Ebb and Flow (also referred to as Flood and Drain)
In this most common system of hydroponics, plants are placed in a growth tray over a nutrient container, and a pump is utilized to “flood” the tray(s) with the nutrient solution. The good thing about this system is that those that aren’t absorbed by the roots are drained into the reservoir and are recycled. The Drip System, where a pump continuously drips nutrient solution into the growth tray, is a variation of this System.

Nutrient Film Technique (NFT)
Here, the roots of the plants are suspended in a constant “film” of nutrient solution; a pump sends this flow into one end of the tray, and empties it out to the other end into the reservoir. This system is great at nourishing roots but this is also seen as too technical and high-maintenance since the roots are not anchored in a medium.

The Water Culture System
The oldest hydroponic systems, and one of the simplest, a platform of planters simply floats in the nutrient reservoir while the plant roots dangle in the solution. To oxygenate the system, often, an air pump is utilized. The Water Culture System is definitely an easy and inexpensive way to start a hobby in hydroponic gardening.

The Wick System
This is one of the few methods that does not use a pump. A wick (such as an oil lamp wick or candle wick) simply draws the nutrient solution from the reservoir to the growth tray, where the plant roots absorb it. This more passive system is low-maintenance, but it can sometimes over-soak the roots, making for a smaller yield.

Aeroponics
This is perhaps the most effective, and the most technical of the hydroponic systems. The plant roots have no anchor or medium; exposed to the air, they’re continually sprayed with a vapor-mist of solution, making way for quick absorption and lots of oxygenation. When done correctly, this method can generate large, quick-growing plants and lots of fruit.

These hydroponic systems are proven methods of growing plants without soil. As you can observe, some are more complicated than others, and some more efficient. Choosing the method for you primarily depends on your time, budget and overall needs.

Among the most common misconceptions is that hydroponic gardens are essentially used to grow certain controlled substances in secret growing rooms. Internet searches about hydroponics often reinforce the idea that hydroponics and illegal activity are connected. This can be explained by the fact that those who are holding those pieces of information know how to use the Internet and not because every hydroponic garden is not legal. In fact, illegal growing comprises a very small percentage of hydroponic gardening in general. Many plants and vegetables do very well in hydroponic environments, and there are many good, honest gardeners using hydroponics to do just that. For example, in Canada and Holland, farmers are making use of hydroponics to grow food on a larger scale. Thus, saying that hydroponics is bad because of its connection to illegal substances is the same as suggesting that soil is bad. In other words, farming, whatever the method, is still farming – and hydroponics is just one of the alternatives.

Another misconception is that hydroponic gardening is artificial and unnatural simply because it circumvents the need for soil. The truth is, there are no genetic or chemical manipulations in hydroponics, and no natural processes are disrupted. All the normal ingredients for growing things in nature are supplied to the plants just the same as if they’re planted in soil: light, water, nutrients, and an anchor for the roots. It’s just that soil, which acts as a medium for all of these ingredients except light, is replaced by other root-anchoring methods; and nutrients, water and light are supplied in manners that optimize health and growth. Hydroponic plants, in fact, can be healthier and stronger than those grown conventionally-and without the use of additives. While the process is made more complex, the result remains: the natural production of plants and food.

Lastly, others believe of hydroponics as a useless, costly pastime. While hydroponics is indeed a fun pastime (and a growing business) for hobbyists, it can also be very useful. Hydroponics make growing food a possibility in almost any situation and environment-in the dead of winter, in the extended twilight of the polar regions, in places where soil is contaminated, and even in space. More significantly, this alternative method in farming makes the yield and quality of food-bearing plants better – as a result, food is made readily available to third-world nations and in places where famine is rampant.

So perhaps, there’s more to hydroponic gardening than meets the eye; there is absolutely more to it than these common misconceptions might lead us to believe.

The term “hydroponics” comes from two Greek words that mean “working water.” In this sense, the significance of water in plant health is highlighted, because in truth, it’s through water, and not soil, that nutrients are fed to the plants. Hydroponics at its most basic is simply the growing of plants without soil applying the nutrients directly to the plant roots in a water-based formula.

Let it be known that there’s nothing artificial about this process. No genetic manipulations and chemical enhancements are involved. Hydroponics just takes the natural process of plant growth and breaks it down into the basic building blocks. Plants need 4 elements for growth: light, water, nutrients, as well as an anchor for the roots. With the exclusion of light, the other three elements usually occur through the soil – but then again, soil isn’t the one responsible for feeding the plant roots, but water. The only real purpose soil has in the process is an anchor for the roots, and a medium through which water feeds them.

