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DIY Aeroponics kit (cheap and simple *not dwc*)

lurkmaster

New member
First off I would like to say a few things... The beauty of this design is in its simplicity and efficiency. It has a limited number of parts that are readily available almost everywhere, and this is incredibly easy to make and use, yet maintains a very modular shape and has great potential for larger scale, but the specific model that I have written this guide for is budget oriented more than anything.

With the exceptions of net pots and net pot lids ALL of these items can be purchased from REGULAR department stores. I was able to get everything I needed from 3 stores, petco for the water pump, target for the tubs and home depot for the irrigation stuff.

I have spent alot of time perfecting this design and trying to optimize performance as best as I could, so here you are....

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Two Tub Aeroponic Kit
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Required Tools
Power Drill
¼”, 1-1/4” and 2” drill bits

Components
200-250 GPH submersible water pump (petco)
Orbit 360 degree shrub head (home depot)
Pump/Sprayer attachment (home depot)
Medium ITSO tub (target)
Large ITSO tub ( target)
ITSO tub lid (4 included with 2 tubs)




Now lets get started!

Step 1
Build your pump/sprayer attachment. The 250GPH petco pump that I am using has a threaded female end so my assembly has a male part on the bottom, just make sure you check what your pump attachment looks like before hand and make sure you can get a water tight seal with some kind of threading or tubing.
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Step 2
Drill drainage holes and center hole for sprayer head. You want to put drainage holes where water collects in the tub, so the corners are where the majority of them should be concentrated.
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Step 3
Center your sprayer head with the hole you just drilled then set the medium size tub on top of it inside the larger tub to make sure it all lines up properly angle and height wise, you want an even distribution of spray all over. Make adjustments as necessary.
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I spent a lot of time playing around with subtle changes with my sprayer attachments and finally came up with a design that delivers the shape of mist that I want. You have to take the sprayer head apart and flip the screw in the middle around so the head is on the top not the inside, this way it completely changes the exit route for the water in the sprayer head.
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Here is the ideal amount of spray you should have in your tub, you want to make sure that your net pots are getting splashed with enough water but not so much that the tub starts leaking water all over. It takes some time and tweaking to get it just right. I have found the best place to test this is in a bathtub if you overshoot and it sprays all over a bathtub is no big deal ;)
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Step 4
Drill holes for your net pots in the lids.

Here are a few configurations that I set up for my tub...
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And you are ready to grow! This can be used solely as a cloner or you can take plants all the way through flowering if you wanted. In my experience with this cloner I have seen roots in 48 hours. These tubs are square, easy to make, manage and are relatively inexpensive. You can easily make a 2x2 grid of these for a 24 plant SOG setup. Or grow as little as 2 plants per tub. The ITSO tub setup holds about 4 gallons of water without seeping into the top tub. But can be used with as little as 2 gallons. Also, I might add, you want the small tub to be darker colored, but the bottom tub you want a lighter colored one like this pale green, you can see your water level without having to take the top tub out to check, which is really nice.
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emshowg

New member
I was considering which would be better, dwc or another method and this may just work perfectly. I noticed there isn't much of a reference to total height of unit. Would you be able to measure and let us know?

Did some research myself on the website and found it came in right over 13" height and 13" squared-width. I do love the small ones which are only 6.5" in height. I may have some use for them.

Care to give some instructions on how you made the tops so perfectly? Love the combination and build.
 

lurkmaster

New member
I was considering which would be better, dwc or another method and this may just work perfectly. I noticed there isn't much of a reference to total height of unit. Would you be able to measure and let us know?

Did some research myself on the website and found it came in right over 13" height and 13" squared-width. I do love the small ones which are only 6.5" in height. I may have some use for them.

Care to give some instructions on how you made the tops so perfectly? Love the combination and build.

I just drilled holes with a 2" drill bit adapter, fits the 2" net pots I have perfectly.
 

