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Setting up a medium-sized NFT System · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi there, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp.
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  Today's episode is about setting
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  up a medium-sized nutrient film technique or NFT hydroponic system.
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  And that's because we're about to do this in the laboratories here at Utrema.
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  And I just thought I'd talk you through how we're going to go about doing this.
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  We've set up nutrient film technique systems in the past.
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  And so I'll talk you through the points to consider and also the reasons for doing so.
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  So we've we've got our grow room
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  set up and we've got a cocoa medium in pots at
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  the moment and we're growing a plant called black grass which is
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  an important weed in europe and the
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  reason i'm moving to nft is because
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  we had an aphid outbreak and just was uncontrollable and we think that the aphids
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  were in the growing media so with an nft we can sterilize the growing media
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  and far far easier than you could with a peat-based or a cocoa-based grow medium
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  because there's just so much root volume. And so the aphids were hiding on the.
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  The roots that were taking so long to die so we'd be
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  able to control the aphids or the pests and
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  we think there was also nematodes in there and also
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  a disease called take all which is really bad it affects
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  all grass plants and so take all
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  just just sit just weakens
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  the plant makes it yellow and eventually dies off and so the plants were dying
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  for no reason probably due to take all and also things like smut so nft we can
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  eliminate that we also want to increase the production we've got a medium-sized
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  grow room and we want to increase production and maximize the space and.
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  Nft allows you to do that more than you can with cocoa
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  so we need to really bite the bullet and move over
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  to an fc system kill off all the plants that are in there and start again we
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  also want a better razzle dazzle in our laboratory and
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  nft just looks cool and compared to
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  cocoa growing plants and we want to showcase gold
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  leaf or as it's known in the uk liquid gold to its full
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  potential and have a system where we can run it through
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  its paces in an extreme case here with this with
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  this plant now i've said a medium-sized nft
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  system i'm going to talk about medium-sized nfts because
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  small-scale nft doesn't really work
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  very often there were a number of systems set up
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  that could do small-scale nft like the
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  iws from nutriculture in the
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  uk but it doesn't really maximise space
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  and compared to other ways of
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  growing in a small very small space it's far
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  more suited to medium-sized and large-scale
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  grows where you have these long gullies the way you can have long stretches
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  of gullies and you can't really do that in a small grow room so medium-sized
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  or a large-sized nft starts to become the best option for hydroponics and soil
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  cultivation However, we're still going medium size.
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  We're not going full, as big as you would find in a tomato greenhouse.
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  And we're going to use guttering from the site that you would buy from a normal plant.
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  Hardware store and now normally guttering doesn't fit the slabs of rock wool
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  or mineral wool that you would purchase from a hydroponic store.
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  Now if you flip that rock wool on its side it will fit in a gutter certainly
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  a European or a UK flatbed flat and bottomed gutter.
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  American gutters I think are probably larger everything's larger in America
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  so you may be able to fit a rock wool slab flat.
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  In one but i like to grow side on in a gutter
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  and then the important thing is with the root core slabs don't take
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  them out of their packaging their packaging is there for
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  a reason and that's to stop algal growth and fungal
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  growth and fungus gnats and things like that so you don't
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  take off the wrapper the wrapper is integral
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  to the slab you simply poke a
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  hole where you want your plants and your outlet and inlet sections to
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  be so that's important you'll need
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  a drill and you'll need drill bits to drill holes
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  in the parts where you you want drills to the right size
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  and that's going to be critical you need to do a bit of research on
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  how you drill through plastic guttering otherwise you can make some
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  expensive mistakes and then the rubber seals on
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  the piping as well you need to make sure you're buying the right ones speak to
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  your grow shop that's what they're there for that's their area of
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  expertise you're going to need a pump that can pump
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  the water to the height that you you want
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  always over spec your pump and because you don't
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  want it to be straining because if something's
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  going to fail in a nutrient film technique it's going to be the pump and
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  it can have disastrous consequences and if
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  it does you better make sure you've got a big tank because you what's the number
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  one error that happens in nft when it comes to flooding is that you you fill
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  up your system fill up your tank and then you turn your pump on especially if
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  you've not flushed your rockwell slabs.
