HelpfulGardener.com

Hi there. I'm new to hydroponics and having an issue with my NFT system that I just can't seem to figure out. As you'll see, I've used irrigation line from a 30-gallon nutrient tank, powered by a 500gph pump, to move water to the top of two pipes. The problem is this: One side flows really well, but the other side is intermittent at best, and dry at worst. I've tried a few different configurations - this is my latest.

I've done some reading and it seems like the answer might be to add in a way to divert overflow right back into the nutrient tank, but any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

My thought is that your problem is air in the line. So when your pump turns itself off all the water drains back down. This adds air to the line. So when the pump turns it on it pushes the air out but it only pushes it out as far as it needs to. if one side is slightly higher than the other it can trap an air bubble in there and all the water is coming out the other end and doesn't need to push the air out the second pipe.You can test this theory by stopping up the pipe that flows and once you get a good solid flow out of the second pipe let go and see if they both continue to flow. If they do continue to flow air is most likely your problem. If they don't continue to flow and it returns to your original problem then something else's issue. If air is your problem you can fix it by adding an upline and it that feeds directly into one of the pipes as well. this will allow air to push upward in the pressure of the water to go out both pipes but if it did happen to pump all of the air out it would also allow the water to flow back into a pipe and not flood your house. I definitely ran into a pressure problem due to air and I had to work some things around and I finally figured out that a vertical is better than a horizontal when feeding multiple lines. You could also try rotating your pipe so that your feet is at the bottom of your pipe so that the air can be above it and the water would be below and then push directly out into your NFT system.

I just saw your pictures, and another thing I would consider is making your feed line a tee rather than a loop. Every one of those '90s are decreasing your pressure. If you used a simple tee design it would reduce that loss. You could bring the lines straight up the middle and tea across the top allow the pipe to hold up the feed. You could drill a couple of holes just larger than your your tap lines and drop them down from the bottom of your feed directly into the flow pipe everything would hold itself in place and slightly reduce the workload of the pump.

The pics are confusing me. but from what I can see, your pipes look level. I would think a feed at the high end then the low point would be back to the supply tank.





This is used to adjust the depth of the water,
Young Plants.


Larger plants