# Which is the best commercial hydroponic medium?



## zem (Sep 7, 2013)

so as the title says, which is the most suitable medium to grow hydroponically and commercially to start for example a tomato, strawberry, cucumber or so farm? it has to be economical and not too labor intensive. I looked into expanded clay, perlite, rockwool, gravel, coconut coir, coco, and many more. they are either expensive, or too heavy hard to deal with. I am leaning for expanded clay pellets as they are recyclable, but their cost is quite high making the initial investment to buy them a bigger risk. but they live for very very long can be reused indefinitely. what do commercial farmers use?


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## Growdude (Sep 7, 2013)

If its a big grow cleaning hydroton is not practical.
I'm not commercial and just said forget it and buy new each grow.





I thought most commercial used Rockwool.


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## zem (Sep 7, 2013)

Growdude said:
			
		

> If its a big grow cleaning hydroton is not practical.
> I'm not commercial and just said forget it and buy new each grow.
> 
> 
> ...


i tried several cleaning methods, taking out the rocks and soaking in bleach removing roots manually, that was way too hard, next I tried putting in the oven, also a big fuss. nowadays, I just remove the rootball at harvest soak with h2o2 35% overnight, flush and grow on. never seen ill effects of some roothairs here and there. of course i also add h2o2 in very small amounts to the res during the grow. I'm thinking, maybe I can do just that on a commercial grow. it is the same or less labor intensive than bringing new rocks and removing the old ones. it would require a worker for a whole day removing root balls as thorough as possible... a day or two worth of labor cost is not that much when compared to the value of rebuying new medium on a big scale. if i am to estimate the labor time, my estimate would be that a good worker would clean 1000L of growrocks every hour. for 7 hours labor it is 7000L if the greenhouse is like a full acre, of tomatoes, the amount of rocks is like 40,000Liters of growrock, which is 6 day worth of workers' wages. I can get from the manufacturer in bulk, 40,000 liters will cost me $6,000-$7000 (don't start at me with online price comparisons :ignore: ) this will produce 8000 tomato plants in 5 liter pots... not that i am decided on type of crop, just taking tomato for reference. the numbers seem interesting at first, but when you add up the marketing, distribution costs and risk factor, it adds up to a fair profit margin... 
as for rockwool, it just seems more costly at least in my case. also I think that rockwool is more complicated to manage during the growth due to dripper setups, algae prevention, overwatering possibility etc. it is of course the only medium to use for a DWC or NFT lettuce farm, but I am thinking of more than just lettuce. crops like tomatoes or cucumbers, are much like marijuana, in the sense that they will not grow to full potential with submerged roots, so to achieve good results in DWC, it will require a lid to hold the plant above water level and airstone, something very hard to manage on a commercial level. imagine having to check 8000 buckets every day... 
I'm mostly "thinking out loud" now, so feel free to think loud with me. my sample greenhouse is long set up and right now I have a high chance of beginning with a commercial project


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## Growdude (Sep 8, 2013)

I just run 6, 3 gallon net pots in a flood-n-drain system and hate hydroton for every reason you list and I really cant just remove the root ball and keep the rest as It come out in one solid mass.
Disposing of this stuff is a major pain.

I'm just looking for an alternative medium for my setup. I need something that burns.


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## trillions of atoms (Sep 8, 2013)

U can let the rootballs dry out n burn them? Scoop out the ton n rinse it.   I know that would b a pain but u can do it.

I live in the woods, many places to toss that kinda stuff around here.

U could make a compost pile?

I have been running growstones lately and love them. Expanded glass....   I pull the rootball shake some off until I see roots breaking off in it then I just toss in a cardboard boxes n let them dry crispy, pack paper in it and take it "camping w me". Starts a great fire everytime.  Bags of used waste trim and stalks get thrown in there too.  W some lighter fluid n leaves thrown on there you can't even smell anything.

Hope I might have sparked some ideas for ya, directly or indirectly


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## YYZ Skinhead (Sep 9, 2013)

I germinate in Oasis foam cubes:

ecogrow.com/oasis-1-12-cubes-sheet-of-50-p-759.html

and top them off with hydrocorn (Hydroton, grow rocks) for the whole grow.  I've been satisfied with the clay stones for at least 12 years.  Green mojo FTG.


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## zem (Sep 13, 2013)

YYZ Skinhead said:
			
		

> I germinate in Oasis foam cubes:
> 
> ecogrow.com/oasis-1-12-cubes-sheet-of-50-p-759.html
> 
> and top them off with hydrocorn (Hydroton, grow rocks) for the whole grow.  I've been satisfied with the clay stones for at least 12 years.  Green mojo FTG.


it's what i came up with, a system made out of long canals with growbags filled with grorock inside them to be flooded. the number of canals on a large scale grow make it impossible to flood them all together, so I came up with a way to flood every 3-4 canals individually and then drain and flood the next ones. my calculations show that the reservoir will be only 4000Liters for 1/2 hectare of a greenhouse grow. 
i also germinate in oasis cubes, but I just buy the regular ones, much cheaper, and cut them to size. the ones in the link priced at 16cents per cube is quite high for a commercial crop. I get a box 8"x12"x20' for about 15$. I can cut hundreds of cubes from it... this is the retailer price btw.


