Hi all, have a few questions I am hoping can be answered relatively easily. I have been doing hydroponic gardening for 2 years, last year was pretty good using just a small DWC system and this year I built and Ebb Flow system, which is just not going well at all. lol
1) DWC System Questions...I have a pepper a tomato and a swiss chard plant sharing the same basin, all of the plants are doing exceptionally well, with the tomato being the star grower at just about 5 feet and dripping with blossoms. The chard, as an experiment is doing what chard does.
The pepper on the other hand, started off very slowly however its leaves are getting really big and although it is growing much slower seems to finally be getting somewhere.
My question is this, I use a TDS meter to measure solids in the water and have about 2000ppm so that tells me there is enough nutrient in the water, even after multiple refreshes where I have added no additional nutrients. Is it possible the nutrient solution can become devoid of certain nutrients and heavier in others? And if that is the case what is the recommended timeframe of refreshing the entire basin? Or is that even necessary - just want to make sure I am doing this right. Last year I never refreshed the basin and on many of the peppers there was end-rot.
2) The ebb and flow system is a length of drainage tubing with multiple 2 inch net pots, using LECA as media - nothing and I mean NOTHING takes off in this system. The basin is running at 1800 ppm and I have found that if I do not run the pump 1/hour, the media dries out. Also, on many of the plants I don't see really strong root growth like I do with DWC. I always thought that Ebb/flow would be a much better system and was told that but from my experience thus far it is lacking severely. Everything is operating properly and on a timer, no leaks, etc. So I am really at a loss here for why it is underperforming like it is. Any help would be appreciated.
thank you all.
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