In general hydroponics, these four elements are still present, but these are taken care of by the grower. Indeed, one can say that the natural process is not distorted, it is just broken down into segments. The roots are anchored by a different medium other than soil (like vermiculite or coconut are utilized), and the roots are washed with a water-nutrient solution tailored for the optimum growth and health of the plant. Lighting can either be natural or artificial – grow lights as they’re referred to, tailored to maximize the parts of the light spectrum.

With hydroponic growing, the grower is given more “influence” over plant growth because he can manipulate the natural elements in order to maximize growth rate. This is not to say that hydroponics is a simple process, because the reverse is true – but when done properly, this alternative can actually produce healthier plants and food. General hydroponics isn’t about growing plants in an artificial manner; rather, it is about having more control of the natural processes of plant growth. But all that’s grown by a basic hydroponic process will be natural.

Hydroponics is developed as a new science, but it is not really all that new. Historic examples of growing plants with hydroponics can be traced back to the hanging gardens of Babylon, and there’s evidence of hydroponics in the histories of Egypt, China, and the Aztecs as well.

It might seem a bit ludicrous at first that people would want to grow food without soil, especially when there is so much soil around! Certain situations, however, would make growing food hydroponically the better option. For example, it’s okay to grow food out of season because hydroponics is not dependent on weather. Also, the process is not solely reliant on sunlight – so artificial lighting can be used. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, hydroponics provides hope for growing food in countries where soil is contaminated.

Thus, hydroponics theoretically allows us to grow healthy food in the dead of winter, in corners of the world where the soil is dangerous, in the arctic and Antarctic regions where it is dark half of the year, and potentially even in space! As long as you maintain to provide the four ingredients – even without soil – then you are good to go!

Scientists are not the only ones studying the use of hydroponics these days. Canada and Holland are currently using this method to grow food on a larger scale. A number of private citizens are now also keeping hydroponic gardens as the new “organic” food. In fact, the increased demand has made the sale of hydroponic supplies into a large enterprise in the past few years. While this will not totally replace the old-fashion ways of the soil, hydroponics will certainly provide us with a wonderful alternatives to agriculture.

Hydrofarm is more than just a brand name of hydroponic products – more importantly, it is a farm that grows its produce using the concept of hydroponic gardening. By definition, hydroponics involves the following: (1) absence of soil and utilizing an alternative method to anchor plant roots, and (2) the direct supplying of nutrients to plants from a water-based solution. Plants can grow strong and healthy, and yield more fruit in this way, because the elements needed for plant productivity are carefully controlled to maximize the effect on the plants.

Hydroponics has ceased to be a mere segment of agriculture that fought its way out of the stereotype that it is used to grow illegal plants – presently, powerful countries such as Canada and Holland are beginning to adopt this method in producing food in a larger scale. Throughout the country, the hydrofarm is abundant and owners are participating in farmer’s markets or selling directly to consumers to market their produce.

The hydrofarm has increased in popularity because people often consider the food to be safer, plus with the use of lighting and temperature controls, produce can be grown out of season. Many people perceive hydroponics as artificial – but truth be told, this is just an alternative way of providing and carefully controlling the elements that are needed for plant growth. In fact, one of the reasons people buy hydroponic produce is that they realize that it’s a healthier, more natural alternative to the mass-producing agricultural methods commonly used now.

Later, the hydrofarm may become a major food supply for third-world countries or places where it’s not conducive to grow in the soil. Additionally, hydroponics is being explored as a viable way to grow food in space, which may open up even more alternatives for mankind. The hydrofarm may seem like a new or unconventional concept for some but in fact, it very well may be a critical part of agriculture for the future.

There are around 17 different elements found naturally in soil that plants need for healthy growth, and most basic solutions made for hydroponics will provide these elements (you can also mix your own, if you know what you’re doing). The need to use formula made specifically for hydroponics should not be underestimated as regular fertilizers typically lack some of the elements needed by the plants.

Also, special formulations and/or additives made to specifically cause certain growth patterns in plants are available. Understandably, making the best nutrient mixture is not a very easy business, because there are so many factors involved: the kind of plant, the nutrient blend on which the plant thrives, the desired result, etc. The mixtures of elements and quantities are endless. In all essence, everything about nutrient solutions has to do with chemistry – and if you’ve listened to your Chemistry teacher back in high school, you’d know the significance of getting the correct mix. Thank goodness for ready-made mixtures, the nitty-gritty of chemistry is lifted off of your shoulders; still, you need to learn about your plants and read the product labels to ascertain that you are doing the right thing.

