Hey Jason, welcome to the trial and error hydro club);0) Seriously, if you have all the right tools, you can make hydroponic systems cheaply but if you don’t, then simplicity tends to pay dividends. My first NFT system was built on an old 8 ft picnic bench with the pipes hanging off the ends and it worked fine. When it comes to cost savings for you: A wooden / bamboo frame, would be a lot sturdier than the PVC pipe and save you quite a bit on pipe, glue, T’s and elbows. If you put your grow pipes at the right gradient, circa 1:40 or 30 (1 inch drop per 40 or 30 inch length), you could dispense with the end caps completely at both ends: Especially, when as you mentioned, you use a gutter or trough to catch the nutrient solution at the exit end of the grow pipes (and you won’t need the expensive T’s ). Also, given water doesn’t flow up hill, you don’t need end caps at the input end either, so that’s a fair saving. Irrigation pipe plus irrigation pipe fittings make the best, cheapest and easiest feed manifold to get your nutrient solution into the grow pipes and there are lots of vlogs on RU-vid showing this method demonstrated, but if you can’t get hold of the irrigation pipe or fittings, you can always make a manifold similar to the one you have made by drilling holes in the PVC pipe, where you would normally put the T’s and by gluing small sections of a smaller diameter pipe into the holes, hence a saving on T’s; although you will still require an end cap. You’re not making a high pressure system, so as long as you create a water tight fit, the water will flow where you want it to and not force the junction apart. I could go on for ages but hope this helps; by the end of the month those lettuce should be maturing and I look forward to your updates. P.S. It may be worth checking out the RU-vid vlog by Spring Hill Farms “OUR HYDROPONIC LETTUCE HOUSE AND HOW IT ALL WORKS !” as there is a lot of information you may find useful.
Wow thanks Brian for your information and interest. I am waiting to see how the vegetables turn out before I make another system or do anything. At the moment things are going pretty well but I don’t want to speak to soon. I will keep everyone updated as things progress but if it does work then I will probably scale things up. We’ll see.... thanks again
Thanks for the update and nice to hear the development of your thinking, looks good now. The economics in Thailand means making a profit very difficult. I plan to fund the setup cost myself, then the family can make a little business, better than living on handouts. It also keeps us all in fresh veggies.
Paul White Yeah there not much to be made but it’s fun learning along the way. I like your teach a man to fish attitude with the family. Hopefully you’ll get so lovely fresh food to eat as well.
Did you add nutrients to the water. Good luck with this. I did the Dutch bucket system, my greenhouse plastic deteriorated within a year and let’s water in now which dilute the water in the buckets and over flows the system so I’m making the greenhouse into a net house. Keeps you busy well done.
Retired and Living the dream We’ve got stuff that’s marked A and B and I’ve been adding them quite regularly. I know that if they don’t get enough the leaves will start changing colour. Things are going well. I’ll show everyone soon... thanks for your comment
Looks much stronger now, as for the return drainage i would use end caps & put elbows 1/2" from the base dropping into 1 pipe across then returning to the sump tank, to increase your yield you can double deck it or X 3 decks just make sure the pump can push the water that high good luck waiting on Pt 3
gary ash I have seen people with double deck systems - growing kale as well. It’s definitely an idea for the future. For the moment I just want to see if the conditions are right for growing. Thanks for the suggestions and advise.
Hi Jason, really looking good. I know you say about the cost of the setup and obviously limited profit, but still great having your own veg without any chemicals. ATB
Neal Hawksbee Thanks Neal. It’s been fun putting it together and there definitely a great sense of achievement when it’s actually working (don’t speak too soon!) and the plants are growing. I’ve learnt a new skill and you never know I might find a way of making some money out of it...
Thanks for this. Just subbed. I’m interested in doing similar in Thailand. Do you ever have to worry about the reservoir water getting too hot? Wheres the best place to source nutriants, ppm meters etc? ,Keep the hydro vids coming
Glen Robertson TV Thanks Glen. So when the water gets a bit hot 🥵 I have been putting in 2ls bottles of frozen water. Still in the bottle. The ppm reading is something we can check but don’t at all! We have a reader but everything has been growing ok so we have left it how it is. (I think it was around 500 to begin with. We got the nutrients on line but you can get them in lots of farming or seed selling stores.
Great job mate,looks complicated and like you done it before even though a protortype,you keeping it at the front now? Look forward to the next stage 🙏
Thailand Nick Thanks Nick. Hows Pattaya? I almost started heading that way the other day. Had a bit of a Barney with my misses!! Haha. Everything seems pretty dead at the moment. No atmosphere when you’re the only person in a bar. It’s all going pretty good so far. 🤞It all continues and we get something that we can either sell or eat. I think we’re about 2 weeks away at least.
@@jasemate2010 its still like a ghost town and although the baht is up to 40 today and hope it rises that news reports sudjest tourists wont be allowed in until atleast end of the year if that,i dont go to pattaya much at mo no point realy,plus i split with the misses cos she got fucking greedy and as money was low over the period she booted me out so i must confess im actualy back in the uk at mo but got some good friends i borrow footage from,cant wait to get back out.had to come home to see my mother whos not in a good way also 🙏
Chiang Mai Thai Video Vlog Jacque the house is finished and I will get round to finishing off that video series. I just wanted to put these out coz I didn’t want to get behind on these as well. When are you coming back to Thailand?
It's good there is a sequel on the house build and the series is not over yet. I am planning to come back to Thailand in September, if the conditions are lifted.
So we have a few places that would buy from us at the market prices so we could get double what I was talking about in the video. One girl goes through 5 kilos of kale a day. that type of thing. we'll see...at the moment I'm just playing with it and having fun learning something new and watching the plants grow.
limbo I have looked at doing this. Especially with the chilli tree which we had 6,000 of before. We had problems with disease, viruses, insects and caterpillars as well as too many weeds growing around them. Hence why I thought about going hydroponic. With the Dutch bucket in Thailand might have to keep an eye on the buckets costing more that you’d make from what you grew in it haha
Dave, Ive got to agree with you, its definitely looking that way. We are growing some celery which is a better price in the market so that might be something that is a money spinner. At the moment I'm enjoying watching the plants grow and learning another skill.
Looking to do the same nft build, curous about how your are delivering the water to each rail, could briefly see it in your video, looked like T's with caps on them and a hole drilled. Also, you might want to elevate the end where the water enters the rail so that the water travels faster. 2 liters/minute is optimal.
