Building an Inexpensive Hydroponics/Aeroponics System

- Now Stephan, you were here before talking about

hydroponics

and hydroponic

system

s. So why do

hydroponics

anyway? - Let's say you don't actually have the space to have a garden. Hydroponics is a great thing that you can have in your home, set your own climate and start growing, even during the winter. During the winter months, during the fall, you can grow it with hydroponics all year round. - Sounds good to me. I think we could do that. Now what about

building

the hydroponic

system

? - It's pretty simple. Some parts, cheap and something that can really be put together in an hour or two. - Okay, Scott, how do we start setting up a hydroponic system?

Do you want to talk about some of the pieces we have here? - Yes absolutely. The first step is to make sure we have all the pieces and that everything is in order. The first thing we will need is some type of storage bag. Preferably something a little more durable like this black and yellow bag, so that as you move around the hydroponic system, it doesn't break down over time and doesn't get worn down by outside lights or whatever. And also some of the smaller pieces, like some neck cups and neoprene, things that actually house the plant.

Then, of course, the PVC parts. We have 10 feet of tubing that will roughly make a bag, generally a little more than 10 feet is needed. A few elbows and some Ts. And that's just to make the actual frame of the spray system inside the bag. - Very good, do you want to start

building

the system for us? - Yes, absolutely, let's get to work, man. - Let's get it going. - Can you pass me the tape measure, Stephan? Alright, the first step is to open the bag and take some measurements of the inside. That way we can go ahead and start measuring and cutting our PVC. - I'll take that. - Thank you.

A good way to start will be to measure the width. And how you want to do this, you just want to go, what the PVC frame will do is sit, recessed about two inches. We will go down about five centimeters. It looks like we'll be about 16 and a half wide. We'll go ahead and take the length measurement as well. Why don't you come right there? Approximately 26 and three-quarter inches. That will be the good base. What makes up the bag is PVC. The way that frame works is we have elbows on each side or each corner, then we'll have T's at the bottom and then in the middle we have the downspout for our water pump.

So that will look something like this. These few pieces will then be for the pump and will be bolted to the pump. That's the basic design of how it will work. The first step will be to cut the pieces of PVC that will fit between these Ts. What we're going to do, it looks like for 16 and a half inches, we'll need about a four and a quarter inch PVC pipe to fit between each of these. And we will start cutting. Do you want to make some cuts, Chris? - Can I try. - Excellent. What we will do is take this piece of PVC and we will start measuring.

We'll make four and it looks like a fourth. If you want to leave a mark there, Chris. - (Chris) Absolutely. - We'll do six of these. And that's the beginning of the bag. What we want to do before we make all six is ​​make one side of the bag. We'll go ahead and check it with the bore just to make sure we're on the right track. Since we're not going to use any PVC glue, we're going to go ahead and squish them real quick. That way everything looks nice and comfortable. Do you want to check it and make sure it fits, Stephan?

You want a slightly snug fit just because things aren't stuck together. That way it doesn't come out. I'll go ahead and do it one more time. Those are our goals fulfilled. The next thing we will do is measure the interior. We'll make these 12 inch pieces and we'll make four of these. One of the main reasons we use these cutters like we do instead of a saw or whatever is that when you cut PVC like that, it turns into a fine powder. That is the bane of any hydroponic system. And it's really just a few simple pieces and the bag starts to come together on its own.

Now we are going to cut two 25 inch sections for the outside. Go ahead and put this on. So what we're going to do now is build the lower stem of the pump. That consists of a T, and this will sit in the middle like this, and it will just serve as a stem down. And then we'll cut a few pieces to hook all of this together. We are going to make one and three quarter inch pieces. We'll make two of those to fit inside this. So it fits comfortably there. There is a bezel on the inside of each of the fittings and it measures three-quarters of an inch. - That way your pipe slides in and stops. - Put that there. - Let's be realistic. - Now let's check it.

