Excellent tutorial. I’m happy that you left the part in where you had to modify your design for the pump tube because you needed that space for the light fixtures. That’ll help people because they may need to modify the design to fit the shelf/components they have. And I hope you’re feeling good as well.
Another excellent tutorial! It still makes me smile when you are unexpectedly impressed with your designs. Thanks for sharing all of the mistakes and corrections with us.
Great tutorial! We just finished our hydroponics setup thanks to your video and can't wait to watch our greens grow :) No more pulling grass and weeds from the veggie gardens. Thanks Hoocho. A big fan in Brisbane
FANTASTIC BUILD!! Is VERY similar to mine although I have my reservoir at the end of the rack and my shelving unit has one additional shelf with a light above which I use for germinating new seedlings. I absolutely can’t wait to see your time lapse with this system! I’ve been growing in one very similar for over 4 years now and my family absolutely LOVES it!! I grow so many different kinds of lettuce and white stem tat-soi and basil. I use it to give my tomato seedlings a start until they get to be a certain size and then I transition them to their own larger tote box to continue growing with of course stronger nutrients. This is absolutely fab! And anyone can do this without the need of any special 3D printing. The only thing I’m wondering about is the 6 manifold split, how easy it is to get and how prone to clogging would it be? What you could have done instead was to start at the top of the first channel and have the water run zig zag between the first pipe to the second pipe on the same shelf and then instead of it returning to the reservoir have it flow next into the pipes below and tilt them in the opposite direction and the tilt can be very slight hardly any at all and water will continue to flow through the path of least resistance. And then at the end of the second shelf pipe have it flow into the third shelf of piping and then that last pipe has the return into the reservoir. There are enough nutrients in the water that when it starts at the top and flow through each pipe each plant will still get what it needs to thrive. It doesn’t require that each pipe has fresh from the reservoir because it’s a recirculating system anyway. Make sense? Also I know you prefer those lights but you can also purchase lights that have one power source and are daisy chained together and that way it’s a lot less power boxes to worry about just one for three lights or even four lights. Monios T5 or T8 warm white lights are perfect and come in 4Ft or 2ft lengths depending on the size of your shelving unit. My unit is 3 ft wide so they stick out 6 inches on each end which is fine because I keep my reservoir off to one end of the shelving unit it makes it accessible for replacing the bottom of the tote with a clean whole new bottom and the only thing I need to do is to stop the pump and pull it out and give it a good scrub and clean the filter area and then pop it back in and the system continues running beautifully. I keep the extra bottom tote box for that and then I can clean it out at my leisure without feeling rushed to get everything back up and running. I live in Canada and I am growing lettuce 365 days a year with my DIY NFT system and it’s absolutely amazing how easy this is to do! I encourage everyone who lives in an apartment to setup a system like this it requires such a small amount of your time or energy and such a small space to grow a lot of food! Each of my pipes have 9 holes and I have the 6 pipes as well so 54 heads of lettuce I can grow at one time but instead of doing that I tend to grow tat-soi in a couple of pipes and I stagger my lettuce growing so I always have new plants entering when one is finished. The hardest part is not germinating too many seedlings at once and then having no where to put them! Lol! So we are building a second entire rack because lettuce in Canada is absurdly expensive right now and we will be able to help out our family and friends! We tend to take cuttings every 7-10 days all around the outside of the plant and leave the Center need growth so nothing gets overly large and that way the lettuce continues to produce for at least two months and as long as it doesn’t get too hot or too much light it doesn’t bolt. It’s been sensational and I absolutely am in love with growing like this. Thank you for your design I sure hope it encourages many others to give it a try! It’s ridiculously easy!! I will be using your video of an example of what can be done. The only change I may make is adding some reducers at the ends of each pipe before it turns into the next pipe and in that way each pipe will always have a certain amount of water in its pipe in case of a power failure. That’s what we’ve done and it’s worked well. It also means that the pipes you use to connect between each reducer is significantly smaller. So not as bulky and it doesn’t require the use of the small black tubing which could be prone to plugging with debris. One way around that would be to put cheesecloth or a paint bag around your pump and then it won’t allow any debris into the pump.
@@Warren15G thank you! I always wonder sometimes if I’m writing comments that anyone will actually take the time to read or not. So glad someone did and let me know. God bless. 🥰❤️🇨🇦🙏🏻
thank you for all of the detail you've provided! I have a couple of questions. How much water do you allow to back up with the reducer? What diameter are your pipes?
Thank you for explaining and showing how you build your projects. I am new to Hydroponic and getting ready to set up a system to grow tomatoes and cucumbers this summer. I am located in the state of Oklahoma USA. By the time I watch all your videos I should be able to convert your metric measurements to inches and feet. Until the next video!!
Super keen to see how this goes longer term mate with a full grow. I wish we had all the same end piece options for the 100x50 downpipe as that in this setup would but the ultimate indoor setup! Once I see the outcome of your grow I may make one of these to give it a go anyway
Great work :) I'd be curious to see the difference between growing the plants in this system vs the nft in the greenhouse to see if the grow differs in any way.
Nice, but I'd worry about chemicals leaching out of the DWV pipe. It's not certified for potable water, could have much higher cadmium or lead levels than PVC-U or C-PVC?
