Hydro Gardening?

[mshill90]

Oh I gotcha. Seems like a good idea. Can you explain more how you intend on doing this?

Well, I have a few ideas brewing...

The first idea is to build a large shallow box filled with a rubber liner, in which the bottom of the tank will have a slight slant for water flow.- I would then take a piece of PVC and attach it to the S/G filter of my koi tank. The piece of pvc would run from the filter to the box, where it would then run into 3 other pieces of pvc on the bottom of the box, with holes in it so that the water can disburse through the bottom of the box evenly.

I would then use a substrate to fill the box- not sure what substrate yet.

Then the plants would be planted in the substrate with hydro specific lighting.


My second idea is to run the pvc piping like stated above, but use 2" pvc, and cut holes in the top, fill with substrate, and place the plants in the holes, so each plant has it's own spot.

 

[CClump]

why dont you want to reuse the water to the plants?

I intend to just run a powerhead up to a wide low bottom rubbermaid with 2 holes in it. One to fill it and the other slightly higher to drain back into the tank.
Less use of water.

 

[mshill90]

why dont you want to reuse the water to the plants?

I intend to just run a powerhead up to a wide low bottom rubbermaid with 2 holes in it. One to fill it and the other slightly higher to drain back into the tank.
Less use of water.

The water that is used is going to my plants...

I do not want to drain the water back into the tank. And the way my set up will be I would have to run another tank to get it back up into my tank, and I don't want to do that either.

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

set up a drip system, The water that goes out, direct it to your garden

 

[iPat]

hey that dude lawone's from hawaii, he's trying to promote this down here, some people take him for a joke, but i think its awesome

 

[mshill90]

After doing some thinking, I am planning on expanding my turtle collection, and I plan on placing them outside for the summer- I am definitely thinking about the closed system for that since they put off a ton of poop constantly.

 

[CClump]

The water that is used is going to my plants...

I do not want to drain the water back into the tank. And the way my set up will be I would have to run another tank to get it back up into my tank, and I don't want to do that either.

fair enough. Ive seen a few people who do what you are talking about. Most just with a hose and small drip to replace.
Another idea might be to take a lower gph powerhead and have it pump out to a small reservoir with holes over the garden.
If you want to go real fancy with that could have electronic timed covers in the tray so it only waters the plants once or twice a day.

 

[mshill90]

fair enough. Ive seen a few people who do what you are talking about. Most just with a hose and small drip to replace.
Another idea might be to take a lower gph powerhead and have it pump out to a small reservoir with holes over the garden.
If you want to go real fancy with that could have electronic timed covers in the tray so it only waters the plants once or twice a day.

I'm going to try the loop system with my turtle tank, as it wouldn't require too much of a pump.

 

[preston5321]

Sounds like an awesome idea, im curious what happens with the chemicals from the water like the dechlorinator? most say not for fish intended for human consumption.

 

[mshill90]

Sounds like an awesome idea, im curious what happens with the chemicals from the water like the dechlorinator? most say not for fish intended for human consumption.

I do not use declorinator in my turtle tank.

I have a small amount of chlorine. My test kit barely registers it.