Hydroponics, the process of growing plants without the use of soil, is an art that many people are not familiar with though those who have heard of it would be interested to know the secrets of hydroponics setup. This sounds difficult because of the technical nature of the subject but it can be done easily with proper guidance, tools and information.
There are many hydroponics systems that you can choose from. You can choose from wick, ebb and flow, water culture, drip, NFT or Nutrient Film Technique or Aeroponic. All of these may sound very technical but let me present the differences in these systems.
The simplest system, called the wick does not have moving parts and automation processes. Like the wick of a candle, the nutrients are passed to the reservoir. This is not effective for bigger plants because the wick may not be able to cope with speed of the consumption of the nutrients.
The ebb and flow system works with a timed flooding of the tray with the nutrient solution and after some defined time, the tray will be drained. This is made possible with a pump connected to a timer that triggers the flooding and draining process.
With the water culture hydroponics system, the platform where the plants are placed floats on the solution. The nutrient is fed to the plants through the air pump that bubbles it to the roots. Lettuce effectively grows using this setup.
Drip hydroponics setup, as the name implies, uses a timer to pump the nutrient and drip to the base of the plants using a drip line.
A bit similar to drip, NFT systems involve a constant supply of nutrient solution through a pump and drains back to the reservoir.
Lastly, aeroponic system involves an automated and timed misting process to the roots of the plants. The nutrients are directly fed to the plants through the mist nozzles and are done in short intervals.
With your knowledge of the different hydroponics systems, you can only identify the best setup depending on what resources are available with you. If you want a passive setup, the best and the only choice is a wick. For an active setup, the best is the aeroponic system because with the technology that it uses, the accuracy of nutrients and timing can assure better growth of plants. However, the drawback is its cost and the drying of roots when interruptions occur.