Nice man! That's a really good idea with the manifold. I don't know why I didn't think of it since I watched a lot of your videos before embarking on my own build. I have a 2in pipe 39 head setup, but it's got one hose that's brings it up to the top and drains to the next level ext all on down. I've noticed that as the lettuce matures, it's harder to keep the flow right all the way down for an NFT due to root buildup, it seems, so in a lot of water running thru the pipes. Next build, I think I'm going to move to square pipes and the manifold. The current setup just works so well I haven't wanted to spend the money as I just recouped the setup costs, 4 month ROI ain't bad!!! Root have only become a problem twice, where I woke up to about 3 liters on the floor. Fyi cilantro is not a good idea in such a small pipe, the roots on that thing!!!
Did you know you can cut your roots on your lettuce significantly and then you won’t have that issue? Also I cut all around my lettuce plants every 7-10 days and that’s when I check the roots to see if they have gotten too large and then I significantly chop them off and they keep right on thriving. Anyway I’ve since put a flood type table under my shelving unit as well just in case it ever does flood. But so far I haven’t had the issue and mine runs from the top down with slight tilts, I also have reducers on the ends of each of the pipes as well so each of my pipes hold a bit of water even if the pump were to get kicked off because of a power failure or something. That way they keep thriving and I could be wrong but I also think that’s why the roots tend to not grow too big because they aren’t reaching for water. Just a thought. The other issue I would be worried about that six manifold is it clogging but I don’t know if that would be a problem or not? I don’t use the small tubing because I was concerned with that from the beginning so I just use a tubing much larger and it feeds into the first channel and I control the flow by the pump itself and how high it has to pump up to for the first pipe.
@Leanne KenYoung I thought of the same thing, and I did it to a few things on my test rack. Everything seems to have either shrugged it off completely(sage, dill, basil) or bounced back, but I thought it was going to lose the perpetual spinach for a minute. My other racks were ready for harvest, so I haven't tried it on regular lettuce yet.
@@Gary-uy9mr sorry not sure I know what you mean about shrugged it off? Do you mean everything continued growing okay or they had a slow down in growing and then recovered? Glad you didn’t lose your perpetual spinach! Hey do you have a trick for germinating spinach? I’ve tried New Zealand spinach and all kinds but for the life of me I cannot get it to germinate and I’m purchasing seeds from various reputable companies it’s the only thing I’ve had issues with besides growing strawberries but I don’t give up. Just wondered if there is something special with spinach that is different from other leafy greens? I’m growing all sorts of lettuce so many varieties but not spinach! Also another note when you do cut the roots remember that’s the plants way of getting its nutrition so the plant does go into a period of dormancy growing up to while it puts its energy into growing enough roots to sustain it and then it will recover and grow above just as well as before. The trick is knowing how much to cut off of the roots lettuce has been very easy and I’ve cut two thirds off and same with basil I’ve cut massive amounts of roots off a basil plant that I had growing in a 4litre jug kratky style and I only cut off the leaves and any woody stems and the roots had grown so much that I almost couldn’t pull them out of the jug about 80% of what was in the jug was roots so I cut 2/3 of the roots off and I also removed probably 90% of all the leaves(basically thought I was killing it) then I popped it back into the 4litre jug that I refilled just enough that the remaining roots could touch the nutrient rich water. I had to trim the top like a bonsai plant because it became top heavy even though I had taken most of its leaves, I wrapped foil around the base to hold it in the jug like I do when they are seedlings and would you believe this basil plant survived and kept on producing! I’ve taken soooo many cuttings from it and propagated new plants that I’ve given away. It has tried to bolt on occasion and I just cut the stems of the flowers(I don’t let them open)right back to the main stem a and it just keeps on growing, it’s like my pepper plants that I kept growing for two and a half years and they were producing and incredible amount of peppers they were each 6 ft tall and 4 ft wide when they got root rot(before I could fix it) I lost them both a sweet red and a sweet orange coral pepper they were lunchbox size peppers and I just loved them. I haven’t tried growing any more since then I think I’ve been mourning them. Crazy I know. Anyway I’m ready to try again! I also had an incredible sweet banana pepper plant that produced an incredible amount and grew for a year and a half. I had no clue that these plants would just keep on growing and producing year round!
@Leanne KenYoung shrugged it off is a saying, meaning that it wasn't bothered and showed no signs. The perpetual spinach had a couple of leaves go yellow, I trimmed them after a couple of days, and within a week, I'm getting new healthy growth again. New Zealand spinach! Yes!!! I just got them to sprout for the first time. I used a paper towel wetted and folded in half in a plastic bag. I had to do this with the perpetual spinach as well, as it doesn't root down fast enough with the rockwool. I have found success this way and am just stuffing them into the rockwool afterward. What I am experimenting with now with the New Zealand spinach is using puffed clay/ceramitite balls 6-8mm in size so they don't fall through the net cups. I'm hoping this works well, rockwool isn't too expensive, but I'd rather have something that can be reused
I’m not sure if it matters but you’ll have water backed up in that very bottom 90 going into your rez until it pushes back that original slope of 1 inch every 3 feet so you’ll likely have one inch of water in that 90 degree elbow all the time.
