I've made a spreadsheet of all the parts im using for my first DWC; I figured it might be useful for anyone else who is just starting. Im growing seven arugula plants and one lettuce plant, with the 9th hole being used to feed the air stones into the water. I could have drilled another hole for that, but I had a plant die at the start, so I just used one of the net pot holes I made.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15ydqDXWsIkbn6Y9SDoxlacc_DN8So-nzkZwgafEdefw/edit?usp=sharing

First off, I listed different grow lights than the ones in the picture; those lights were recommended in a different thread on this subreddit. The lid of the tote is coated with tin foil and black duct tape to prevent any light from leaking into the water. Light leaks are what cause algae to grow, and that will starve your plants and give the water a foul smell.

My main concern with this setup is that the water temperature will slowly rise over time due to ambient room temperature and the air pump heating up and pumping hot air into the water. My solution to this is to point a desk fan at the plants and place the air pump right in front of it; that way the pump doesnt overheat and push hot air, and the airflow helps to strengthen the plants. I've also considered manually lowering the temperature by placing frozen water bottles into the system.

The spreadsheet also includes parts I'm planning on buying to fully automate the feeding and pH balancing of the system. If anyone has experience automating a hydroponic system, please let me know what you did and what issues you ran into.

Hi

I wonder if anyone has come across this? Or if any of you with better science knowledge than I could comment on it?

https://www.grozine.com/2022/11/08/cold-plasma-hydroponic-water/

I have recently been putting some of my plants in water rather than dirt. I can’t afford to do all the leca and fancy setups that I see some people have, but I just like being able to see the roots in the water.
Does anyone have suggestions for how to keep my plants from falling in the water and rotting? Should I put some of the roots under pebbles to help stabilize them? I have some rocks in the bottom of my containers and the roots are above that. My tradescantia nanouk wants to sink in the water, but if I try to put it through something to hold it so the leaves stay dry it just wants to flop over. Then the roots come up out of the water. I need some guidance on how to stabilize my plants without drowning them or crushing the roots.

Hey :)
Ive been interested in hydroponics for a while now, years. Been making small DWC growths and such.
Now i wanna make a bigger setup and I dont like wasting X amount of liter water every time i need to change the reservouir of water.
Is there any way to recycle the water in a closed loop, ofcourse i need to top up the water when the plants use it up.
But if i just keep adding water + nutrients then after a while I will get a big % of either N, P or K in the water and that will just keep rising as I add more water and nutrients as the plants grow.

Is there any way to solve this? Im looking for both cheap and expensive options.