FreezerBoy

Was blind but now IC Puckbunny in Training
Veteran
Maybe it's because the only pics I can see are the attachments at the end but, I can't see anything that approaches aero. Those water drops are gigantic. Maybe if you started an album here so the pics showed up. But, all I can see is a DWC with a heater and huge water drops.
 

lurkmaster

New member
Maybe it's because the only pics I can see are the attachments at the end but, I can't see anything that approaches aero. Those water drops are gigantic. Maybe if you started an album here so the pics showed up. But, all I can see is a DWC with a heater and huge water drops.

Shit, I knew I forgot to do something... :smoke: :wallbash:

But yea, dont let the 1/30 second exposure judge how fine the mist is.

You CANT SEE the fine mist ;) If you stick your finger in an empty slot when its on, you wont get directly splashed from the main spray, but when you pull it out, itll be wet.
 
J

JackKerouac

This looks really good. With the Home De Pot fountain sprayer, the droplets aren't too big? I would love to see this beast in action. K+ for ya.
 

Me2

Member
You can see fine mist if you take pics in the dark and use a powerful torch :wink:

Its a very neat diy build but i have to agree that Pic 5 doesn`t look very much like mist to me either. How does it compare to the mist consistancy and spray duration in this vid clip? ..its a 15mb vid but worth a look if your into aeroponics.
www.netafim-usa-greenhouse.com/Micronet_Fogger_video.wmv
 

lurkmaster

New member
Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil or an aggregate medium.

Aeroponic culture differs from hydroponics.

I would call this setup aero by that definition.

The tub never has a water level over .5cm, and is constantly draining out into the bottom res. Water is splashed all around inside the top tub and a finer (but not as consistant) mist is created off the secondary splashes along with the direct flooding splashes of the sprayer.
 

Me2

Member
Its not a mist though its much larger like rain.
Mist: A cloudlike aggregation of minute globules of water suspended in the atmosphere, reducing visibility to a lesser degree than fog.
Rain: Water falling in drops
 

CANNACO-OP

Farmassist
Veteran
lurkmaster....important thing to me is does it work? If it works, cheap, easy to build; seems like a great start to a new way to grow! Keep it up!
 

lurkmaster

New member
lurkmaster....important thing to me is does it work? If it works, cheap, easy to build; seems like a great start to a new way to grow! Keep it up!

Yea, I did a little mini test grow with it, this doesn't show its full potential as this is a runt plant that I only flowered for 3 weeks to see how it would turn out, and this other plant is 12/12 from seed planted into aero at 4 days from sprout.

These were only under CFLs.

3 week flower test
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3 week 12/12 from seed test (and yes I know its a male, I put him out of his misery after I took pictures of him.)
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This can give you guys a general idea of how it works, but these results aren't really indicative of what this setup can produce with a real grow through under HIDs.
 

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lurkmaster

New member
I will be posting some pictures of a grow my buddy is doing with this setup as they start flowering, so stay tuned if you are interested.
 

alphacat

Member
Other thing to take into consideration is that if you lose power and the pump goes out, this is 2 steps closer to dead plants than a DWC setup would be...

But the simplicity of this setup is pretty hard to beat.

Alternately, couldn't you just get multiple smaller "true" aero nozzles at the hardware store and make a valve-split tree, so there were 4 or 5 small sprayers instead of one big ol' honking rainbird?
 

lurkmaster

New member
Other thing to take into consideration is that if you lose power and the pump goes out, this is 2 steps closer to dead plants than a DWC setup would be...

But the simplicity of this setup is pretty hard to beat.

Alternately, couldn't you just get multiple smaller "true" aero nozzles at the hardware store and make a valve-split tree, so there were 4 or 5 small sprayers instead of one big ol' honking rainbird?

It is no different than a flood table design with respect to power outages and functionality.


Definitely could be improved with finer mist from multiple smaller sprayers, but thats more parts which lowers the level of simplicity, that is the prime goal here.

I shared these plans not just for people to use this system but mainly to get the general 2-tub concept out there.

I feel like this has alot of potential.
 
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