With your out door lettuce grow you mention that thy are doing well do to cool water flow through the nft , would this also slow bolting ? Is it more root temp or something else that is more the driving factor in bolting. Thank you
I couldn't see why not. The main concern would be shelf height/distance, due to the need for a res/tray on each level. I am looking into this as well, because no noisy drips or air pumps (DWC) get's wife approval for indoors lol.
Ey man, you are all I want to be !!! I love how you explain, all your projects your baldness, how I wish I make a 10% you what you are building!!! Let's start!!!
Where can I obtain the hinged container used as the sump? If you are going to say Bunnings please provide a link as I can only find fixed lids on their online store.
I like very much the simplicity of the system, very nice job, I hope it will perform great, this would be very cheap and productive system to build. I did a quick simulation (I live in France), the 3 lights (16h/day) + the pump (24h/day) would cost around 0,60€ per day electric bill. In our area we find good quality lettuce around 1,30€. Harvesting of lettuce being around 45 days, the price per lettuce with this system will be around 1€ per head. So, in my location and for my use case, this would not worth it. I think I should take advantage of the sunlight, like putting this system in a greenhouse or near the window inside. Keep up the good work and let me know what you think 😉
How did you come to that number? If your power is 0.6€ per day, that is a total of 27€ for the 45 days, to grow 42 lettuces. That is only 0.64c in power per lettuce. But you are correct, you can certainly optimize it for less power with natural lights. Personally I found that my home grown (Kratky) lettuce was far superior to store bought lettuce, because it was always cut 10min before eating. (and cost almost nothing)
@@AlphrNZ Hello and thanks for answering, here is my logic : There are 42 slots in total (7 per pipe and 14 per floor) Electricity cost in France atm : 0.1740 per kwh Time to harvest : 42-56 days : 49 days Light time per day : 16 hours Power of lights : 3 x 70 watts = 210 w Energy consumption per hour : 0.21 kwh Energy consumption per day : 0.21 x 16 (hours) : 3.36 water cost (250 liters) : 0.75€ : 0.017€ per lettuce nutrient cost (masterblend 1.5 kg. 0.028€ per liter of water) : 7€ : 0.16€ per lettuce investment cost (lights, shelf, pump, pipes, container, etc) : 210€ + 40€ + 15€ + 20€ + 30 = 315€ If we make the assumption that this equipment will have a 3 years life : 315€ / 1095 days : 0.28€ per day (for the entire system) Cost per lettuce (without investment): 28.6€ / 42 days + water + nutrient : 0.84 € Cost per lettuce (with investment): 28.6€ / 42 days + water + nutrient + equipment : 0.84 + 0.32 = 1.16 €
i'm looking for 3 way port manifold that connects to a 16mm PVC pipe like yours, also building an NFT system. The water pump that you have is in AU and I'm in the US therefore I'm using an amazon one. I also wanted to ask if 15mm PVC pipe and BSP fittings are compatible with most water pumps?
Great video. I could make an NFT system but I don’t wanna😏. To save myself time and frustration, I’m just going to buy one and use your great cotton ball method.
Question: I'm using an old fish tank for a reservoir. Would it hurt to have a plecostomus sucker fish in the tank to control algae? Meaning, will the plant nutrients harm the fish? Thanks!
I'm having a hard time finding a rack that works here in Canada... I wonder if there would be any downsides to just using the pipes structurally? So that they're both carrying water as well as bearing all the weight. Would it make it harder to maintain, for example?
👍 I been planning making a similar system after seeing your propagation shelf video using the Bunnings led lights, but I'm going to run the lights vertically on the out side hence giving more room to play with, and fitting shelving better.🥃 Can't wait for video on grow, and comparing the two.
Great idea and suggestions. It is great to see how to use local items to produce food. Do you grow your lettuce to term then pull, or just take cuts and leave to reproduce? Wondering benefits of each.
When you noticed the manifold I hoped you would have realized it would have been better to have zigzagging slopes so that you only needed one water inlet and one water return. Other than that it is a great build.
Great solution. I'm thinking about extending my 100mm PVC NFT system with it. BTW: I'm curious that you put the float valve at the same end of the res as the pump. Wouldn't you want to have the fresh water inlet to be as far away as possible, along with the return inlet, to give it a chance to mix in the res before it gets pumped into the NFT?
Great video, I am going to try this here in Utah and let you know how it goes. Will this work for all types of lettuce? Will the spacing between plants be enough? One other question, what is the gallons per hour that the black manifold for the six lines distributes?
Cut slots into the rim so the legs hold firmly along the sides, drill holes and zip tying the self to the sides if necessary, the tub should be heavy enough if it's full of water? Or in my case, fish!
@@leemo417 well my thought is because the plants need to have water constantly because these particular tubes do not have any reducer end caps to hold the water in the bottom and the way they are tilted to drain from one end to the other and with the very small amount of grow medium(which would normally hold the moisture for the plants) I would think it would need to run 24/7. I believe he made mention that there was no timer put on the pump for that reason. But I could be wrong but I know roots can’t be let to dry out and they will begin to grow a lot more especially if they are searching for water. With the tiny tubes of water input yes I believe it must have to run 24/7. It’s also called an NFT system not a flood and drain, NFT means nutrient film technique which means they are constantly bathed in water without the need of a substrate(grow medium).
