The Rain Tower

I'm planning  to do Red Robin Tomatoes in mine.  They only get 12-15" tall and wouldn't crowd out the plants about them (much).  I was thinking of a PVC stand with a PVC cross above the tower with strings hanging down which plant clips could be attached to.  Cheap and easy.  Just a rough idea but might need extra support for high wind.  I'm testing bush beans it it currently.  Those shouldn't need support.

rlattajr, now remember, I am only a beginner.  I am now to hydroponics this year.  I was using rock wool cubes and plugs.  Seeds would start.  No issue.  So I decided to step up my game.  I bought a heat mat that you place under your starter tray.  Leaving the dome on......Then I tried something called Oasis Cubes.  A fellow grower recommended them to me.  He said that they would have root sprout in 2 days.  So I gave them a try.  He wasent kidding.  In two days I had nice tall, sturdy sprouts with roots going through the bottom of the cube.

Now remember I shifted gears, I bought a heat mat that keeps everything at a nice constant temp.

They work like a champ.  Hope this helps.

Don

rlattajr, now remember, I am only a beginner.  I am now to hydroponics this year.  I was using rock wool cubes and plugs.  Seeds would start.  No issue.  So I decided to step up my game.  I bought a heat mat that you place under your starter tray.  Leaving the dome on......Then I tried something called Oasis Cubes.  A fellow grower recommended them to me.  He said that they would have root sprout in 2 days.  So I gave them a try.  He wasent kidding.  In two days I had nice tall, sturdy sprouts with roots going through the bottom of the cube.

Now remember I shifted gears, I bought a heat mat that keeps everything at a nice constant temp.

They work like a champ.  Hope this helps.

Don

@rlattajr  Good point. no one mentioned much about cooling the reservoir and how important it is to keep the temp in the reservoir below 20C. I have my unit indoor at 26c indoor temp. 

my reservoir is a rectangle 5 gallon and I wrapped some bubble wrap and drop in iced bottles 2 times a day to keep the temp around 20c.

you are on the right path. 

Chiller options:

1) Aquarium chillers (170$-500$) you will need a second pump for this.

2) DIY solution with a dehumidifier (acidic water my eat at the radiator in the nutrient solution in long term and cause micro nutrient imbalance. also the radiator is big so you will need a big tank to fit the radiator in and then pump the water to your water reservoir and back so multiple pumps. Humidifier new unit would be 200$ so you need some luck finding a cheap used one and then spend the time playing arround with it.

3) Thermoelectric cooler, smaller device, lower power to chill , higher power consumption, there are some options out there.. I am making my own unit (2 Peltier 12706 in series on top of each other with a CPU and fan cooler and high amperage power adapter) this gets technical and you need to know what you are doing a bit.

4) Insulate the heck out of your reservoir and drop in a frozen 1 gallon bottle daily.. the cooler is 30$ with split top so you can have access for a big 1 gallon jug. cheap easy no electricity.. mess with 2 frozen bottle and you will need room in your freezer for this.. and of course daily change of the bottle.  

5) If you just need few Degree C drop in your water temp put a 12cm 12v fan on top of the water and let it blow at the water.. evaporation caused by this should give you few degree temp drop.. you are increasing your evaporation so a bigger reservoir would work better..

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on the side note 

I have whole bunch of strawberries in mine (albion -ever bearig) also the following 

Basil, cilantro, cherry tomato, dwarf bell pepper soon I might add some other stuff

I grow the seeds in paper towel in a zip lock bag and once they are 2 inch tall I put them in the tower with plastic wrap for a week or 2 so they can catch on.. 

this way I don't add a medium that will effect my PH in the tower

next I might just grow the seed on paper tower and plastic wrap in the tower and skip the zip lock bag.

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For people who are lazy to make this system they are being sold on ebay  for not too much money

I made my chiller out of a small styrofoam cooler, a very  small fountain pump and lots of tubing.  I coiled most of a 10' roll of 1/2' tubing in the cooler and added water, salt and ice.  One end of the tubing connected to the pump in the nutes tank.  The other end was secured so it drained back into the nutes.  Later I coved the exposed tubing with pipe insulation.  Ran it when outside temps reached 70*. Worked really well!

I made my chiller out of a small styrofoam cooler, a very  small fountain pump and lots of tubing.  I coiled most of a 10' roll of 1/2' tubing in the cooler and added water, salt and ice.  One end of the tubing connected to the pump in the nutes tank.  The other end was secured so it drained back into the nutes.  Later I coved the exposed tubing with pipe insulation.  Ran it when outside temps reached 70*. Worked really well!

