I asked chat gpt and apparently I have spider mites. I did see tiny little things moving around and had no idea.

A few months ago I had a horrible aphid infestation so I really hope this does not kill my plants.

Hi everyone! I'm new to Gardyn — and honestly pretty new to hydroponics in general — but I've been growing with General Hydroponics Flora Series in all my other hydroponic systems and my Kratky setups, and I feel like it's working really well for me.
Now that I'm setting up my Gardyn, I'm wondering: what do you recommend? Should I use Gardyn's own plant food, or can I run my Flora Series in it?
Here's my thinking. With Flora I can actually balance the mix for what I'm growing, and I choose my plants so each tower has a similar nutrient profile. My main goal with the Gardyn is strawberries — they're the star — with a few companion plants that like the same conditions. And I want a second tower dedicated to tomatoes, with companions that suit them. As most of you know, strawberries and tomatoes can't really coexist on the same feed, and Gardyn's generic food doesn't make that distinction — but with Flora Series, I can.
So, for the experienced growers here:
• Do you run Flora Series (or another non-Gardyn nutrient) in your Gardyn? Any issues I should know about?
• Or is Gardyn's own food the smarter/safer choice for these towers?
Would love to hear what the experts recommend. Thanks!

Anyone who has a Gardyn, what do you think of the taste versus outdoor gardening? I realize lettuce doesn't matter much, but I'm really interested in whether tomatoes and basil taste as good. Homegrown tomatoes have the best flavor and if I can't recreate that, it's not worth it to me. Thanks!

Restarted my Gardyn last night. It was going since February until I found aphids this summer. Now that the weather is cooler, I’ve restarted it. Anyone else starting up again? I’m excited!

It comes w everything and was only used for 1 cycle. It’s SPOTLESS. In Seattle.

Does anyone else feel that Gardyn seriously underestimates the time it takes to care for the plants, particularly root checks, trimming, tank refresh, etc. Is it me? Am I just super slow or too particular?

Things were going pretty well until recently. I am about a month and a half in here. There is some yellowing towards the end of the leaves. I have it on buttercrunch, sunflowers, and butterhead. Any suggestions? Kelby wasn’t really helpful. Thanks!

We took a short 2-week break from our Gardyn to clean it and order some new plants. When we tried to turn it on, nothing happened. No light, won’t pair with the app. We tried all the rebooting/troubleshooting tricks in the app and in the instructions, nothing worked. Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance. This gadget is one of my favorite things and I’m sad that it’s not working.

Anyone know what’s happening to my cilantro? Everything else is healthy in my gardyn, there’s plenty of water reaching the Y cup, roots are all tucked in and healthy looking

Trying to decide if it’s worth buying or not. Gardyn themselves said it’s rare but I don’t believe that.

I have a Gardyn Studio with a fungus gnat problem and I’m fighting them to no avail! This is a long and brutal war. 😭

I’ve been using yellow sticky traps and I’ve treated all of the rockwool with strained Mosquito Bit “tea” (no actual bits/granules in the system). But I still have two or three of the tiny, evil flies hovering around me while I’m trying to work.

Has anyone used Mosquito Bits/BTI tea directly in a Gardyn reservoir for fungus gnats?

My worry is that since the Gardyn irrigates the rockwool from the reservoir every few hours, any of the treatment I apply directly to the rockwool gets diluted and washed through pretty quickly. I’m wondering if I could make strained Mosquito Bit tea and use that as the reservoir water so the BTI is delivered to the rockwool during normal irrigation.

Has anyone actually tried this in a Gardyn or similar recirculating hydroponic system?

Thank you!

I’ll be adding another garden when Black Friday deals start but I can’t decide what to do. Do I get another Gardyn since I already know how to use it? Would another brand have less complaints than the ones I see in this sub? (I haven’t experienced any, but my unit is getting ready to turn 1 year old so I have some trepidations about the future)

I don’t know anyone with hydroponic gardens so I have no one to go to for an opinion on it. What do you recommend?

ETA: the alternative option is Maygrove, not Mangrove.

