Today we checked our hydroponic system and noticed that the air tubes were still working and there were no kinks in them. This was a plus to the system! We checked the pH level of the water and as always, it had increased. We lowered the pH level using the lowering pH solution and put it down to a level of 4-5 again. We hope that the plants will start to mature over the weekend and that there will be some great results come Monday.
Today we checked out our system and noticed a few problems. The plants grew a little, but still not as much as we had hoped they would have. It was a week since we last checked on them and they didn’t change much. We noticed that the water level was low so we added more. We also tested the pH level of the system and noticed that it was too high again, like usual. We lowered the pH to a level of around 4-5. We figured that we would give it a try because Scott had told us that they did the same for their system and it is clearly helping the growth of their lettuce. We also noticed that the pH seems to be always going up, so we figured that if we lowered it to a pH of about 4 it would just increase as the week progresses.
Another problem that we encountered was that the one air tubes must have been kinked, which stopped the flow of water in the one PVC tube. We noticed this because the plants in this pipe seemed to be a little dry looking compared to the others. Sure enough, we took one of the cups out of the water and the tube was not blowing any air at all. There was no water movement which didn’t help the plants in this pipe. We fixed the problem, so hopefully it will not happen again, but we’ll keep a close eye on it.
Finally, today was the day that we added our nutrient solution. We took a one gallon jug and filled it with warm water. Next, we took 3/4 tsp of the Hydro-grow nutrient solution “A” and added it to the jug of warm water. We then shook the jug to mix the solution together. We then took 3/4 tsp of the Hydro-grow nutrient solution “B” and added it to the jug. We shook the jug again and got ready to add the solution to our hydroponic system. We finally added some of the solution to our system. We are hoping that this brings out great results next time we check on our plants!
Today we checked on our hydroponic system after being away over spring break. We noticed that our plants had sprouted! They were a nice size and mostly a green color. We checked the water level in the system and noticed that it had lowered, which we had figured it would over the time we were gone. We added more water to the system. The plants looked very healthy and colorful.
Next, we checked the pH level of the water in our system. We tested and noticed that the pH was a blue color which indicated to us that it was high. In order to correct this we used the lowering pH drops and added them to our water. We kept adding drops until the pH had reached a balanced level of neutral.
This is a picture of the pH level we obtained after lowering the waters pH in our system.
Today we checked up on our hydroponic system and noticed that some of our seeds began to sprout. However, after looking at some of our rockwool, we noticed that it wasn’t totally soaked in the water. We solved this problem by adding more water to the whole system. We’ll check next class to see how it is working.
This is a picture of the pH strip that we tested our water with. The results showed that our waters pH is a solid 7. We are happy with this result and will continue to check the pH as the system progresses.
Today we planted our mesculn seeds into the rockwool of our water culture, hydroponic system. This is a picture of our system. It is a basic water culture system, which includes an air pump. The 3 1/2” PVC pipes hold our water and nutrients. We have four cups, each filled with rockwool, which hold our mesculn seeds. Holes were punched into the bottom of the cups to let the water in, so that the rockwool would absorb it and transfer it to the seeds. Holes were also drilled in the top of our PVC pipes for the air pumps tubes. The tubes are going to allow the water and nutrients to keep circulating thought out the system. This will have a great impact on the growth of our lettuce, because the more the water circulates, the more nutrients will flow and reach the seeds to create a healthier plant. We used a wooden frame to hold our PVC pipes. It seems to be doing great!
We also tested the pH level of the water. The results showed a level of 7. This is the level we plan to maintain through out our system.