Anyone else into hydroponics?

[large_ghostman]

Just wondered if anyone else was into hydro growing, i have a lazy system heavily controlled by micros etc but i do love the speed of growth and the fine control of all parameters you can get.

 

[SPDCHK]

I moved into a new house and my plan is to start soon with either hydro- or aquaponics. I plan on draining my pool and then converting it into a greenhouse with a floating grow bed system. And yes, I am planning to automate the crap out of it all
South Africa is a dry country, so I had to make provision to harvest rain water. Unfortunately 12,500l water tanks will not last me the whole winter season. That's where the pool water will come in handy. (It's only a pool filled with rainwater. No chemicals added and the pool is covered with a thick plastic sheet to keep sunlight out. Prevents both evaporation and algae from growing)

 

[large_ghostman]

aquaponic system with a final leaching bed (UV after for the bugs) would prevent algae and provide nutrients . Run different systems but the floating bed stye works well for stuff like lettuce, strawberries seem to prefer flood and drain, tomatoes love DWC, alot of the other stuff is best with 50/50 continuous flow, drip fed from above and humidity control around the roots.

Growth rates are fantastic if you inject and disssolve CO2 directly into the water, you can get charts based on water hardness and PH, these give a very accurate way to keep your CO2 in the sweet spot. For automation take a look at silicon labs light sensors, they do a range of them mainly i2c bus, one has a UV index as well, i use those for bacteria control with UV lights and general light levels. The other types are great for gesture control of pumps etc as you can control things with hand gestures