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Light vs Heavy Hydroponics: Why System Weight Matters · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited and the inventor
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  of liquid gold fertilizer or as it's called in the US, gold leaf.
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  And the reason I mention that is because
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  today I was thinking about the weight
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  of a hydroponic unit and where
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  having a lightweight hydroponic unit might be
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  an advantage and where having a lightweight hydroponic
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  unit might be a disadvantage because with gold
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  leaf or liquid gold as it's called in the uk you can
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  potentially only have one tank or even
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  no tank at all if you combine that with an
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  nft system with no growing media then potentially
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  that is an extremely light hydroponic system
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  and that could be an advantage in certain situations could
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  be a disadvantage in others so i wanted to go through some of
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  those potential advantages so what
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  are the potential advantages of a lightweight system well
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  when portability is a good thing to have or easy relocation think about classrooms
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  or educational setups where they might be moved around frequently you might
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  bring a hydroponic unit in from a greenhouse into a practical room.
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  Laboratory, practical laboratory in a university, for example,
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  or you might need to move it around a school near to a window into the greenhouse
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  and then back into a classroom, things like that.
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  Class house is probably not very safe for children to be around, for example.
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  So being lightweight on wheels is a potentially really good.
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  Thing to have. And weight is the last thing you consider when you set up your
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  hydroponic unit. You're looking for other factors.
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  So it's an interesting one to talk about because it's just the sort of thing
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  you're left with at the end.
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  And you might actually think, oh God, this is a big disadvantage.
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  Imagine you're in a non-permanent residence or you're renting for a short period
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  of time. You might want to move your hydroponic unit around.
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  Perhaps you're a university and you want to go back to
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  your parents house in the holidays then having
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  an easily movable system is another reason and
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  or if you're a seasonal grower perhaps you're in
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  a greenhouse in the summer and in a
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  grow room in the winter then potentially having a lightweight
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  system is of an advantage what about
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  a rooftop or a balcony there's certain weight limits on
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  roofs in an apartment balconies you can't have certain weights and a lightweight
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  system with one tank and an ft system a small tank could reduce structural stress
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  you often see issues with people putting too much weight on their balcony or
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  their roofs and they cave in and things like this so.
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  There's a potential use and then obviously vertical
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  farming high stack system tall towers the
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  weight avoids them tipping over or overloading and they're
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  easier to mount as well okay what about
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  mobile farms you know there's an
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  option of like disaster relief growing hydroponic fresh
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  vegetables for refugees and people
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  in disasters or what about
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  on a a cruise ship fresh produce
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  for high-end cruise ships where they want the freshest
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  vegetables and then maybe on a cruise of the nordic
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  fjords or somewhere else where there's not easily available fresh
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  produce so there's another option and then
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  lightweight might be just good because you would
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  want to limit this the support structure the stress on the
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  on the system especially useful for
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  improvised systems and projects and temporary
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  installations where you don't want them okay and then
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  obviously another use where lightweight will be
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  useful nasa you know space missions
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  controlled environments things like that where every kilogram
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  saved matters and then obviously hobby indoor growers reduce the risk of damaging
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  floors during water changes if you haven't got massive tanks so where that's
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  the advantages of having a lightweight system where could there be disadvantages
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  or where could heavyweight systems have an advantage?
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  Well, when we think of deep water culture, those really big,
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  almost bigger than an Olympic swimming pool type greenhouse DWC systems that
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  they have, mainly in America,
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  thermal stability is a massive win there.
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  The heat mass effect, large heavy water volumes maintain stable route temperatures
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  and help buffer against rapid spikes in heat that you might get in a greenhouse
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  and reduces the need for chillers or heaters, for example. And,
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  A very heavy bottom to a hydroponic system could provide stability against tipping.
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  Tall vertical towers or trellis to plants. If you've got a trellis plant like
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  a tomato or a cucumber, having a heavy base will prevent that from tipping.
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  Counter to that, go back to the cruise ship, having a big tank is obviously
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  in a storm that's going to slosh around.
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  So an NFT system is probably better than a DWC on a cruise ship for that.
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  You don't want sloshing around DWC, do you?
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  So, yeah, there's an option.
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  Where else might having a heavy weight system be an advantage?
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  A heavy system could help dampen vibrations.
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  So a heavy reservoir dampen vibrations from air and water pumps and flus going in and out.
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  And so essentially it could be useful where vibrations are a big concern.
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  And security and theft resistance. you know
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  if it's a heavy it's got heavy fixtures then
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  prevents easy theft people can't just run away with it and that's a big issue
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  for a lot of hydroponic growers with expensive kit and then heavy systems with
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  lots of water in the in both the tank and the reservoirs would help with.
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  Mitigating problems where the pump fails and things
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  like this if you if your water supply went down
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  for a day or two then you've got a massive reservoir whereas
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  if your water supply was cut off for a day or two and you're
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  in an nft system with a tiny tank you're a
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  bit screwed unless you can sort of go in
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  your car and go and get some more water so there's another advantage
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  there of a heavyweight big tank system so that's
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  been hydroponics daily for today talk about the weight of your
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  hydroponic system a factor that is very rarely
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  considered during setup but actually can be
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  really important and you know it's taken me till february
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  the 28th to discuss it on hydroponics daily so definitely not one that's on
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  the top of my radar but certainly one to consider that's so i say that's been
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  hydroponics daily for today if you found this interesting it sparked some ideas
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  then let me know if you've got any comments and leave a review on apple podcasts
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  because that helps the podcast tremendously.
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  If you're interested in trying out liquid gold, if you're in the UK,
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  then check out utreema.co.uk.
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  And if you're in the US, check out Goldleaf. It's a fantastic fertilizer,
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  gets you from seed to harvest with just one bottle, whether you're in hydroponics
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  or growing in soil or growing media.
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  And what else can I say? Yeah, I'll see you again tomorrow. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.