zero carbon loft insulation IS VERY loose/ airy, and in my opinion is better than the ready bought cubes, as you can decide how airy you need your medium to be, and also mix with other hydro growing mediums if you wish.
If you do try these pvc pipe hydroponic pots with Earthwool zero carbon loft insulation then you’ll need to roll the earthwool up fairly tightly, so’s the nutrient rich water solution is drown up the rock wool.
Alternatively you could use rock wool slabs, take the plastic wrap off and cut the rock wool slab into slices, doing it this way would also keep costs down.
· GLUING YOUR HYDOPONICS HOMEMADE NFT SYSTEM TOGETHER
Choosing the right glue to keep nft systems water tight, and keeping the pvc pipes water-tight, well you have a couple of options, I’ve tried both of these and each work well, utility/ bathroom/kitchen, silicone sealant is fine to use, or pvc piping and guttering is also very good too, which ever one you do you use, you’ll need to lightly rub the surface where sealing is needed with some sand paper to ensure good contact.
As an avid gardener for many years and also worked in garden nursery's with interests in hydroponics stretching back to the early 90's.
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