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!
Yea, we just added the nutrient solution to our system. We were using water up to this point because we heard from some people that we shouldn’t add the nutrients until the plants grew to a certain height.
What do you mean by “today was the day we added our nutrient solution?” Didn’t you already have nutrients in your solution or were you just using water up to this point?