It seems like it's a bit long. Like I said, each bag will be a little different. Let's start with half an inch, so as not to take off too much. Check it out. That's what we want. You want it to be a little snug there, so it doesn't move around or anything like that. That is the basis of the spray frame. Our next step will be to mark our holes and then thread and die cut them. - For our sprayers. - We'll have three sprayers on each end and then this long end will have three. So we'll have two in each of these.

We have two different types of sprayers that go into these containers. We have 180 degrees and you can see they have a 180 degree spray plane. That way you won't hit the back of the bag or cause any splashes that could cause it to leak. - (Stephan) These will go on the outside... These will go on the outside end, spraying inward. - (Scott) We have a 330 degree angle. It has two spray directions instead of just the 180. That way you can get both sides. Those will go on each of these. What we find in these is that we can have such prolific root growth that the roots will become so dense that they create dry pockets inside.

So you have to have a lot of these, just to get around all those nooks and turns. It doesn't have to be perfect. All you really want to do is try to center them as much as possible. We'll put one there, one there. We'll go ahead and repeat this for all of them. You can try to clarify them as much as possible, but it's not a big deal. These will be our tools to make the sprayers. This is just a normal drill bit. It will be 10/24 tap and dice. What we're going to do is take this and drill each of these holes.

Once we're done, we're going to clean them all up and come back with the die and that's how we're going to accomplish the spray. One thing I would like to warn people about is that when you are drilling the holes, make sure you drill them as straight up and down as possible because if you don't, sometimes the sprayers will tend to leak. - Okay, now that we have all the holes, we can start putting the threads in. - When you do this, you'll want to put the drill on the lowest setting, so you don't shred the thread.

Lower it a little. Again, up and down as straight as possible. Just go easy on it. That's basically how this works. This bit will be tight at first, but at the tip it will start to cut into the hole, just to help increase the diameter a little, then the threads will start to take over afterwards. that. When you pick it up again, you just want to let the drill carry itself, because if you pull too hard, you'll mess up the threads. You don't have to go too far. Maybe just a quarter of an inch on the PVC.

Just enough to get the threads. Again, when you go out, do it slowly. Make sure you try to clean out all this little debris, because if you get it in there, it tends to clog these sprayers and then you'll have fun. - (Chris) Alright, is that the last hole? - Last hole. Now all we have to do is clean it and put those sprays on it and then we can start cutting the bag. - Be forceful with it. - Yes. Make sure you arrange everything so it doesn't get mixed up. You can see the rubble inside.

All we want to do is take the bamboo and knock it down so it doesn't inhibit the system later. - (Stephan) A little bit came out of there. - Good to go. Yes cool. - Now we put it back together. - Indeed. - Let's install the sprinklers. - We'll put these 180 degrees on the outside, so there won't be any splash guard when we put them in the bag. Most of these parts are fairly

inexpensive

at your local hydroponic store. Sprayers cost 30 cents. Neck cups and wetsuits also cost 25 to 30 cents each. Now what we are going to do is measure the downpipe that connects the pump to the sprinkler manifold.

How we're going to do that is just sit here as it would naturally look. About five centimeters lower. Then we'll get the bomb. Put that bad boy right there. Do you want to come help us, Chris? - Yes. - Fresh. Do you want to measure it for me? Measure from the bottom to the top of the pump. - Right there, okay. - Seven and a quarter inches. We got seven and a quarter inches, and we have to account for that three-quarter inch difference on each of these sides. What we're going to do to account for those differences is subtract two and a half quarters from this.

What we're going to do with this, let me look at you one more time, we're just going to cut them into two pieces, one a little bit bigger than the other. The smaller piece will serve as the piece that actually stays connected to the pump, which is why we have this half-inch coupling here. We then screw our half inch adapter onto this, and this will be what connects to the pump. That fits there. - That way, it will be perfect when we have this on us. - And it makes unplugging pretty easy. - So you can take it out. - We can put it inside and see where it is. - Indeed.