I made my chiller out of a small styrofoam cooler, a very  small fountain pump and lots of tubing.  I coiled most of a 10' roll of 1/2' tubing in the cooler and added water, salt and ice.  One end of the tubing connected to the pump in the nutes tank.  The other end was secured so it drained back into the nutes.  Later I coved the exposed tubing with pipe insulation.  Ran it when outside temps reached 70*. Worked really well!

I made my chiller out of a small styrofoam cooler, a very  small fountain pump and lots of tubing.  I coiled most of a 10' roll of 1/2' tubing in the cooler and added water, salt and ice.  One end of the tubing connected to the pump in the nutes tank.  The other end was secured so it drained back into the nutes.  Later I coved the exposed tubing with pipe insulation.  Ran it when outside temps reached 70*. Worked really well!

@ SleestaksRule  Lettuce is very forgiving plant!

 I have lettuce growing in the poorest conditions and it just does not give up!

Hi Kim.  I'm new to this as well, and all the options can be a bit overwhelming.  My current struggle is deciding what type of lighting to use. I am fortunate in having a new local hydroponics store with an owner who is eager to answer all my questions, so that helps a lot.

As to your question, I plan to try General Hydroponics FloraDuo A and FloraDuo B, mixed according to the package instructions for a few 'rounds'.  Depending on the results I will try supplementing that with a few free samples the dealer gave me at his grand opening.  It will take a while to get to that point, but once I do I'll post the results.

Please keep us updated on your project.  I have Joi Choi seeds ordered that will be my first to sprout and add to the tower I'll build.  As for the build, I have a few of my own minor tweaks in mind, nothing major but if anyone is interested I'll post some photos.

Good luck!

Bob 

I'm still really new to this myself.  However, I've done a lot of research on this exact subject.  I am currently using Maxigro (which was recommended by the owner of this website) so far I've had success and I am in week 3 of a NFT grow.  I just follow the instructions on the bag, 1-2 tsp per gallon of water (I am doing 1 1/2 tsp per).  Make sure you mix your nutrients well (I.E Dissolve them all in the water, no sinking particles or few at least) into your reservoir. 

Make sure you remember how much water is in your reservoir, this will help you in knowing when to dump and change it out.  After you mix your nutrients check the PH of the water.  This website/link helped me out a lot in the process of all hydroponics. 

http://www.simplyhydro.com/ph.htm

I don't know much about PPM just yet, but that's my next venture. 

One thing that I've learned is when do you know to change out your water.  If you have a 5 gallon reservoir you need to keep it there.  Track how much water you add, once you add 5 gallons more of water it's time to dump it and restart.  (I hope that makes sense)  I check my PH on a daily basis, mostly because I've invested a lot of time/money into a dream project.  Controlling PH is the biggest thing, but making sure you don't over fertilize is also important.  Follow the instructions on the bag and you should be successful. 

Don't forget an air stone either!! 

Hope this helps

For the lettuce I used Maxigro at about 400 PPM.  If your growing something like basil you'll want it higher at about 800 PPM.  If you watch in the beginning of the video below I show that.

The meter I used in that video died a few years ago and I bought a cheap digital one from Amazon.

Here's a link to a chart showing all the different PPM for different veggies: http://www.tomorrowsgarden.net/node/11

Ingenious engineering !! The small water pump you used was a ?? Keep up the great work.

Tim

I just Use a ball valve to adjust the volume.

if it comes from dirt I would incubate them for a while in a neutral system as they bring unwanted guests with them.

wash the roots well.. and put them in claypots in the system 

nothing special about that 

they are prone to root rot so do water changes often, make sure you have high dissolved O2. 

If the conditions are right strawberry does great but in my experience they are a bit sensitive and you can see the effects of a stressor on them once things are off a bit so pay attention to them 

Having built a unit that I used successfully for a year (indoors during winter), I wanted to have another unit however the build time seemed excessive.  Instead I bought a Spring System from Bright Agrotech (brightagrotech.com) for less than twice the cost of materials.  It is a well thought out unit, much quieter than the towers (important in winter) and they are a very customer orientated company.  I would suggest you check them out.  They are more into multiple tower systems (green walls) for commercial use but they scale very well down to the single tower 'Spring System'.

The sales people for the tower garden constantly attack me in forums and on youtube, lol.  One lady just would not stop and I had to block her from my YouTube channel because she was getting a little insane.  They keep spouting out all the selling points of the Tower Garden.  The only thing wrong with the tower garden is the price.