It is safe to conclude then that while basic nutrient solutions promote the needed health of plants, it is the advanced nutrients that give the extra push on particular areas. Some blends deal with keeping the right pH balance in the water, which is essential in hydroponics. Some elements promote accelerated growth; some affect the blooming stage; some encourage thicker foliage; some increase the yield of harvest. Remember, however, that while looking at them makes this idea so simple, it’s not – it is certaintly not like putting an additive in your gas tank.

Everytime you put something in the water, you are feeding the plant something that’ll ultimately affect it for good or ill-just as “we are what we eat.” When a doctor prescribes medicine for us, it may treat a symptom or disease, but there may also be side effects. It is the same for plants; simply adding a booster to the water may have a positive effect in one way, but have negative effects in other areas. Therefore, it’s truly important for you to know about the different nutrients that affect plant growth, this way, you have a better idea of their results.

Thankfully, many hydroponic developers want you to have the “correct” result from their advanced nutrients, so they will put essential information on the label. It is therefore very important to read the label before buying a particular product. The label will usually tell you what the formulation is for, and what plants it benefits. If the product does not have enough information on the label, don’t trust it.

Unless you own a vast estate, your best bet for growing marijuana is to grow it indoors using a hydroponics system. Prices for hydroponics setups range from $300 to many thousands of dollars. The biggest differences between systems are: 1) the amount of automation; 2) one stage only versus all inclusive mother plant area, vegetation area and flowering area. The advantages of the latter are essential: by having a permanent mother plant, you have access to unlimited clones whenever you want them; you can decrease the gap between harvest with the separate vegetation and flowering areas. Stealth Hydroponics has some very efficient low end systems. Their grow tents are great if you don’t have a closet. If you want to go all-the-way extravagant, check out BC Northern Lights, the Rolls Royce of hydroponics.

Your natural tendency is going to be to grow as big of plants as you can. This can backfire on you. Every plant, let it be known, requires at least 3×3 feet footprint. Going below this limit would affect the amount of lighting that gets to your plant. Another issue with trying to grow big marijuana plants is that if you are not watchful enough, they can grow right past the lights. A good rule of thumb to follow is that your plants will grow 1 1/2 feet during the flowering stage…so you must start the flowering process as soon as the plants reach to within 24″ of the lights in their highest position. Depending on the strain, this can be anywhere from three weeks to eight weeks from starting with a clone.

Finding a source for clones is the real secret to successfully grow marijuana. This shall ensure that your plant will be female and that it’ll survive (the most delicate stage in a plant life is the first two weeks). Once you have a clone, then you are automatically assured of a crop growing all-year-round.

Advanced nutrients are essential to a healthy marijuana crop. Miracle Gro and other normal fertilizers won’t work. It’s wonderful that Stealth Hydroponics and BC Northern Lights offer a wide range of this kind of products. If you follow a rigorous schedule of draining and refilling the water every 2 weeks and adding nutrients as required, you really will succeed. Tap water, let set for about 10 minutes is perfect. Of course, give your plants that needed tender loving care: control the pH level, CO2, temperature and humidity. Note that in reality, Marijuana is a weed, so it would take quite a bit to kill it. One caution on nutrients, don’t add the first round until two weeks after you have started your clones in the vegetation stage.

Lastly, regarding lighting… Lighting is critical in growing marijuana. But you have a wide array of lights to choose from: silver halide, CFL fluorescent and other high tech lights. They’ll all work just fine. Vegetation spectrum is in the 6000 Kelvin range while the Flower Spectrum is in the 2700 Kelvin range. Therefore, it’s useful to take note of both spectrums; but of course, focus more on the one that matches the phase where your marijuana growth is at.

Total time from clone to harvest when you grow marijuana is approximately twelve weeks. The usual yield is between 4 and 6 oz per plant.

It is essential to understand the principle of color temperature and its effect on plant life if you’re setting up hydroponic lighting. To start with, color temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin and would refer to the color spectrum of light – not heat or cold. Blue light – at about 6000K – is perceived as the coolest while red-orange light – at the 2000K range – is considered the warmest. In general, full-vegetation plants do well with the darker blue spectrum (closest to normal sunlight at 6000K), while fruit/flowering plants thrive with slightly warmer color temperatures (4800K). In addition, know that plants draw from the red-orange part of the spectrum in the reproductive stage. In an ideal setup, however, your hydroponic lights should be a combination of different colors to best suit your plants’ needs.

The most common kind of bulb used in hydroponic lighting is the Metal Halide (MH) bulb. This High-Intensity Discharge (HID) light leans most toward the blue part of the spectrum, resembles direct sunlight the most, and is preferred for almost all growing situations. As such, this bulb works best with leafy, full-vegetation plants.