Do NFT irrigation tubes ever slow with buildup? If so, could you design and print a tiny paddle or self emptying cup thingy, to fit inside the returns, which would give a visual idea of the current flow in a tube? This would be my lazy way of finding a nutrient tube that will need cleaning soon. (Or is it so simple to pull out and check each tube that this isn't worth the effort?)
The flow will be what you put into the rail, any less and your rail will eventually overflow maybe a float where the water is put into the rail to see how high the level of water the roots are holding.
I always get a big kick out of watching your presentations and builds. But the cost of this system to grow a little lettuce boggles the mind unless it's for commercials purposes, and then it's too small. I gave up on NFT systems 25 years ago because of the inherent pitfalls. Give me my Kratky in 3 or 5 totes for all the lettuce I need.
@@leannekenyoung not the white schedule of pvc. That's for drainage only. Pex is used for your inflow of water because it's approved and not toxic for water. Or if your house is older, copper
@@mattice9083 oh okay I wasn’t sure I knew it was in plumbing didn’t realize it was just for drainage. Isn’t Pex a type of plastic as well? I’ve been using the white pvc for my NFT system for the past four years growing my lettuce and other herbs and leafy greens I’ve also used the storage totes for dwc for tomatoes, sweet peppers and 5 gallon buckets for cucumbers and various other dwc. The 5 gallon buckets are food grade. But I haven’t noticed any degradation in the pvc pipes I’ve been using for my NFT system and I wash them every six months or so. I guess they could be leaching something into the veggies but I don’t know where grocery store veggies are grown and I figure it’s either I grow myself and know that no pesticides or anything has been used and I know who touched them. So I guess I’ll keep taking my chances until something better comes along.
Started working on my own hydroponic greenhouse (Dallas, Texas) after watching your videos (very similar setup to yours). How do you deal with freezing temperatures???
I live about 30 minutes from where he is, and although we get close to freezing, it wouldn’t be very often or for very long. Maybe a couple of weeks at most. With his solid roof and shade cloth sides, it would keep heat in a bit though too.
Señor Hoocho, while watching your videos contemplating a NFT setup, I have wondered down the rabbit hole of food grade plastics while trying to source stock material for NFT channels. Is this a topic you have addressed before on your channel? Many thanks!
You guys eat a lot of salad! I have a small store bought micro garden, and I have radishes growing above the water ! Question I want to start a larger system The local grow place says to use sunblaster 48" , t5 He said it's better than led ? And less expensive Thoughts?
Excellent tutorial. I’m happy that you left the part in where you had to modify your design for the pump tube because you needed that space for the light fixtures. That’ll help people because they may need to modify the design to fit the shelf/components they have. And I hope you’re feeling good as well.
Another excellent tutorial! It still makes me smile when you are unexpectedly impressed with your designs. Thanks for sharing all of the mistakes and corrections with us.
One of the best hydroponic resource channels on the net, hands down! Thanks for all you do and share with us!
Oh my god I quite literally have been trying to figure this out on my own
Great tutorial! We just finished our hydroponics setup thanks to your video and can't wait to watch our greens grow :) No more pulling grass and weeds from the veggie gardens. Thanks Hoocho. A big fan in Brisbane
Hands down the best diy system I’ve seen and I been looking for a good while.
FANTASTIC BUILD!! Is VERY similar to mine although I have my reservoir at the end of the rack and my shelving unit has one additional shelf with a light above which I use for germinating new seedlings. I absolutely can’t wait to see your time lapse with this system! I’ve been growing in one very similar for over 4 years now and my family absolutely LOVES it!! I grow so many different kinds of lettuce and white stem tat-soi and basil. I use it to give my tomato seedlings a start until they get to be a certain size and then I transition them to their own larger tote box to continue growing with of course stronger nutrients. This is absolutely fab! And anyone can do this without the need of any special 3D printing. The only thing I’m wondering about is the 6 manifold split, how easy it is to get and how prone to clogging would it be? What you could have done instead was to start at the top of the first channel and have the water run zig zag between the first pipe to the second pipe on the same shelf and then instead of it returning to the reservoir have it flow next into the pipes below and tilt them in the opposite direction and the tilt can be very slight hardly any at all and water will continue to flow through the path of least resistance. And then at the end of the second shelf pipe have it flow into the third shelf of piping and then that last pipe has the return into the reservoir. There are enough nutrients in the water that when it starts at the top and flow through each pipe each plant will still get what it needs to thrive. It doesn’t require that each pipe has fresh from the reservoir because it’s a recirculating system anyway. Make sense? Also I know you prefer those lights but you can also purchase lights that have one power source and are daisy chained together and that way it’s a lot less power boxes to worry about just one for three lights or even four lights. Monios T5 or T8 warm white lights are perfect and come in 4Ft or 2ft lengths depending on the size of your shelving unit. My unit is 3 ft wide so they stick out 6 inches on each end which is fine because I keep my reservoir off to one end of the shelving unit it makes it accessible for replacing the bottom of the tote with a clean whole new bottom and the only thing I need to do is to stop the pump and pull it out and give it a good scrub and clean the filter area and then pop it back in and the system continues running beautifully. I keep the extra bottom tote box for that and then I can clean it out at my leisure without feeling rushed to get everything back up and running. I live in Canada and I am growing lettuce 365 days a year with my DIY NFT system and it’s absolutely amazing how easy this is to do! I encourage everyone who lives in an apartment to setup a system like this it requires such a small amount of your time or energy and such a small space to grow a lot of food! Each of my pipes have 9 holes and I have the 6 pipes as well so 54 heads of lettuce I can grow at one time but instead of doing that I tend to grow tat-soi in a couple of pipes and I stagger my lettuce growing so I always have new plants entering when one is finished. The hardest part is not germinating too many seedlings at once and then having no where to put them! Lol! So we are building a second entire rack because lettuce in Canada is absurdly expensive right now and we will be able to help out our family and friends! We tend to take cuttings every 7-10 days all around the outside of the plant and leave the Center need growth so nothing gets overly large and that way the lettuce continues to produce for at least two months and as long as it doesn’t get too hot or too much light it doesn’t bolt. It’s been sensational and I absolutely am in love with growing like this. Thank you for your design I sure hope it encourages many others to give it a try! It’s ridiculously easy!! I will be using your video of an example of what can be done. The only change I may make is adding some reducers at the ends of each pipe before it turns into the next pipe and in that way each pipe will always have a certain amount of water in its pipe in case of a power failure. That’s what we’ve done and it’s worked well. It also means that the pipes you use to connect between each reducer is significantly smaller. So not as bulky and it doesn’t require the use of the small black tubing which could be prone to plugging with debris. One way around that would be to put cheesecloth or a paint bag around your pump and then it won’t allow any debris into the pump.
