Day 8: 11/16/10

Today we came in after the weekend and checked on the system. We discovered that there was some minimal algae growth in the upper tray. We took the upper tray out and cleaned it. The next thing we did is moved some of our smaller plants forward to get some better light. The final thing we did was to add more nutrient solution to the system and then lower the pH back to 6.0.

Day 7: 11/11/10

Today we came in after a week of not being in the lab and noticed that some of our plants were looking a little droopy. We believe that the droopiness of the plants can be attributed to the amount of time the plants have gone without fresh solution added to the system. Also we discovered some algae that had started to grow. We cleaned out the tank and added fresh nutrient solution as well as checked and lowered the pH to 6. The growth of our plants ranges from 4 1/4″ to 6 3/4″. We are very pleased with our progress and are hoping to continue to have excellent growth.

Day 6: 11/2/10

Today I came into the lab and discovered that our system had evaporated some of the nutrient solution. There was no sign of settling with the solution. I added two gallons of the nutrient solution to the system and then checked the pH which was around 7 and then lowered it to 6.0. Also our plants have some excellent growth.

Day 5: 10/28/10

Today we came in and changed out our nutrient solution. We also cleaned the tank and the pod holders. After changing the solution we checked the PH and found it to be at 7. From there we lowered the PH to 6.0. Finally we increased our pump flow to attempt to correct the settling problem that is still present.

Day 4: 10/26/10

Today we checked our PH at the beginning of class. We found it to be at 6.0. from there we stirred our solution and added one more gallon of nutrient solution. At this point we again checked the PH and discovered that it went up to 8.0. We then added PH Down to bring the PH back down to 6.0. We have excellent growth on 9 out of our 10 pods. Their heights ranged from 1″ to 1 3/4″. The smallest pod we have has a growth of about 1/4″; this pod we believe got a late start and will now grow quickly.

Day 3: 10/21/10

Today we noticed that there was growth on 10 out of 10 pods. We did a check on the Ph and noticed it was a little high at 7.6; Therefore we lowered the Ph to 6.5. We also noticed that our solution was still settling to the bottom of both the tray and the aquarium. We again cleaned them out and added fresh solution to the plants. To attempt to correct the settling problem we decided to increase the flow on our pump.

Day 1: 10/14/10

Today we planted the gem lettuce seeds. The planting medium we used was rockwool. Before we placed the seeds in the rockwool we rehydrated them in a wet paper towel; we also pre-soaked the rockwool in plain water. The rockwool and seeds were soaked and rehydrated for around a half hour while we set up our system. We then placed one seed per pod (10 pods total). Finally we mixed and added the nutrient solution to our system and started the water pump and the aerator.