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## YYZ Skinhead (Sep 13, 2013)

zem said:
			
		

> it's what i came up with, a system made out of long canals with growbags filled with grorock inside them to be flooded. the number of canals on a large scale grow make it impossible to flood them all together, so I came up with a way to flood every 3-4 canals individually and then drain and flood the next ones. my calculations show that the reservoir will be only 4000Liters for 1/2 hectare of a greenhouse grow.
> i also germinate in oasis cubes, but I just buy the regular ones, much cheaper, and cut them to size. the ones in the link priced at 16cents per cube is quite high for a commercial crop. I get a box 8"x12"x20' for about 15$. I can cut hundreds of cubes from it... this is the retailer price btw.


:holysheep:  Where do you get them for that price?  I have never seen the big slabs in hydro stores but I know they exist.  I usually buy the pre-cut cubes from Foothillhydroponics.com in-store -- when I can get to the Valley, that is.


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## zem (Sep 13, 2013)

YYZ Skinhead said:
			
		

> :holysheep:  Where do you get them for that price?  I have never seen the big slabs in hydro stores but I know they exist.  I usually buy the pre-cut cubes from Foothillhydroponics.com in-store -- when I can get to the Valley, that is.


i get them from florist shops, the box is cut in slabs 2'x2'x4' they are of course, made in china... im not in US btw


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## effdecaf (Nov 4, 2013)

trillions of atoms said:
			
		

> growstones




The chart shows there's 40:60 H2O:AIR ratio. What does hydro ton have for this?

Does perlite work in the same fashion/specs?

Do people run into rotting problems such like they do with coir, by using vermiculite (in hydro)?


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## trillions of atoms (Nov 4, 2013)

For commercial do aquaponics for tomatoes okra lettuce etc...  have long canals shalliw filled with poo water...its recirculated and you plant lettuce on styrofoam boards and they float in the canals....   tomatoes in ebb and flow canals like you said in growbags would work. 

I have a friend using gravel with his aquaponics farm (cheap) and he said okra and lettuce do great but you cant overplant toms above and yeild lettuce too like some gardeners "say".  Only problem hes having is he didnt bury hos fish tanks and is having problems heating over 7000 gallons on the cheap.  I told him to insulate the tanks but he didnt listen.


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## trillions of atoms (Nov 4, 2013)

Eff I didn't see your reply -don't run vermec in dro its a sponge.... and its FINE and gets into everything.

I been running growstones and perlite alongside ton and prefer the stone perlite mix.   But use perlite that does not float....get a 20 pound sack pour it in the tub...scoop the floaty stuff and use the stuff that sunk to bottom to use in your ebb trays....prevent tipping over if using growbags.... I do the same w ton.  Its better to run containers w the perlite / stone mix if you cant take this step.


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## zem (Nov 7, 2013)

i am running 3 grape tomato rows each is 8ft tall holding 6 plants each. they are made from carton boards and pond liner, cant get any cheaper. i use cement blocks and drywall rails to raise them from the floor. this is only to simulate a real floor. in a commercial system, it will probably be better to place them on the floor and dig a hole for the res. the results from the system is great! on a commercial scale many other factors will also be taken to account but for a test trial it is sweet.


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## trillions of atoms (Nov 7, 2013)

Beautiful zem...thanks for sharing!!


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## Hushpuppy (Nov 8, 2013)

Hey guys, How well would this kind of hydro system work for growing strawberries? I have considered doing a controlled environment (greenhouse) year round strawberry grow for a semi-commercial setup.


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## zem (Nov 10, 2013)

Hushpuppy said:
			
		

> Hey guys, How well would this kind of hydro system work for growing strawberries? I have considered doing a controlled environment (greenhouse) year round strawberry grow for a semi-commercial setup.


you can grow great strawberries in such a system, if it were me i would plant strawberries in perlite since they grow for a long time you dont need a recyclable medium and it is lighter and retains more moisture easier to make poles for strawberries to be stacked one over the other. the only thing that kept me from growing strawberries was the amount of time sprouts take to grow and become hardy, i couldnt pamper them for so long and they just perished. it will be hard to get strawberries all year round consistently, but if you manage to do that, it could be quite lucrative. just consider the time that you need to achieve that before you begin. also you will need excellent climate control to do it.


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## sunakard2000 (Nov 11, 2013)

not only climate control, good pest control and if in a sealed area where you shouldnt get bugs youll have to get a makeup brush and pollinate the flowers so you actually get fully developed strawberries, when i grew them i didnt brush the pollin onto the flower heads and get deformed strawberries that looked goofy, one looked kinda like a bear animal cracker lol also as i said pests will be a problem, mainly spider mites. you will also have to make sure to adjust the schutes that grow out to start another little cluster, otherwise it will go where ever it wants and gets very spread out, easier to adjust them and arrange them in a line or clusters, also youll need to clip these schutes once the new cluster has established roots or the schute will cause the 2 clusters to be linked thus 1 plant, clip the schute and they are both their own plants. strawberries are quite a finikey plant, tough to get just right. research is a must or youll have a fail harvest, and if done on a large scale outdoors and/or greenhouse with beneficial insects for pollination is almost a must or youll be there all day brushing thousands of flowers.


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## Hushpuppy (Nov 11, 2013)

Interesting info guys, thanks. I will definitely do some research before diving into anything


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