Great comment.
@@Warren15G thank you! I always wonder sometimes if I’m writing comments that anyone will actually take the time to read or not. So glad someone did and let me know. God bless. 🥰❤️🇨🇦🙏🏻
thank you for all of the detail you've provided! I have a couple of questions.
How much water do you allow to back up with the reducer? What diameter are your pipes?
Love the 'learn as you go' of this video
Absolutely awesome. Once again a great idea, excellently presented and explained.
Nice set up. The lamps look great for veg.
Thank you for explaining and showing how you build your projects. I am new to Hydroponic and getting ready to set up a system to grow tomatoes and cucumbers this summer. I am located in the state of Oklahoma USA. By the time I watch all your videos I should be able to convert your metric measurements to inches and feet. Until the next video!!
That size works perfectly, just rotate the Res 90 degrees and then it'll fit underneath, while still being able to be removed and cleaned 👍
I realy love your dwc system!! I am a inndoor grower!! And i follow you on TH-cam all the time!!
Another brilliant tutorial. Thank you!!
Super keen to see how this goes longer term mate with a full grow. I wish we had all the same end piece options for the 100x50 downpipe as that in this setup would but the ultimate indoor setup!
Once I see the outcome of your grow I may make one of these to give it a go anyway
Truly sorry, I've been sick and haven't been able to see my number 1 online. This was great mate, great job BIG DOG!!
Dope..... I love this channel! I just did some lettuce in a Kratky under an SF600
Great work :) I'd be curious to see the difference between growing the plants in this system vs the nft in the greenhouse to see if the grow differs in any way.
I love that you show your fabrication on the fly.
Crazy Good setup. Can't wait to see the results
This is badass hoocho, looking to recreate this do you use anything to seal the pvc or do they just snug seal due to not being under pressure
Nice, but I'd worry about chemicals leaching out of the DWV pipe. It's not certified for potable water, could have much higher cadmium or lead levels than PVC-U or C-PVC?
seems everyone is making this mistake. There are so many types of PVC, some are really nasty stuff.
Awesome! will try it for shure!!
Nice man! That's a really good idea with the manifold. I don't know why I didn't think of it since I watched a lot of your videos before embarking on my own build. I have a 2in pipe 39 head setup, but it's got one hose that's brings it up to the top and drains to the next level ext all on down. I've noticed that as the lettuce matures, it's harder to keep the flow right all the way down for an NFT due to root buildup, it seems, so in a lot of water running thru the pipes. Next build, I think I'm going to move to square pipes and the manifold. The current setup just works so well I haven't wanted to spend the money as I just recouped the setup costs, 4 month ROI ain't bad!!! Root have only become a problem twice, where I woke up to about 3 liters on the floor. Fyi cilantro is not a good idea in such a small pipe, the roots on that thing!!!
Did you know you can cut your roots on your lettuce significantly and then you won’t have that issue? Also I cut all around my lettuce plants every 7-10 days and that’s when I check the roots to see if they have gotten too large and then I significantly chop them off and they keep right on thriving. Anyway I’ve since put a flood type table under my shelving unit as well just in case it ever does flood. But so far I haven’t had the issue and mine runs from the top down with slight tilts, I also have reducers on the ends of each of the pipes as well so each of my pipes hold a bit of water even if the pump were to get kicked off because of a power failure or something. That way they keep thriving and I could be wrong but I also think that’s why the roots tend to not grow too big because they aren’t reaching for water. Just a thought. The other issue I would be worried about that six manifold is it clogging but I don’t know if that would be a problem or not? I don’t use the small tubing because I was concerned with that from the beginning so I just use a tubing much larger and it feeds into the first channel and I control the flow by the pump itself and how high it has to pump up to for the first pipe.