Another HID bulb used is the High Pressure Sodium (HPS) bulb. This bulb tends to emit orange-red light approximately on the 2200K mark, and is good for flowering plants, but not ideal as an artificial lighting substitute. It must generally be utilized together with natural sunlight or other artificial bulbs.

Flourescent lighting is your 3rd option. The advantage with fluorescents is that even if they are less intense, they’re cheaper, can be placed close to the plants because of their low emission of heat, and in combination with one another, can cover the color temperature spectrum fairly well.

Still, you have even more options: (1) incandescent light which isn’t as intense and would get too warm when placed too closely to the plants and (2) LED lights, which can cover the spectrum well without emitting heat but are way too expensive.

As you can tell, there are a wide range of lighting setups that can be made from these hydroponic lights. The combination that is ideal for your garden can be determined with your retailer.

First, it’s important to have a background about color temperature so as to fully comprehend the concept of grow lights. In the subject of plant lighting, “temperature” refers to color, and not heat. The color spectrum is measured in degrees Kelvin, in the same way as some applications of heat and cold are except higher temperatures are considered “cooler”, and lower ones are “warmer.” The temperatures that highly resemble that of natural sunlight are those ranging over 5000K, and is seen as blue on the color spectrum. Interestingly, the reds, oranges and yellows are lower temperature, within the range 2700K and below. Note that leafy vegetation does better in the 6000K range (essentially full sunlight) while flowering as well as fruiting plants need the temperature to be around 4800K – those considered in the cooler blue zone. Plants are also drawing more from the orange-red color temperatures, which are around 2700K, when they are flowering and reproducing. So you can understand why the right grow light setting can be so important.

The 3 most common kinds of grow light used in hydroponic growing rooms are designed toward the color temperatures most needed by plant life. The Metal Halide bulb is among the most popular. If you like a grow light that resembles natural sunlight the closest, then you should go for High-Intensity Discharge (HID) bulb, Metal Halide bulbs. As previously mentioned, this type of grow light is great for leafy plants. The High Pressure Sodium bulb (also another HID bulb) is your second alternative. These bulbs produce the orange-red part of the spectrum (approximately 2200K) and are good for flowering, but don’t encourage full foliage. They’re not generally used by themselves, but in combination with other bulbs and/or natural light. The 3rd most common bulb is the fluorescent either high-output or low-output. Even if they’re not as intense as the HID bulbs, they remain useful particularly due to the fact that since they emit so little heat, they can be placed close to the plants.

Today, LED bulbs have been designed, some of which claim to take care of the full range of color temperature for plant life with almost no heat. The only major fallback is, they’re usually very expensive – and many less costly bulbs are available that can do the job just as perfectly.

To conclude, many hydroponic gardens today use a combination of different bulbs for the various stages of plant growth. Your retailer shall be able to advise you on what grow light combination will be perfect for you.

Metal Halide Bulbs (MH)
Arguably the most highly recognized HID-type bulb, metal halide bulbs produce the closest emulation of summer sunlight available, and generate the spectral colors plants thrive on most especially the blues, which are ideal for vegetative growth. MH bulbs are likely to die out gradually and need to be replaced before they actually burn out, because they eventually don’t produce enough lumens to help the plants anymore. Good thing that they are long-lasting, having an average life of 10,000 hours, or a year.

High Pressure Sodium Bulbs (HPS)
The other HID-type bulb, the high pressure sodium bulb, is most appropriate for supplementary lighting, used in combination with natural sunlight. HPS bulbs are more on the orange-red band of the spectrum, which is great for flowering plants. These grow lights are less expensive than metal halide, and longer-lasting (normally 18,000 hours). The downside is, because they are deficient in blue light, HPS bulbs are not usually recommended as a replacement for natural light, nor as an alternative to metal halide. Rather, they would do well in a greenhouse environment.

Fluorescent Bulbs
Where in earlier days fluorescent light bulbs were not intense enough, these days fluorescents are made that have enough lumens to supply light for hydroponics. Notwithstanding if the bulb is high-output or low-output, it can do this job perfectly. Fluorescents emit much smaller amounts of heat than HID bulbs, which means they can be placed much closer to the plants and when they’re placed closer (but not too close), they emit enough of the spectral colors to encourage growth.

LED Grow Lights
The newest version of grow light, the advantage of LED bulbs is that they’re comparable to the output of a high pressure sodium bulb while being remarkably energy efficient, and emitting almost no heat. On the flip side, these bulbs promote slower growth rate and are painful to your budget. In fact, it can be argued that the same growth results can be achieved with fluorescent grow lights, which are far less expensive. So while they are the newest thing, the jury is basically still out on whether LED bulbs will be the wave of the future for grow lights.