Home Improvement Blog

The rumor of the LED light

There has been a lot of press and buzz lately about the new LED grow lights available from a number of manufacturers all over the world and Internet dealers. They have been marketed as the next generation of lighting for indoor hydroponics application. And maybe one day they will be, but today is not that day. NASA is currently developing LED lights to be used on the space station. Because they use very little electricity they can be run off of batteries for long periods of time, so that food can be grown in space. Disney is using hydroponics with traditional lighting to grow fresh produce for use in their Florida theme parks. So development of hydroponic systems and LED applications is definitely on the way, however they just don’t have the penetration power of a traditional lighting system. We’ll explore and contrast the differences between traditional HID lights and LED lights throughout this article.

There are many advantages and disadvantages of using a LED grow lights. First we’ll talk about the advantages of using LED grow lights. To begin with LED grow lights can last on average from 8 to 10 years. A traditional high pressure sodium or metal halide lamp will need to be replaced about once every year to once every year and a half. However in contrast LED lights can often last for up to 8 to 10 years with heavy use. LED lights use of very little electricity and generate very little heat. continue reading…

Hydroponics has a bad name

Hydroponics has received a lot of undeserved bad press lately. Because many grow houses are using hydroponics, common people will associate hydroponics with drugs and illegal grow houses. However the reality is this is just not the case. There are plenty of legitimate uses for hydroponics by gardeners all over the world. This article will discuss in depth plenty of legitimate uses for hydroponic technology and hope to open your mind to this technology

Let’s take people living in high-rise condos for instance. Many people living in tall skyscrapers do not have access to a large garden as you would if you own a house. The same goes for apartment living. Besides having maybe a small patio, you really don’t have your own patch of dirt. It makes it very difficult to grow simply using soil and pot on the patio when you want to grow plants to eat. A hydroponics grow box can easily be placed in any spare room, though allowing you to grow your own fresh organic herbs, fruits and festivals just feet away from your kitchen. With hydroponics you have no dirt, no waist, and everything stays perfectly fresh. Without hydroponics people wanting to grow their own organic, and pesticide free fresh fruits and vegetables would be unable to do so. Hydroponics significantly improves the lives of people living in tight, or crowded living situations such as condos, apartments, and high-rise office living. continue reading…

Breaking down aeroponics hydroponics systems for the beginner

Aeroponics is the best form of hydroponic system you can get. Aeroponics hydroponics systems are unique in the fact that in these types of systems the roots are actually suspended in mid-air. These roots are then watered with a highly oxygenated nutrients spray for you. The size of the water droplet differs depending on the type of aeroponic hydroponics system you have. The two primary types that we will talk about in this article are the pump driven aeroponic hydroponics system and the ultrasonic fogging driven aeroponics hydroponics system.

We’ll start talking about the pump driven aeroponics hydroponics first, because it is by far the most common. In this type of system your plants roots are hung suspended in midair. A submersible MAG drive pump such as a 250 gallons per hour pump can be used to power a series of 360° microjet misters. These ministers will break down the water droplets to about 25 microns which is very fine particle droplet creating a light nutrients mixed that will surround your plants roots. This type of light misting in your plants roots zone and will really help to accelerate your plants root growth. The pump can be powered by either turning it on and off in 15 minute increments essentially to allow your plants to dry and then moistened again. This type of wet and dry technique has shown to increase growth performance substantially in hydroponics use. continue reading…

Clones in hydroponics are better than seeds

You are much better off starting from a clone rather than a seed in hydroponics. There are a lot of reasons for this. When you start from a clone, you know the genetics of your plants. Meaning the clone came from a mother plant, and the reason it was taken from the mother plant is because the mother plant showed signs of fast growth and good crop development. So you know with 100 hundred percent absolute certainty that the clone taken from the mother plant will have those same genetics. That’s because it is simply a copy of the mother plant. That’s what a clone is. A clone is cutting those taken from the mother plant which is now rooted and turned into an exact copy of the plant it was originally cut from. So clones are identical to the mothers in every way. And will display the exact same characteristics as the plant they were originally taken from. That’s the great thing about clothes. You know exactly what they are before they pop out of their seed. continue reading…

The advantages of growing with hydroponics versus soil growing

To understand what the advantages are growing with hydroponics, first you must understand what hydroponics is. Hydroponics is simple. Hydroponics is growing with water instead of soil. Typically a user add concentrated nutrients into the water, simulating the fertilizers found in soil.

With hydroponics you much more control over your grow then you do with soil, because simply adding the right amount of nutrients in the water guarantees that you will have the right amount of food for your plants. In soil it can be much more difficult to diagnose when you are short mineral trace elements, because you really don’t know what was missing to begin with.

However when using hydroponics nutrients are pre-mixed with exactly the right amount of trace elements. So by simply adding the proper amount of hydroponic nutrients to your water in the hydroponic system, you know that the nutrients have been mixed correctly and the plants have all the elements they need to survive. If your plants should never begin to get sick such as yellowing leaves due to some sort of nutrient deficiency all you have to do is dump your hydroponic systems water, and fill it with fresh water and fresh nutrients. continue reading…

The importance of using an air cooled lights in a hydroponics environment

When you are growing in a hydroponics environment, it is important to have light and lots of it. In hydroponics the more light you have, the better your plants will grow. However there is a trade-off. More powerful HID lights will use more electricity and also give off more heat. So there is always a compromise between high-powered lights and dealing with the heat. The idea is you want to use the most powerful light you can, but not raise the temperature in the environment of your hydroponic system higher than what the plants are comfortable with. Plants are usually comfortable in the same temperature range as humans. For this reason you need to have clever ways of dissipating the heat away from your garden.

This article will deal with the most efficient ways of keeping your high-intensity lights cool, so that your plants can maintain a healthy rate of growth. continue reading…

It is very important to use a light reflector in your hydroponics garden if you would like to get the most out of your grow lamp. A light bulb will admit light in 360°. If you do not have a reflector above your bulb these light rays will be wasted because light will be beaming out in all directions around for your plants and not on your plants. What you really need is a way of focusing the light beams at 360° radius back onto your plants. That’s exactly what the light reflector does and why it’s important to have one. A light reflector will take all the light from the bulb and once installed around the top of the light reflector will bounce light down to your garden. This is called out of bounce light. This can make your lights much more effective because now a lot less of those light rays are to be wasted by going in directions not needed. You never want to run the lights without out a good reflector.

When looking for a hydroponics grow lights reflector take a look at name brands like a light Sunlight Supply and Hydrofarm. They are both known to make high-quality reflectors ranging through entry level all the way up to grow commercial gardening. If you can afford it definitely get an air cooled reflector that will keep your lights a lot cooler than non-air cooled reflectors like Batwings. Keeping these big lights cool is definitely huge advantage when it comes to hydroponics. But whatever you do definitely by a reflector being a non-air cooled reflector or an air cooled reflector as long as you have bounce light on their you will have a very effective grow using your HID lighting system. continue reading…

The problem for a beginner wanting to learn how to start with hydroponic gardening is where to get the necessary information. Of course, you can always get the information online. You will probably be overwhelmed with the amount of information that you will see. The best online resource material is a hydroponics ebook.

Hydroponics is the gardening technique that does not need soil. It is actually the perfect method of gardening for people who live in the urban areas with limited space for growing plants. It is also an economically sound technique of gardening for those who also want to build a farm of vegetables and other crops. With the minimum requirement for pesticide and fertilizer make hydroponics an ecological-friendly as well. continue reading…