@Leanne KenYoung I thought of the same thing, and I did it to a few things on my test rack. Everything seems to have either shrugged it off completely(sage, dill, basil) or bounced back, but I thought it was going to lose the perpetual spinach for a minute. My other racks were ready for harvest, so I haven't tried it on regular lettuce yet.
@@Gary-uy9mr sorry not sure I know what you mean about shrugged it off? Do you mean everything continued growing okay or they had a slow down in growing and then recovered? Glad you didn’t lose your perpetual spinach! Hey do you have a trick for germinating spinach? I’ve tried New Zealand spinach and all kinds but for the life of me I cannot get it to germinate and I’m purchasing seeds from various reputable companies it’s the only thing I’ve had issues with besides growing strawberries but I don’t give up. Just wondered if there is something special with spinach that is different from other leafy greens? I’m growing all sorts of lettuce so many varieties but not spinach! Also another note when you do cut the roots remember that’s the plants way of getting its nutrition so the plant does go into a period of dormancy growing up to while it puts its energy into growing enough roots to sustain it and then it will recover and grow above just as well as before. The trick is knowing how much to cut off of the roots lettuce has been very easy and I’ve cut two thirds off and same with basil I’ve cut massive amounts of roots off a basil plant that I had growing in a 4litre jug kratky style and I only cut off the leaves and any woody stems and the roots had grown so much that I almost couldn’t pull them out of the jug about 80% of what was in the jug was roots so I cut 2/3 of the roots off and I also removed probably 90% of all the leaves(basically thought I was killing it) then I popped it back into the 4litre jug that I refilled just enough that the remaining roots could touch the nutrient rich water. I had to trim the top like a bonsai plant because it became top heavy even though I had taken most of its leaves, I wrapped foil around the base to hold it in the jug like I do when they are seedlings and would you believe this basil plant survived and kept on producing! I’ve taken soooo many cuttings from it and propagated new plants that I’ve given away. It has tried to bolt on occasion and I just cut the stems of the flowers(I don’t let them open)right back to the main stem a and it just keeps on growing, it’s like my pepper plants that I kept growing for two and a half years and they were producing and incredible amount of peppers they were each 6 ft tall and 4 ft wide when they got root rot(before I could fix it) I lost them both a sweet red and a sweet orange coral pepper they were lunchbox size peppers and I just loved them. I haven’t tried growing any more since then I think I’ve been mourning them. Crazy I know. Anyway I’m ready to try again! I also had an incredible sweet banana pepper plant that produced an incredible amount and grew for a year and a half. I had no clue that these plants would just keep on growing and producing year round!
@Leanne KenYoung shrugged it off is a saying, meaning that it wasn't bothered and showed no signs. The perpetual spinach had a couple of leaves go yellow, I trimmed them after a couple of days, and within a week, I'm getting new healthy growth again.
New Zealand spinach! Yes!!! I just got them to sprout for the first time. I used a paper towel wetted and folded in half in a plastic bag. I had to do this with the perpetual spinach as well, as it doesn't root down fast enough with the rockwool. I have found success this way and am just stuffing them into the rockwool afterward. What I am experimenting with now with the New Zealand spinach is using puffed clay/ceramitite balls 6-8mm in size so they don't fall through the net cups. I'm hoping this works well, rockwool isn't too expensive, but I'd rather have something that can be reused
Another awesome build, thanks for sharing mate.
Nice one man simple an effective
I’m not sure if it matters but you’ll have water backed up in that very bottom 90 going into your rez until it pushes back that original slope of 1 inch every 3 feet so you’ll likely have one inch of water in that 90 degree elbow all the time.
With your out door lettuce grow you mention that thy are doing well do to cool water flow through the nft , would this also slow bolting ? Is it more root temp or something else that is more the driving factor in bolting. Thank you
Do you think it would be possible to build a shelf like this..with the cotton-ball lettuce ...but with a kraky method?
I couldn't see why not. The main concern would be shelf height/distance, due to the need for a res/tray on each level.
I am looking into this as well, because no noisy drips or air pumps (DWC) get's wife approval for indoors lol.
@@AlphrNZ checkout keep on growin’ channel with Mike VanDuzee
Yes check out another channel called keep on growin’ with Mike vanDuzee
I'm going to award you with Nobel prise brilliant
Very cool! Thank you! Very demystifying.
Ey man, you are all I want to be !!! I love how you explain, all your projects your baldness, how I wish I make a 10% you what you are building!!! Let's start!!!
Where can I obtain the hinged container used as the sump? If you are going to say Bunnings please provide a link as I can only find fixed lids on their online store.
Good one!! Can someone tell me the proper name of that multi flow part? can't find it anywhere
6 port irrigation manifold
Is it possible to grow using normal fertilizer, please inform me
I like very much the simplicity of the system, very nice job, I hope it will perform great, this would be very cheap and productive system to build.
I did a quick simulation (I live in France), the 3 lights (16h/day) + the pump (24h/day) would cost around 0,60€ per day electric bill. In our area we find good quality lettuce around 1,30€.
Harvesting of lettuce being around 45 days, the price per lettuce with this system will be around 1€ per head.
So, in my location and for my use case, this would not worth it.
I think I should take advantage of the sunlight, like putting this system in a greenhouse or near the window inside.
