Double or Nothing: A Grower’s Life
Lights
Lights are the heart of your garden and the key to your plants’
growth—if your lights go out you’ve got to get them back up
and running as soon as possible.
If you are running HID or fluorescent lights like most indoor
gardeners, the lamp or the ballast can fail. The best option is to
keep spare grow bulbs and ballasts on hand, but that can be expensive. A second, less ideal option is to keep some shop lights
(four foot T12 fluorescents) around—you can hang these inexpensive fixtures in place of your broken grow
light while you go to the local hydro store
for some troubleshooting. Shop lights
will maintain your garden’s day/night
cycle temporarily, although your
plants will stretch and grow
poorly under these weak
lamps, so make sure
you get your real grow
lights working again as
soon as possible.
Pumps
In my hydro systems I
always use two pumps: one
large pump to run the system
and a smaller pump that sits in the
reservoir and stirs the solution. Since
I incorporate some organic supplements
in my nutrient solutions, dirty or clogged
pumps are inevitable.
Pumps are one of the only products that have decreased in
price at hydroponics stores. Fifteen years ago, I would pay $60
for a pump for an ebb and flow system, but these days it’s more
like $25. Admittedly, higher-quality pumps can be purchased for
a higher price tag and they might offer a better warranty—for a
spare pump, though, the lower-cost option is acceptable.
Air stones
If you use air stones, you know that they eventually clog
and stop bubbling. I have seen the same growers replace
their air stones again and again over the years I’ve worked
in hydro stores.
Let me save you a few bucks. There is an easy way to use the
same air stones for years without replacement. First, you will
need to buy the heavy air stones, not the thin brittle ones. Second, you will need two air stones for every one that sits in
your reservoir.
Each time you change the nutrients in your reservoir, remove
the wet air stone and replace it with a spare. Clean the used
stone with a scrub brush and let it dry out completely—drying
reduces clogging from microbes and algae. The newly cleaned
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Maximum Yield USA | March 2012