You can see it bulges a little bit, so what we're going to do is take a half inch off of this bottom stem, so we can go ahead and give it a nice little flat, because this is what the sprinkler manifold doubles up on and also serves as support for the crowns when large, ripe plants and fruits are obtained. And that is the complete spray collector. We have two crowns of different sizes for the drain and plug hole. The plug hole is one inch. Try to get it as close to the top as you can. You can even come in here and tilt it up a little bit.

Begin. Then level it. What we're going to do is make a hole right here, as close to the bottom as we can. We don't want to get too close to this lip, otherwise we won't have a good seal. What we will do is reach the halfway point. So we want to make sure we clear up all these little issues. - Yeah, little failures and stuff. - And then sometimes it can be a little complicated to get into. This is a half inch grommet, and what it does is create a tight seal between the elbow and the actual body of the bag.

That way we won't have any leaks. Alright, that will be your drain. We will hook our 10 inch drain up to the elbow and then place the elbow into the grommet. Alright. Lower it a little. And you bring it until you place it against the barrier right there. And that's your finished drain. What we do with the drain is turn it like this and let it drain naturally. So our next step will be to cut holes in the top of the bag to house our neck cups. If you could, would you pass me our cheat sheet? - I will definitely do that.

I like cheat sheets. - Me too. As you can see, this specific bag has 12 neck cups, or 12 places for each of the neck cups. Come in here and cut each one. We only use them as guides. Then we can start drilling our holes. - It's a good idea to have someone hold it. - Alright, now that we've drilled our holes, the next thing we want to do is clean all the debris out of the holes and then we'll be ready to put in some water and make sure everything is airtight. Now that we have everything done for the container, we cut off the top of the container, build the PVC collector, and attach some PVC to the pump.

Now is the time to put it all together. Our first step now will be to fill the container with some water. Stephan, if you want to grab that other cube. - We have water. - How much do we need to fill it? - You need about 10 gallons of water to get proper pressure in the sprinkler head. Alright. You want to grab the bomb and let's load it. I will leave you. Pull the cable out of the cable hole on the back. Feed it there. Connect the PVC collector, you should be ready. - Slide it in. - (Chris) Now we have power.

Check it out. - Looks like we need to turn it up a bit. With the diaphragm. - (Chris) Good. - The bag is waterproof. As you can see, nothing is coming out of the cable hole. Then everything is ready to start. All we do now is put the lid on and we can put some neck cups and some plants on it. That's a bag. And our next step is going to be putting the neck cups in there. Each one takes 12. - (Chris) What do these do? - These really support the plant. Basically, this is what we are going to plant.

These will be our neoprene collars. This is actually what supports the plant, rather than other alternatives, like expanding clay, vermiculite, perlite, or whatever. Now that we have everything configured, our next step will be to putsome plants. - Let's put the plants there. - I actually brought some plants. - Can you tell us what you brought? - Absolutely. On this side we have some San Marzano tomatoes. Here we will have cinnamon basil and then Thai basil. And another San Marzano tomato. Some Genoese basil. Sugar baby watermelon, a nice purple pepper and a cucumber. The only thing we will do to plant them is simply leave them there.

Maybe I'll take this off. We will place it in the neck cup. - (Chris) Before we do this, can you tell us what you have here? - Okay, yeah. - At the bottom of your tomato plant. - This is going to be rock wool. It is a hydroponic planting material. It is simply molten rock spun like fiberglass. It's nothing crazy, it's going to remain inert. It will not have tendencies to raise or lower the pH. It's just good stuff. As you can see, our clones already have some roots coming out of the bottom. These are already mature plants and are ready to be transplanted.

Place the neoprene around the plant. Neoprenes are a soft material, so they will not damage the plant at all or pinch the stem. And there you have it. It is important to note that the limitations of this system in terms of plants will be tubers like potatoes and onions and things like that. Anything that grows above the surface, like tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, bell peppers, anything like that will grow quite prolifically. - What about that? - That's the bag. That's it, very simple, there is not much there. - It definitely looks good. Friends, appreciate the demonstration. - No problem, thanks for inviting us. - Thanks for being here.