Keep up the good work and let me know what you think 😉
How did you come to that number?
If your power is 0.6€ per day, that is a total of 27€ for the 45 days, to grow 42 lettuces. That is only 0.64c in power per lettuce.
But you are correct, you can certainly optimize it for less power with natural lights.
Personally I found that my home grown (Kratky) lettuce was far superior to store bought lettuce, because it was always cut 10min before eating. (and cost almost nothing)
@@AlphrNZ Hello and thanks for answering, here is my logic :
There are 42 slots in total (7 per pipe and 14 per floor)
Electricity cost in France atm : 0.1740 per kwh
Time to harvest : 42-56 days : 49 days
Light time per day : 16 hours
Power of lights : 3 x 70 watts = 210 w
Energy consumption per hour : 0.21 kwh
Energy consumption per day : 0.21 x 16 (hours) : 3.36
water cost (250 liters) : 0.75€ : 0.017€ per lettuce
nutrient cost (masterblend 1.5 kg. 0.028€ per liter of water) : 7€ : 0.16€ per lettuce
investment cost (lights, shelf, pump, pipes, container, etc) : 210€ + 40€ + 15€ + 20€ + 30 = 315€
If we make the assumption that this equipment will have a 3 years life : 315€ / 1095 days : 0.28€ per day (for the entire system)
Cost per lettuce (without investment): 28.6€ / 42 days + water + nutrient : 0.84 €
Cost per lettuce (with investment): 28.6€ / 42 days + water + nutrient + equipment : 0.84 + 0.32 = 1.16 €
@@Bbluenight first run would be at the full cost and all subsequent grows would only be cost of electricity and nutrients.....
Awesome setup! Have you found any issues with the cotton wool breaking down and causing blockages at all?
Great video. How come you did alternate slopes on left to right and right to left on each level? Would that work as well?
Would 8mm tubing work instead of 4mm?? Having trouble finding a 4mm manifold….
Thanks!
primo vid, def gonna give this a go
i'm looking for 3 way port manifold that connects to a 16mm PVC pipe like yours, also building an NFT system. The water pump that you have is in AU and I'm in the US therefore I'm using an amazon one. I also wanted to ask if 15mm PVC pipe and BSP fittings are compatible with most water pumps?
Great video. I could make an NFT system but I don’t wanna😏. To save myself time and frustration, I’m just going to buy one and use your great cotton ball method.
Great content. Thanks for sharing!
is there a reason you didnt zigzag the pipe between the levels so you don't need the manifold?
That is a bold move putting lights under each of your channels. Careful your root mass doesnt flood those bad boys and wreck that whole setup!
Question: I'm using an old fish tank for a reservoir. Would it hurt to have a plecostomus sucker fish in the tank to control algae? Meaning, will the plant nutrients harm the fish? Thanks!
How often will you change the water in this indoor system please? Would it be different outdoor NFT?
What is the name of spectrum sensor that you using?
what is the name of the nozzle for the pipes??
Hi, you forgot to get yourself some freshly made home brewed beer!
I'm having a hard time finding a rack that works here in Canada... I wonder if there would be any downsides to just using the pipes structurally? So that they're both carrying water as well as bearing all the weight.
Would it make it harder to maintain, for example?
Where are those small metal leg wood top workbenches from?
Fantastic vid! Thanks for doing this. I can’t seem to find the sf600 lights - only the sf300. Would the sf300 work just as well? Thanks again!
When you go into the website and choose the SF300, there is an option there for the 600.
Depending on which site you’re going too
@@danboutdoorsOh yes. I see that now. Thanks.
👍 I been planning making a similar system after seeing your propagation shelf video using the Bunnings led lights, but I'm going to run the lights vertically on the out side hence giving more room to play with, and fitting shelving better.🥃
Can't wait for video on grow, and comparing the two.
Great idea and suggestions. It is great to see how to use local items to produce food.
Do you grow your lettuce to term then pull, or just take cuts and leave to reproduce?
Wondering benefits of each.
Interesting video. Like!
I did something very similar, and my pump is not pumping water up to the higher shelves. Do you know what might be the problem?
Pump size
When you noticed the manifold I hoped you would have realized it would have been better to have zigzagging slopes so that you only needed one water inlet and one water return.
Other than that it is a great build.
Great solution. I'm thinking about extending my 100mm PVC NFT system with it.
BTW: I'm curious that you put the float valve at the same end of the res as the pump. Wouldn't you want to have the fresh water inlet to be as far away as possible, along with the return inlet, to give it a chance to mix in the res before it gets pumped into the NFT?
Shouldn't you throw in a filter before the micropiping? They often block for me.
Awesome build, where do you get the manifold from? I'm unable to find one in my area (Switzerland) 😞 Any other ideas to distribute from the pump?
Love it!
love your videos!
How good does the studio lighting look inside the shed!
Always educational. 👍
I really wish I had one of those par sensors.
Hey mate, as always great video. Question are you using the pinnacle or Montgomery shelves?
Is this better than elfsys?
Hi love your videos. So for that DIY system you need 3 of those SF600 spider farms?? Thats 139.99 x 4... YIKES any advice?
Do you really need a grade to it? Seems like even level the water would run over into the junction
wow amazing! is the cotton food safe?