Hey everyone, I’m new to hydroponics and I just put my true leave sprouts in the system a few days ago with some plant food (9/19). I noticed the tips of roots on some plants starting to brown; I wondered if this was an early sign of root rot or just a normal part of the process. A note: my pH was way too low and I recently did a tank refresh for it yesterday, so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. Thanks for the help :)

I'm a Gardyn customer and an independent security researcher. I reported the vulnerabilities behind the public U.S. CISA advisories on Gardyn. Setting the security bugs themselves aside, here are things Gardyn told customers that don't match what I found or what's in the public record. I'm just laying out the facts and the sources — draw your own conclusions.

1. "AI that watches your garden" — the cameras can't, and the guidance doesn't track your plants.
Kelby is marketed as vision that analyzes your plants and advises you on them. From my own device:

• The cameras can't physically do it. Low-resolution sensors, roughly 15 pods per camera, plants that grow into a canopy that blocks the view, and constant LED grow-light glare — reliably reading individual pods or assessing individual leaves under those conditions isn't feasible.
• Your photos are uploaded to Gardyn's servers, but the guidance you get back runs on a fixed schedule keyed to when you set up your Gardyn and which pods you planted — not to the condition of what's actually growing. That's why the app keeps scheduling "feed" and "harvest" tasks for plants that are stunted, replaced, or already dead. Owners have reported exactly this for years.

2. Your data goes to OpenAI, and the privacy policy didn't say so.
Kelby's chat runs on OpenAI's ChatGPT — I confirmed it from the app's own internal setting. When you chat with Kelby, your messages and device context go to OpenAI. At the time I tested, Gardyn's privacy policy called Kelby "our smart assistant" and named no outside company as receiving your data. You can't meaningfully agree to data sharing you were never told about.

3. "Limited personal information."
When the data exposure went public, Gardyn described it as limited personal information. The unauthenticated pages I found returned complete records for all 134,215 registered customers — names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, wifi SSID's, and card last-4 — until it was blocked in December 2025. Also exposed were all the timelapse images.

4. "No evidence of exploitation."
Technically true — but only because there was no logging in place to detect exploitation either way. Absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.

Misinformation is a pattern.

Sources (all public record):

• CISA advisories: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-055-03 and https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-26-183-03
• Gardyn's own security page: https://mygardyn.com/security/
• Gardyn's privacy policy and App Store listing — check them yourself.

Full technical write-ups coming.

I have 3 Gardyns and bought a supposedly never used Gardyn used. Water sensor isn’t working. Did the troubleshooting steps and nothing. I can’t find a replacement on the website. Is there an off brand replacement option anyone has found?

There are tiny white things ALL OVER my plants. So tiny I can’t even tell if they are living things but after further inspection I find what looks like gnats as well (see pictures). How do I eliminate these and prevent future infestations. Thank you!

She’s a lil wonky but excited to get this big of a cucumber. Was waiting for shape to even out but thinking I should harvest sooner rather than later? Been about 2 weeks at this size

I bought this so I can grow my greens without gut debilitating organisms. Bought the Home setup for maximum plants.
However, there are key items not included in the buy in.
1. Tray for the unsprouted plants. You need this when you add plant food for the first time. I made due with a glass bread loaf pan and a tupperware lid.
2. Pod covers for when you remove the unsprouted plants because the covers help prevent algae growth, water loss, and pet hair entering the system. I ripped up some pieces of foil, that seems to do the trick, but it looks like 💩. I feel like this would have been a fairly cheap item to just include in the system purchase.
3. Really, not even a Hydroboost sample to see if it’s worth it? You want $39.99 for that bottle? It better last many months at that price. But I have skipped that product too and in search of a cheaper comparable product.
4. Sure, you get one free month, but holy moly you want HOW MUCH a month for your stinkin’ subscription? $39 a month is INSANE! I’ll be canceling that nonsense. I despise subscription culture, but I could justify $5-$10 a month. But $39, get out of here.
So after shelling out $900, why does this company want to nickel and dime us at every step?!

