This is a short write up of the deep water culture hydroponics system that was just constructed. The water is housed in a food safe bucket from the hardware store. Food safe was chosen due to the fact that chromium and other heavy metals can leach from non-food safe buckets.   The bucket contains a EcoPlus 396 gallon per hour pump without any nozzle. The bucket also contains a Tetra Whisper Air Pump connected to a large air stones  with tubing  and a back-flow valve  to prevent water from siphoning back into the pump if power is lost. The pump and fish tank air pump are used to oxygenate the water for the system and keep the water moving so that it will not get stagnant.

The top of the bucket was drilled out with a 2″ hole saw . The holes are filled with 2″ mesh net pots. These pots allow the plants roots to grow down into the constantly moving water. The pots are filled with clay pebble grow media. Before this media was used it was washed multiple times to remove any excess dirt from the media. Then it was placed in the bucket for a few days with the fish tank air pump to oxygenate the stones. This was a recommendation from multiple sources found online.

The light is just a standard led spotlight bulb wired to a light timer to give the plants a sense of day and night. The pump and air pump will be run continuously while the system is operational.

The final step was transplanting in some plants and fertilizing the plants. General Hydroponics MaxiGro fertilizer was chosen since it has a PH buffer in it . The PH buffer hopefully will prevent having to adjust the PH of the system over time.

Here are some photos of the system: