4 Layers 72 Plant Sites Grow Kit

About four months ago I bought the 90-site hydroponic kit to grow lettuce year-round indoors. That system worked so well I bought a 72-site kit to start growing strawberries, celery, peppers, and cherry tomatoes. Both fit in a corner of my apartment and have not presented any significant problems so far. The kits shipped in tightly packed boxes containing the PVC pipes, assembly instructions, a pump, hose, net cups, foam cubes, and a pair of tweezers for handling seedlings. To finish the system for an indoor build I bought a plastic tub, some LED shop lights, and timers for the pump and lights. These additional items only cost about 50 dollars. I was able to assemble the kits easily. Parts are numbered to show how they fit together. I would caution anyone to work carefully. The pipes would be difficult to replace if they broke. I was surprised that the entire assembly fits together without any glue and holds water without leaking. I can slide the assembled units across my floor, but I must do so carefully. They are stable when left alone, but they are not sturdy. I used a hole saw to cut two holes in the plastic tub that I used as a reservoir. One hole is for the drain and the other is where I threaded the pump cord and flexible hose that feeds the system. This pump is on a timer that cycles on and off for a few minutes at a time. Most of the LED shop lights are hung from the struts that feed water between the pipes. The ones I bought are surprisingly light. The top pair of lights were hung from above. Since the lights I have can be run in series, I could run them on another timer with two plugs. These particular lights were made by Barrina. Once the system is running there is always water in the bottom of the pipes. The small connecting pipes are fitted to the larger pipes with a funnel-shaped connector. Because of this some of the water settles in to the bottom of the pipe when the pump isn't running. These systems need some care to keep algae from growing. Light plus nutrient-rich water equals algae. My solution was to throw out the included net cups and foam cubes. Instead I use a black pool noodle which I sliced into one-inch rings and then cut in half. These hold my plants in place and also block the unused slots. I also use a portion of the pool noodle to connect the outlet pipe to the reservoir. These steps have greatly reduced the algae in my system. The holes are close together and in the 90-site system the pipes are also closely spaced. I found when growing seedlings I could use all of the holes on a level. As my lettuce grew I could only use every other slot. That's one reason I bought the 72-site system. The pipes are farther away from each other, so I plan to use it for larger plants and more mature heads of lettuce. The systems also don't have much room for root growth. This hasn't presented any problems for what I've grown so far, but it is something to consider. Overall, I am overjoyed. These kits removed all of the hard work of finding plans, sourcing materials, and cutting all of the pieces to size. If I hadn't bought these kits I wouldn't now be enjoying an endless supply of lettuce and anticipating year-round strawberries.

Sent 5 parts labeled #1 and 3 parts labeled #2 making one side to not flow properly.

You get what you pay for. While you could build a better setup from scratch for about the same money, you would need to do a LOT of work to match what comes already done here. Cons, such as they are, start with the fact that the pipes are not an American standard size (I assume that they're Metric) so you cannot just supplement bits with parts from a Home Depot. For example: I did not like that the nutrient return pipe does not reach the bottom of the sump container so there is noise as the water drops the last foot or so into the reservoir. They may have designed this as a way to aerate the water, but I don't want the noise. To add to the pipe, I had to buy a PVC pipe repair junction as a way to extend the pipe across mismatched diameter pipes. WHAT YOU GET ISN'T WHAT YOU SEE ON AMAZON: It is shown as coming with pipe end caps that seal off the tubes and act as feet. What I got had only open pipe ends for feet. Not a big deal, as rubber crutch tips fit perfectly and are probably better anyway because they are non-slip. But still -- there's an extra $5. Also, I bought this setup because it was pictured as having round holes instead of the more common (on Chinese products) square holes. Square holes mean you can't use regular cylindrical netcups and you are stuck with using the supplied square netcups. The square netcups do not fit any typical growing medium (like Grodan cubes) that I could get from hydroponics suppliers. Actually, I did not want to use netcups at all and wanted to try using the pool noodle technique where you cut slices of closed cell foam to capture the plant stems and avoid any growing medium at all. It appears that this CAN work, but it requires a lot more effort to fit a round foam peg into a square hole. Assembly was easy and straight forward, except for the fact that the parts were mislabeled. It took some trial and error to figure out that the illustrated instructions were exactly the opposite of how the actual parts were labeled. The unit force-fits together, and I've read in Amazon comments that folks want to keep it this way instead of gluing it together so the unit can be dismantled for cleaning. The jury is out on this. However, I would suggest that you may want to glue the “A” frames on either end. The “A” shape is held together merely by the elbow fittings at the top of the unit. I have had the unit collapse into a trapezoid a couple of times as it hinged from these elbows. A bit of PVC glue at the top of these end members should stop that. Folks have complained about the supplied pump failing early or being DOA. I think it's just the luck of the draw. I have had an identical pump running continuously for 18 years. My one major concern is that the growing tubes, the large diameter pipe cross members with all the holes, are a very thin gauge of plastic. They are more like a schedule 20 pipe than the schedule 40 pipe that the rest of the unit is made from. Because they are thin, they are also very translucent and may be prone to promoting algae growth. I don't know if this is a real problem yet but I am prepared to paint the pipes black and then white to make them opaque if I must. That's enough fun here. I look forward to growing and hope for the best.

Love this product I had hydroponic garden last year homemade wanted something to add to it just easier bought this not knowing what I was going to get and this is the best purchase for the price the quality awesome would get another one.

After assembly this system should only be tested and used outdoor. It requires "tweeking" to get rid of leaks. It's also meant for smaller plants. Even lettuce fills the 2 inch pipe and causes clogs. I've had marine aquariums 20 years and these pump motors just can't handle the on/off cycling needed in hydroponics. The pump died within 7 days, replaced then died around 90 days (while away for 4 days) killing all 72 plants.

We bought this figuring it would be as nice as our first one. This one wasn't complete. It has the drain spout but no hose or attachment. We had to go to a national chain hardware store to get a hose or pipe to drain into reservoir. The problem was that this set is not in standard USA sizes so we had to jerry rig a drain hose to the set. It was somewhat easy to set up and get if running the solution for the sprouts I had ready When we started up the pump, I had solution all over the floor. We had one too many cross pieces that were blocked and it took some doing to fix the problem and bore out one pipe so the solutions would flow through all the pipes and not back up again and end up on the floor. . We can't get another cross section due to this being foreign made and theses size pipes aren't sold in the USA. I won't be buying from this company again