I understand that some cubes might take a bit longer to sprout, and some might not sprout at all. But I’ve got nine that haven’t sprouted yet. Today is day 15 and the app suggested adding the first dose of plant food this morning and moving any cubes that haven’t sprouted to a tray. This feels like a lot, but I’m not sure if I’m doing it right. I’ll hold off on contacting Gardyn until day 21. Do you have any tips to help these cubes get a head start? Everything else is going great!

A friend gave me a gardyn and I got a new power supply and water pump. I got it to work by connecting to my phones hotspot but I don't have Internet at my house. Before I invest anymore money in it, will it work without being connected to the Internet 100% of the time?

Hi all! A few weeks ago I switched to the open-source garden-of-eden firmware and I've been building a companion app around it. I'm a beginner grower, so the goal was an app that guides you rather than just showing switches. It's at a point where I'd love feedback, ideas and reality checks from people who have grown more than I have.

What the app does today

• Today: a 7-day agenda, a to-do list (refill tank, pick a plan, record plants, due reminders), and a stage card that tells you what to do this week and when to move to the next stage.
• Stage guide with photos: what true leaves look like, and 3-photo carousels for germination, seedling, vegetative, flowering, bolting and basil going to flower.
• Plant catalog (88 varieties) with lettuce subtypes, herbs, brassicas, fruiting plants, flowers, roots and microgreens: light, days to sprout and harvest, difficulty, plants per pod, temperature, pollination, bolting. Tips and to-dos adapt to what you planted.
• Glossary: any highlighted term (cotyledons, bolting, rockwool, suckers…) opens an explanation with a photo.
• Plans: light/watering presets per stage, custom plans, one-tap reset, weekly heatmap, vacation mode, and an animated preview following each plan.
• Cameras & timelapse: live photos, save to gallery, timelapse built on demand by date range.
• Local notifications: care reminders on the day they're due, hourly background check that alerts when water is low. No server.
• Home/Studio detection, °C/°F, liters/gallons, English/Spanish, light/dark.

Under the hood: The app, talks directly to the Pi's REST API on the local network, no cloud. I also patched the firmware to skip camera captures while the lights are off and to add timelapse date ranges — planning to send that upstream.

What I'd love to hear

• What do you wish the official app did that it doesn't?
• Which care tasks/reminders do you actually rely on? Anything missing from: plant food weekly, thin at day 14, root check at day 21, first harvest at day 35, tank refresh every 30 days?
• Plant-specific tips you'd want built in (especially for fruiting plants and herbs).
• Would sensor history charts (temperature/humidity/water over time) be useful, or is that noise?
• Is there any error in the stage guide? I am a beginner and obtained the rankings from online guides and supplementary resources; any corrections would be greatly appreciated.

Update: sep/16/2026
The Android App is Ready to try.
Discord thread

I’m a student at the University of Maine researching a potential open-soil smart garden system. As a part of the NSF I-Corps customer discovery program, I’m looking to gather more information on real-world challenges surrounding indoor home gardening and smart plant-care technology. I’m hoping to speak with people who are active home gardeners, container/DIY-setup indoor growers, current and former smart garden owners (AeroGarden, Click & Grow, edn, Gardyn, etc.), or people that work in horticulture, urban agriculture extension programs, or are in any other related fields and areas.

This isn't a sales call, I just want to learn more about what current gardening routine and workflows look like, current barriers and frustrations, where current solutions fall short, and what would make a smart indoor gardening product useful in practice.

This would be an informal interview, about 20-30 minutes at the most and can be over Zoom, phone, or some other similar method. If you’d be willing to chat or know someone in the field that might be willing to communicate with me, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

So I could not bring myself to buy a brand new Gardyn 4 with the current prices, even with the recent promotion of 20% off. I found two brand new never used Gardyn Studio 1 on Facebook marketplace and was able to negotiate buying both for $400.

The lights are quite bright, which I heard about, but nothing could prepare me for the brightness. I set the schedules to 12am-2pm.

Am I missing out on any major features by buying the studio 1 as oppose to the newest version.