It’s an affordable system, which makes it tempting for beginners, but unfortunately there are a few problems with it which might lead you to get bad results and give up on this wonderful hobby.
The holes are too close together, which will lead to overcrowding, and the angles of the pipes mean the water won’t flow as freely as it should, and the top section will clog up with roots while the bottom levels will not get enough light or nutrient water.
I wish I knew of a good off the shelf system to recommend for you, I don’t, but in my opinion you will likely regret buying this one as it’s not a true NFT system and not a very good design.
theBigDaddio
The top shelf will more than likely block light to the lower ones. As the plants get leafy the bottom will be in total shade. If you were to use indoors with lights you are also going to have issues with the lower layers being limited in the height of the lights
Melodic_Hysteria
You need to position lights in a specific way so each layer gets light —i ziptied a 6 strand light to the middle tubes so they still grew relatively straight, slight to the middle ( I also used mylin reflective sheets to help with angled lighting).
For nutrients, the system is misleading because the bucket isnt big enough below to run water through the system. You need a larger bucket, and you need to run the pump for much longer than typical so that nutrients gets through the system but it isn’t always enough. Leave 1 hole open at the end and beginning of every other tube so you can measure water easier. Because of the size, I split the tube into 1 slighty smaller main top tube, and 2 smaller tubes on each level (so it doesn’t overflow) so that nutrients gets a pickup as it goes through the system from those open holes.
Overcrowding is a major issue, find things that are stubby, or flower small vs say lettuce. If wanting something like lettuce, you can just skip a hole every couple ones. Just remember to cover the holes so dust and other things have less chance of getting in.
Tubes tend to leak. I liked to use the flex seal can spray on the joints as I put them together. It isn’t like abs cement so when you need to clean, you can still give the parts a good twist and crack it open (unlike the cement). Find a drill extend a bit***, and a cleaning brush drill head and it makes the tube cleaning super quick.
With how much water goes through this system, I would recommend a uv light for the reservoir to help reduce algae growth. It doesn’t have an appropriate drain nozzle at the end so you would likely need to customize something to reduce splash and sound (hate running water sounds lol). I grabbed a home Depot bucket/ a Canadian tire under cabinet storage container (low profile when I changed its location). I cut a hole into each lid and dropped the pipe into the hole to reduce sound, and any other issues related to splash.
I personally found it rather difficult to use because it has significant spacing issues and I didn’t figure that out till later – where I could of purchased a different system for a better experience and likely more relevant growth.
Edit: the nutrients issue was also a big issue but was easily remedied by adding additional water way tubes at different levels of the system. It took me a couple cycles to figure out what was wrong by myself when trying to see why some were growing really well while others were not
attemptedgardening
What @mouldysponge said is spot on.
I have a system like it, i had my reservations about it due to it not being a proper nft and it is slowly working alright, but the seller even suggested using every second hole and covering the holes to prevent algae. (My blocks are already full of algae)
I got it because it was cheap and i figured i would modify it in the future to suit my needs.
I never used it the way it was intended due to lack of lighting penetration for lower levels. Heres a pic
I would not recommend for a start, i would recommend a kratky system and if you are really keen to get started at scale, probably building an nft system out of pvc would best suit if you are intent on building an nft system. (Unless you have access to actual nft channels)
5 Comments
It’s an affordable system, which makes it tempting for beginners, but unfortunately there are a few problems with it which might lead you to get bad results and give up on this wonderful hobby.
The holes are too close together, which will lead to overcrowding, and the angles of the pipes mean the water won’t flow as freely as it should, and the top section will clog up with roots while the bottom levels will not get enough light or nutrient water.
I wish I knew of a good off the shelf system to recommend for you, I don’t, but in my opinion you will likely regret buying this one as it’s not a true NFT system and not a very good design.
The top shelf will more than likely block light to the lower ones. As the plants get leafy the bottom will be in total shade. If you were to use indoors with lights you are also going to have issues with the lower layers being limited in the height of the lights
You need to position lights in a specific way so each layer gets light —i ziptied a 6 strand light to the middle tubes so they still grew relatively straight, slight to the middle ( I also used mylin reflective sheets to help with angled lighting).
For nutrients, the system is misleading because the bucket isnt big enough below to run water through the system. You need a larger bucket, and you need to run the pump for much longer than typical so that nutrients gets through the system but it isn’t always enough. Leave 1 hole open at the end and beginning of every other tube so you can measure water easier. Because of the size, I split the tube into 1 slighty smaller main top tube, and 2 smaller tubes on each level (so it doesn’t overflow) so that nutrients gets a pickup as it goes through the system from those open holes.
Overcrowding is a major issue, find things that are stubby, or flower small vs say lettuce. If wanting something like lettuce, you can just skip a hole every couple ones. Just remember to cover the holes so dust and other things have less chance of getting in.
Tubes tend to leak. I liked to use the flex seal can spray on the joints as I put them together. It isn’t like abs cement so when you need to clean, you can still give the parts a good twist and crack it open (unlike the cement). Find a drill extend a bit***, and a cleaning brush drill head and it makes the tube cleaning super quick.
With how much water goes through this system, I would recommend a uv light for the reservoir to help reduce algae growth. It doesn’t have an appropriate drain nozzle at the end so you would likely need to customize something to reduce splash and sound (hate running water sounds lol). I grabbed a home Depot bucket/ a Canadian tire under cabinet storage container (low profile when I changed its location). I cut a hole into each lid and dropped the pipe into the hole to reduce sound, and any other issues related to splash.
I personally found it rather difficult to use because it has significant spacing issues and I didn’t figure that out till later – where I could of purchased a different system for a better experience and likely more relevant growth.
Edit: the nutrients issue was also a big issue but was easily remedied by adding additional water way tubes at different levels of the system. It took me a couple cycles to figure out what was wrong by myself when trying to see why some were growing really well while others were not
What @mouldysponge said is spot on.
I have a system like it, i had my reservations about it due to it not being a proper nft and it is slowly working alright, but the seller even suggested using every second hole and covering the holes to prevent algae. (My blocks are already full of algae)
I got it because it was cheap and i figured i would modify it in the future to suit my needs.
I never used it the way it was intended due to lack of lighting penetration for lower levels. Heres a pic
https://preview.redd.it/uyrwt7estlfd1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2c1781bbf22880b258406b69d38c7226621b250
I would not recommend for a start, i would recommend a kratky system and if you are really keen to get started at scale, probably building an nft system out of pvc would best suit if you are intent on building an nft system. (Unless you have access to actual nft channels)
How much does this cost?