Herbs in a DWC setup

For those unfamiliar with the concept, it stands for "deep water culture". In a sense, it's somewhat similar to the Krakty method, where you have a container filled with water, some nutrients as needed, and a medium to grow the plants in. The difference is largely just the addition of an air pump, some tubing leading into the container, and an airstone sitting in the water to keep it oxygenated.

Here's a video explaining it:

This was mostly just to play around with the idea and to keep costs low.

Material:

• Container: Storage bin from Walmart
  
• Lights: Grow light from Amazon (I think they're roughly 45W)
• Air pump: Air pump, tubing and air stones bought from Amazon. The air pump is safe for hydroponic use and has 4 outlets.
  
• Medium: I just re-used the AeroGarden pods/baskets.
  
• Nutrients: Either the AeroGarden ones or the Flora-series by General Hydroponics.

So pretty much I got a set of cheap storage bins from Walmart, drilled some circular holes in the lids so that they could fit the AG pod baskets, and drilled a very small hole on the side at the top of the bin to pass the air pump tubing. The hole thing is set up on a shelf, with the lights above.

My only major annoyance is connecting the tubing to the air pump is very difficult. The air pump is also pretty noisy (but I knew this would be the case).

The rest is just connecting the tubing, adding in the air stone, filling up the container with water and nutrients and planting things using the AG pods. I've started plants directly in my setup and it works, but generally I do prefer to start plants in the AeroGarden and move them to this set up once they're a little bigger, just because the pods/sponges can dry up if you don't pay attention.

It works. Here's some cinnamon basil that grew pretty wild:

Komatsuna:

Shiso:

I've done some other plants as well, including lettuce, arugula, komatsuna, genovese basil, and mint. Everything grows well except for lettuce -- but I have trouble with it in the AeroGarden anyways due to heat issues.

What I like about this is that it's very easy to clean, there's much more space for plant growth and root growth, and the roots don't get stuck any kind of motor.

Some notes:

• The containers I used do let in some light, which is not ideal. Thankfully the air pump kept things in check and prevented algae growth though.
• The pH did get unbalanced a couple times and this was only noticeable through stunted plant growth. The leaves of the plants were otherwise fine. After adjusting the pH, plant growth boomed again.
  
• You'll notice a bit of tape on the left of the first photo and that's because the surface isn't perfectly flat and the pods don't exactly sit snug into place like they do with the AeroGarden. So the tape was just to prevent the plants from falling over.
  

I stopped this project along with everything else AeroGarden-related back in August 2020 due to a spider mite infestation and to focus more on my outdoor garden. But I do plan on picking it back up.