Haven’t posted in awhile

12/3/12

Added more water to the unit. Plant have good growth about 6″ tall now. Evaporation is our biggest enemy still.

11/26/12

Back from break system was low on water. Went through close to 3/4 of a gallon. Luckily got to it on time where we could add solution so the pump wouldn’t cease again. Plants grew an inch.

11/7/12

First day doing pH plants are 2″ in height. Will seal the bottom of our table today so we can put the plants back in the unit once again. pH was 7 so we will keep the water the same until we get the table fixed and we are able to place the plants back in the system.

10/31/12

Little water running through system. Found that the water had leached into the wood under the table while returning to the base. Took the rock-wool  and plants out of the table to let it sit and dry. Placed rock-wool and plants in container with the nutrient rich solution with the air stone to help circulate oxygen through. Hoping to get the problem fixed by Monday so the actual system will be up and running again. Plants have grown to .5″ now. Getting fairly good growth. May even build entirely new table if time permits.

 

 

Up and running

Today we were able to get the hydroponics system set up. We started with a test run with our pump to make sure it was not pushing to much water through. After noticing that it was sufficient we then proceeded to get 11 pieces of rockwool and planted rosemary seeds inside. The water seems to be flowing perfectly at the moment, and it is returning back down tot he base through the drainage tube as expected. Next step is to wait for our seeds to begin to grow.

Final Day of Build

As we neared the end of our build we had finally come up with a solution for our drainage problem. To do we decided to go with a funnel and a piece of 1/2″ nylon tubing. When purchasing this tubing you horrible have to buy a section of at least a foot. By the time this piece had been attached to our system we had cut off a good 8″ to 9″. After attaching this to the base of the table there is now a slight waiting time for it to dry before we can start the system up and start our growing process. Hopefully this will begin tomorrow.

The Build

As we entered the end of our construction we had come across a problem in our design, Our original plan was to insert a piece of PVC into a hole that would drain the water back down to the base. Since we did not have the PVC at the time a hole was cut in the bottom of our table. While we lined the table with pond liner we had decided to cut the liner and to have it pushed down through the hole to cover the wood. This is where the problem arises. When we cut the liner we did not take into account the slack needed to be able to have enough liner to cover the hole. After almost an entire period of working we decided to nix the idea, and are now going back to the design with a piece of 1.5” diameter nylon pond tubing. Up to that point all construction had been going great. Next step is to get the unit up and running.

Pictures to be posted soon of construction and system running.