Hydroponics System Completed, killed my seedlings….
4:16 am in Completed Window Farms, Getting Started, Plants, posts with pitcures!, Starting Seeds by Hardware Junkie
I figured I would post an update with my window farms project. I’ve had some fun building it, now I just have to get the plants to survive!
http://www.addictiveprojects.com – My blog on how the project is going.
So the pics above show the mostly completed windowfarm, using a 5 gallon bucket and submersible water pump to get water to the top. The part you don’t see is the overflow on the farm left, covered by the curtain. Its so the top part doesn’t overflow and ruin the carpet.
I transplanted the lettuce, they are a bit young but I hope they survive. They did reach the second set of leaves. The tomatoes are pretty much dead. I am trying to save the best 3 of the 24 planted. Honestly not sure what happened because they were doing so well. Thinking maybe the humidity from the plastic dome killed them. Its off now, hoping something might come back.
I also plan to pick up some lights on Thursday for the farm.
I think the tomatoes died from damping off, (a fungal infection from to much humidity) from having examined the pictures that the original poster shared with me (his GF) but does anyone else have an opinion or idea on what might of happened?
Transplanting is always hard on plants. You would likely have better results if you start the seeds in rock wool cubes, and then just put the cube on top of you pellet filled net pot. Removing all the soil will damage the roots, which is very hard on seedlings.
So sorry to hear your seedlings didn’t make it. A few thoughts:
1) like owen says, it’s a good idea to start off windowfarms seedlings in some kind of a pellet or growcube. You can transplant big dirt plants but little seedlings roots are just too delicate. I like root riot composted tree bark plugs.
2) those seedlings still look a little young to put into your windowfarm. you really want to give them a ton of light at that stage. consider putting your next batch under a fluorescent for up to 18 hours a day when they reach that size. When they are about half again that big, put them in the windowfarm.
3) We have had problems when the plant itself is centered right underneath the dripping from the bottles above. It bruises the stems and leaves of big plants and completely crushes lil baby plants. Think chinese water torture. Try to see if you can place your next batch off center and up front near the hole in the bottle they will be growing out of toward the light.
4) Plant way more seedlings than you need in your windowfarm. I usually plant 4 times as many plugs as I intend to use. There are lots of things that can go wrong with seeds as they germinate. You want to be able to pick out only the most robust seedlings for use in you wf.
Good luck!!
PS. Your system looks rad! i love how you incorporated the plants into the bottom reservoir.
Watch that bottom row as the plants grow. I’m a little concerned you may get root rot with them sitting directly in the water and nutrients a lot, but if not that would be really cool. Maybe pick some water loving plants for those spots, like watercress (?).
The humidity should actually be good for your plants at this stage.
Tomatoes have different ph requirements than other plants, making them a little trickier especially when they are young. If you are excited about growing the whole mix, I would suggest maybe building a little airlift system so you have a separate reservoir for the tomato nutrients.
Congrats on your building! I’ve had similar problems with seedlings, it’s very disappointing. A gardener told me to wait until they have their “real” leaves before moving them to another pot. I hope it works for you.
Looks great! I have two thoughts on seedling deaths:
Plants in the domes: it looks like the domes are completely sealed so they’re air tight. Plants need CO2 to breathe, so if the domes are completely air tight, they’ll suffocate. Possible solution: poke air holes in the bottles.
Plants in reservoir: I agree with britta on this. If the roots are sitting in water, they’ll rot. As with the sealed bottles, this is also essentially a problem of suffocation since roots need to breathe, too. Possible solution 1: maintain reservoir water level only partway up the root ball to ensure that the plant’s roots get air (this may take some experimentation – I’d start with halfway up the rootball, then raise the level if they’re wilting, or lower the level if they’re showing signs of drowning). Possible solution 2: install airstones beneath each plant to bubble air up to the roots – air stones and pumps are available in the aquarium section of your local pet store.
Yeah I am thinking the rockwool or some similar medium is a good way to go. The plants were very very flimsy. It was like trying to handle angel hair pasta without breaking it.
Maybe someone a lot more familiar with plants would be able to do it, but I am really novice.
If you let them get bigger they can take a little more abuse, as they have more roots, you can kill some and they will make it. But still even the most experienced person will do best by seeding into something that you can put in the hydro system.
I am also admiring the plants in the bottom of your setup. I’ve been thinking of making mine with a DWC (deep water culture) set up in the water holding tank for one or two larger plants.
I gave up on the tomatoes and replanted some new stuff. I completely killed those.
Spent an hour talking to the guy who owns the hydroponics store near me and got some good info. I picked up some bulk Rockwool and have replanted some seeds. We’ll see how it goes.
The bottom part of my setup is on a slant so they get water from overflow and drip from the bottles. I actually have a 5 gallon bucket for my reservoir. The pump is quieter under water and the bucket works better for swapping out nutrient fluid.
DWC system could work but you’d have to make sure the roots stayed away from the pump.
Maybe you don’t need to transplant them? I started with pea seeds directly in the window farm, I put them in bit of coco coir surrounded by the clay pellets. I did this last week, they didn’t do much for the first couple of days but now they are about 2 inches high and look very healthy.