My very first attempt at hydroponics…smh. It was not good at all. It was pretty sad in my opinion, but like all newbies, we live, we learn, and we grow (see what I did there?). However, I just wanted to share with you my mistakes, so that you do not make the same ones.
When I attempted hydroponics for the first time, I tried to go for simplicity. I chose to go the Deep Water Culture (DWC) route because it is pretty simplistic. In a previous article, called “Introduction to Hydroponics”, I explained how the DWC technique works and tried to make it obvious why it was an attractive way to go for a first-timer.
Let’s look again at a diagram of a DWC system:
It pretty much consists of a reservoir (or container), an air pump with air stone, the plants and net cups. For my first system, I tried to keep it really simple with the materials, equipment, and plants. I chose…
- …a 5 gallon bucket with lid
- …an airstone
- …an air pump
- …an air hose
- …a starter grow plug
- …a 2″ net cup
- …a small piece of grocery store purchased bok choy plant (more on this later)
It sounds like a lot of materials, but I can assure you, it is simple. Instead of two plants as shown in the diagram above, I chose just one plant, hence the need for one net cup. As far as the bucket, I cut two holes in its lid – one to set the net cup down flush to the lid and a second smaller one to insert the air hose for the air stone. From there, I simply mixed my nutrient solution and poured it into the bucket just up to the bottom of the net cup, touching the grow plug. This insured that the starter plug would remain moist for the roots, but not soaking wet. Now the plant…
So, I had been reading about different vegetables that you could regrow by simply putting them in water after using the majority of it. Examples of those are green onions, celery, and bok choy. Because we were using bok choy for dinner one night, I decided to save what was left and place the bottom of it into a cup of water. The idea was to have it regenerate roots, then place it in a grow plug, net cup and let it regrow into a huge new bok choy plant. That was the plan.
Things went very good early on. In the picture of the plant in the net cup, I had just taken it out of a “modified” Solo cup where it sat in a little bit of water. I saw the plant greening up and I got impatient (Mistake #1). So, I split a starter plug in half, placed it around the base of the bok choy (without any roots) and put it into the net cup. I made sure that I had my air pump pushing air into the stone and sat the plant and net cup on the lid with the lid secured to the bucket. I had my water all set and I placed it next to a window because plants need sunlight, right (Mistake #2)?
Over about the course of a week, I saw the plant grow and it was greening really well, so I was certain that I would be successful on my very first attempt. I would occasionally open the lid to check the water levels and after about a couple of weeks, things started going down hill.
The Bucket
The bucket that I chose was a good old 5 gallon Home Depot bucket. This means that the bucket was orange and it was not transparent, but it allowed some light to get to the water (Mistake #3). When choosing a container/reservoir for hydroponics, it should be as opaque as possible. It should not allow any light to get to the water because…
The Light
…direct light will do two things:
- It will cause your water temperatures to spike.
- It will promote the growth of algae.
From what I have read, in order for your plants to take up the nutrients, the optimal water temperatures should be somewhere between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. There may be different takes on the range, but this is what I have seen. If your plant cannot get the nutrients that it needs, then it does what deficient plants do…die. If you get algae in your system, then you have a problem as well. It will thrive from the light and suck up the oxygen in the water from your plant’s roots and your plants will do what oxygen depleted plants do…die. And guess what? After about a week, I had algae happily growing and floating in my water. So, for about a couple more weeks I would change the nutrient water out on a weekly basis to combat both of my problems.
The Plant
The bok choy plant that I placed in the system never grew any roots. I had put the base of the plant inside a grow plug that remained moist. Given the bright sunny window and the moisture on the base of the plant, it began to rot. I was wondering why it started to droop when it was so green at one point. I eventually pulled the plant out and found that the bok choy was rotten and the water was starting to smell.
To add a cherry on top – because the bucket was in the window where our large Cane Corso (dog) frequents, he broke one of the leaves off the stalk. You can see that broken leaf in the photo at the very top of this article. It was a fun little experiment but very disappointing because things look so well at first and went down hill pretty fast. The thing is you don’t give up, you keep on pushing through and experimenting. So, if you are a newbie to hydroponics and you keep failing, keep at it. You’ll get it and in the process you will have gained a wealth of knowledge.
What mistakes did you make with your first system?