My Hydroponic Setup

Before moving to the new apartment I immersed myself in reading about hydroponics, realizing that growing plants in water lent itself well to small spaces and was also cleaner, without the mess of soil or soilless gardening. I bought a 5-gallon bucket, fitted it with a bulkhead fitting and clear tubing to measure water level, and tried to grow brussels sprouts in the winter. That did not work.

On the balcony, in the spring, I planted one cucumber plant in the bucket. An additional 14-gallon tote now houses five Juliette tomatoes, which produce Roma-type fruit. Here are two pictures:

Since the picture above was taken, the plants have nearly doubled again. String netting is tied to the balcony railing, and the plants will be trained and tied to it. Both are DWC systems. The five-gallon bucket has an up-to-20 gallon pump, which is probably the reason for the cucumber plant's exceptional growth. The 14-gallon tote has three air hoses running from a 3.7 litre/minute pump, spaced evenly along the bottom. I use a pre-formulated fertilizer made for water that has about 200-300 ppm, like most  tap water in Houston. The bag was expensive, but it will last for a long time. For cold nights there is a water heater for the cucumber, which keeps the water temperature at 68. Water ppm is currently held at about 1000, with pH between 6.0 and 6.8 (it varies).

As you can see, the tomato roots are growing really well. Later on in growth, the 3.7 litre/minute pump, which has a dial to modulate the amount of air moving through the pipes, might be replaced with the other pump, which has an awesome capacity of 15 litres/minute. I will see what that does to the growth. At this point the most important next step is to make sure that the low amount of sunlight the balcony currently receives is sufficient for fruiting, and purchasing a good bilge pump to be able to replace the water without plant root death.