which hydroponic system in garden greenhouse?

G

german_aero

Member

• Feb 20, 2008

• #1

hallo,

I want to grow tomatoes in my garden greenhouse. Which hydroponic/aeroponic system is the best in this case?
The air temperatures in the greenhouse are from 60°F (night) to 80°F (day). I've read there are problems with the nutrients if the temp sways much and if its to hot. Is there a hydro system which works in a unheated outdoor greenhouse?

 

Rosy Cheeks

dancin' cheek to cheek

Veteran

• Feb 20, 2008

• #2

The problem with some hydroponic systems - such as DWC - is that heat makes the roots vulnerable to root rot when rez temps go high. High temps also lowers the oxygen level of the nutrient solution, and since the roots need highly oxygenated water when immersed in the solution (low oxygenated water also has lower penetration capacity, which lowers the roots nutrient uptake capacity), you will need to oxygenate the solution artificially. But 26.6º/80F is no problem in that sense.

Depending on the size of your greenhouse, you should know that the workload that goes with different systems is different.
DWC is a highly efficient system but demands a lot of attention. If you grow half a dozen or less plants this is a good way to get the maximum out of each plant.
Ebb and Flow is a less sensitive system, easy to use, so it suits larger grows where you spend less time on each plant.
NFT is a hybrid between the two, and - IMO - superior to both since it combines the best of DWC (high yields) with the best of Ebb and Flow (ease of use, low risk for root rot).

 

W

Wait...What?

Active member

Veteran

• Feb 20, 2008

• #3

tomatoes and peppers are not sensitive to dwc res temps like pot is (and I'm skeptical about that, too). i've grown them outdoors in dwc for years now.

depending on how you prune those tomato plants, your biggest issue may be head space. an indeterminate tomato variety can easily exceed 3 meters in a growing season.

i prune my tomato plants using the missouri method - sucker shoots pinched at the 2nd leaf, plants trained to a single stem (supported using the hanging string method) and plants packed in close together.

tomatoes will want about one twentieth the nitrogen that pot wants, and while pot wants magnesium, tomatoes want calcium. just keep in mind that blossom end rot is a calcium deficiency within the plant itself and not in the growing medium.

 

Last edited: Feb 20, 2008

Rosy Cheeks

dancin' cheek to cheek

Veteran

• Feb 20, 2008

• #4

Wait... Wait? you're right, but I'm not sure german_aero actually wants to grow tomatoes, or "tomatoes". Which one is it, g_a? There are plenty of good garden web sites for tomato growing, such as Gardenweb.com:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/tomato/
I don't think ICmag carries any sub-forums or threads about other cultivation than Cannabis, but it exists in some other pot forums.

 

G

german_aero

Member

• Feb 21, 2008

• #5

Thanks for your answers.
I really want to grow tomatoes (the red round vegetable). I think in the icmaq forum are many experts of hydroponic growing, thats the reason why I asked here.
I want to grow about 25 plants. So I think I need a pvc pipe system like GHE aeroflo:

Is this a kind of dwc?
Would such a pipe system work much better with misters instead of top-down "droppers" (seen on the pic)?

 

ahssensi

Member

• Feb 21, 2008

• #6

Most hydro greenhouses in my area grom tomatoes in either rockwool and slabs, coco bags or perlite bags drip fed run to waste.

 

Daemon

Member

• Apr 19, 2008

• #7

^^Same here. It is very common here to use rockwool slabs. I've also seen several local growers using those rotating gardens....

 

S

skunke

Member

• Apr 19, 2008

• #8

I had great sucess with homade aeroponic got amazing results in peak summer i got about 2 inches of growth every day It cost me around $500 to make with the pumps and all .It has 38 Plant sites And two diffrent resevours one for vegetables and the other for herbs.
Her some pics from earlier in the seoson.

 

Last edited: Apr 19, 2008

S

skunke

Member

• Apr 19, 2008

• #9

german_aero said:

Thanks for your answers.
I really want to grow tomatoes (the red round vegetable). I think in the icmaq forum are many experts of hydroponic growing, thats the reason why I asked here.
I want to grow about 25 plants. So I think I need a pvc pipe system like GHE aeroflo:

Is this a kind of dwc?
Would such a pipe system work much better with misters instead of top-down "droppers" (seen on the pic)?

Click to expand...

This is pretty much how my system works exept it has misters on the end of the feed lines, and the watter is allowd to freely drain back to the res.Couldnt recomend a better system!

 

Last edited: Apr 19, 2008

F

fisher

• Apr 24, 2008

• #10

nice skunke
id say
consider using a system with a remote rez, that is out of the greenhouse that will keep the water temps down, ebb n flow, nft , aero , drip.
ive made a simple hybrid drip / nft system that was no expense besides the pump and nutes.the medium was lava rock i got for 20 dollares at the soil mart. my system drains outside the greenhouse and the rez is buried inthe ground keeping temps at 70 in the summer.

 

Last edited: Apr 24, 2008

ChaosCatalunya

5.2 club is now 8.1 club...

Veteran

• Apr 24, 2008

• #11

I would say just grow in COCO in pots, it I set up a NFT or DWC system I would worry that the lush growth would overfill the greenhouse.

Plenty of "Straight" gardeners and commercial operations grow tomatoes in COCO, there will be plenty of information out there on what they like, as others have said, certain plants have certain requirements, if you give them what they want, they love you for it.

Canna would probably be a good place to start. www.canna.nl I guess ...

 

S

skunke

Member

• Apr 29, 2008

• #12

ChaosCatalunya said:

I would say just grow in COCO in pots, it I set up a NFT or DWC system I would worry that the lush growth would overfill the greenhouse.

Plenty of "Straight" gardeners and commercial operations grow tomatoes in COCO, there will be plenty of information out there on what they like, as others have said, certain plants have certain requirements, if you give them what they want, they love you for it.

Canna would probably be a good place to start. www.canna.nl I guess ...

Click to expand...

Nice setup bro, cant beat the price! , have any issues with using lava rocks like ph, water retension ect...?

 

Last edited: Apr 29, 2008

supermanlives

Active member

Veteran

• May 1, 2008

• #13

modified aero to swc . worked killer.

 

Z

zolar

Member

• Aug 13, 2008

• #14

how cold is your winter temps?


am thinking about doing entire floor of house as an ebb and flow with aquarium heaters for winter.....