Hey quick question, how much water do the rain gutter grow systems use? I’m sure it’s plant and container dependent but do you have a ballpark figure?
@hoocho someone donated to me 2.5 inches pvc tubing 8 foot long. Is that too small to grow bok choy ?
Great video, I am going to try this here in Utah and let you know how it goes. Will this work for all types of lettuce? Will the spacing between plants be enough? One other question, what is the gallons per hour that the black manifold for the six lines distributes?
Cut slots into the rim so the legs hold firmly along the sides, drill holes and zip tying the self to the sides if necessary, the tub should be heavy enough if it's full of water? Or in my case, fish!
Some nft systems you build you use 1/2” tubing, why?
How often you you water plants in this set up when it is full of plants? And for how long?!?!!???
24/7
@@leannekenyoung you sure? I though it was like a flood and drain system every so often…
@@leemo417 well my thought is because the plants need to have water constantly because these particular tubes do not have any reducer end caps to hold the water in the bottom and the way they are tilted to drain from one end to the other and with the very small amount of grow medium(which would normally hold the moisture for the plants) I would think it would need to run 24/7. I believe he made mention that there was no timer put on the pump for that reason. But I could be wrong but I know roots can’t be let to dry out and they will begin to grow a lot more especially if they are searching for water. With the tiny tubes of water input yes I believe it must have to run 24/7. It’s also called an NFT system not a flood and drain, NFT means nutrient film
technique which means they are constantly bathed in water without the need of a substrate(grow medium).
@@leannekenyoung ok. Thank you for the input!
Do NFT irrigation tubes ever slow with buildup? If so, could you design and print a tiny paddle or self emptying cup thingy, to fit inside the returns, which would give a visual idea of the current flow in a tube? This would be my lazy way of finding a nutrient tube that will need cleaning soon. (Or is it so simple to pull out and check each tube that this isn't worth the effort?)
The flow will be what you put into the rail, any less and your rail will eventually overflow
maybe a float where the water is put into the rail to see how high the level of water the roots are holding.
link for the splitter
I always get a big kick out of watching your presentations and builds. But the cost of this system to grow a little lettuce boggles the mind unless it's for commercials purposes, and then it's too small. I gave up on NFT systems 25 years ago because of the inherent pitfalls. Give me my Kratky in 3 or 5 totes for all the lettuce I need.
beauty setup
What is the diametre of this pipie plz?
Thanks Hoocho
I still don't get these. Isn't pvc terrible for this? In relation to contaminating the water ?
No it’s what’s used to plumb all your water to your house now isn’t it?
@@leannekenyoung not the white schedule of pvc. That's for drainage only. Pex is used for your inflow of water because it's approved and not toxic for water. Or if your house is older, copper
@@mattice9083 oh okay I wasn’t sure I knew it was in plumbing didn’t realize it was just for drainage. Isn’t Pex a type of plastic as well? I’ve been using the white pvc for my NFT system for the past four years growing my lettuce and other herbs and leafy greens I’ve also used the storage totes for dwc for tomatoes, sweet peppers and 5 gallon buckets for cucumbers and various other dwc. The 5 gallon buckets are food grade. But I haven’t noticed any degradation in the pvc pipes I’ve been using for my NFT system and I wash them every six months or so. I guess they could be leaching something into the veggies but I don’t know where grocery store veggies are grown and I figure it’s either I grow myself and know that no pesticides or anything has been used and I know who touched them. So I guess I’ll keep taking my chances until something better comes along.
@@leannekenyoung from what I can tell if you use chlorinated pvc or CPVC that stuff is rated for drinking water viability
@@leannekenyoung pex is bpa and phosphate? Free. So it's safe to use for drinkable water. Which is why it's used in new construction these days
Hiya, when is the update coming?
not sure good idea to have lights underneath the pipes incase of accidental leakage etc although love the design in general
Very nice I bet strawberries 🍓 would work well in it.
Started working on my own hydroponic greenhouse (Dallas, Texas) after watching your videos (very similar setup to yours). How do you deal with freezing temperatures???
I live about 30 minutes from where he is, and although we get close to freezing, it wouldn’t be very often or for very long. Maybe a couple of weeks at most.
With his solid roof and shade cloth sides, it would keep heat in a bit though too.
I don't suppose anybody knows what manifold that is?
I'm having nuts for luck trying to find it
Great video.
hey Mr. Hoocho
waht happend to the wasabi??
very nice content by the way!!
Hey mate, just checking on your affiliate stuff (I need filament) - your link comes up with an error page on eBay.
awesome!
Exelent video.
Señor Hoocho, while watching your videos contemplating a NFT setup, I have wondered down the rabbit hole of food grade plastics while trying to source stock material for NFT channels. Is this a topic you have addressed before on your channel? Many thanks!
That kegland pump is ridiculously cheap compared to the ones you can get at the big hammer shop.
thanks for the vid
Is this system economical?
Is it possible to achieve a financial return from this system?
You guys eat a lot of salad!
I have a small store bought micro garden, and I have radishes growing above the water !
Question
I want to start a larger system
The local grow place says to use sunblaster 48" , t5
He said it's better than led ?
And less expensive
Thoughts?
damn i watched a; your videos, im addicted.