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  Pre-flush them and then you pump it
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  up and then all the water disappears all the fertigation solution disappears
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  out your tank and so you go right i've got to fill it
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  again so you fill it again with more water and more fertigation solution
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  right to the brim and then you have your system running
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  and hey presto you've got a fabulous running nft system but then
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  the pump fails for some reason it turns off or there's
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  a power trip and then all that all that
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  solution that was in the rock wall slab slowly starts draining back into that
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  tank that's not having any fertigation solution taken out of it by the pump
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  and that overflows and it and it fills the space out so always make sure that
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  you've got enough space in your big tank to for a pump failure,
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  ideally and then also make sure there's no electrical
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  fittings on the floor anywhere in the
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  grow room so that if the pump did fail or if
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  the tank failed more importantly then they wouldn't get exposed to water and
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  then you come into your grow room and get electrocuted now tanks tanks can fail
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  because the pipes are often fitted at the bottom and you know for whatever reason
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  they can fail they can degrade over time the plastic can break down so you know accidents happen.
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  The other thing we're going to have in our system is a uv filter that's
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  integrity that's got an aeration unit set
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  into it i bought this off ebay not sure it's any good i've
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  used it previously and it didn't really get rid of any algae but you
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  know it's better than a slap in the face so you might as well have
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  it running we're also going to have a particle filter on the return as it goes
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  into the tank because little bits of roots and little bits of rockwool and little
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  bits of algae and fungus all all build up in the tank if you're not careful
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  and so just catching that as it comes back into the tank is going to be a good
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  idea we're going to have an ec meter just to monitor,
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  nutrient levels we'll use a ph meter as well even
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  though we're using gold leaf we as
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  i say we'll keep the electrics off the water off the floor we're going
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  to start our plants off a seed in probably in a small aeroponics
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  unit we don't want to be starting them off in peat or anything like that that's
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  going to contaminate the the system with horrible bacteria and and mud and things
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  like this so you want to keep it all as nice and sterile as possible to begin
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  with so probably use an aeroponic system or just small rock wall slabs to get the seedlings going.
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  These are grass weeds, so they should grow fairly well.
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  We're going to stand it off the floor. So my colleague Matthew is going to have
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  to build a system where the slabs gently.
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  Flow from one to the other on an angle around the grow
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  room and then back to the tank so that
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  should be interesting and then the piping we'll use i think it's 13 millimeter
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  piping which seems to be the fairly standard one and then
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  you can buy all the bits the plastic the rubber seals and things like this to
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  get it going and then the other thing is just to
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  minimize the amount of space that the
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  fertigation solution can see the light from the grow lights
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  just to make sure that there's no
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  algal buildup so we will we'll
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  be using peroxide might even use a
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  bit of lime sulfur which we we have on site we
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  we sell anyway to sterilize the units and
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  that should control the algae and yeah so
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  that's our medium-sized nft system obviously
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  we're we're not buying in this specialized nft
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  big gutters that you you can buy for say
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  if you're a greenhouse grower but i think this
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  this one dramatically reduces the cost i think that guttering
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  move is a good one the the rockwell is
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  fairly cheap anyway i think considering compared to
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  the price of growing media and obviously we're making
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  the nutrients and we're not using ph up or ph down so don't worry about separate
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  tanks for that certain storage for the hazardous materials and hopefully we'll
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  have a really good system and i'll be able to update you on how it goes and
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  how the black grass plants are growing later on we might even have two systems
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  in the grow room one for black grass and one for.
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  Something a bit more showy a bit more edible and then um yeah so that's been
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  hydroponics daily for today how to set up a medium-sized nft system in a grow
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  room thank you very much for listening.