Bush Early Girl Tomato

You didn't mention the pump?  Is your pump working?

The pump is working and set at 3 I think. I see the water flowing in all seven pods the 5 with their covers. The roots have been healthy white. They look just like the roots I had last with a thriving jalapeño pepper. I didn’t do a disinfect but thought since it’s been like three years since I used it last and I cleaned with soap and water I thought I would be alright.

At 2 capfuls when I did the r&r the ppm was like 300. Maybe my PPM meter is off although my well water is 77 ppm and the distilled is 0. Will it matter if I use well water as it hasn’t seem to do anything different? I did have a heat pump installed in our house, after I grew the jalapeño pepper happily, and the ceiling air vent is 6 feet away but I don’t feel any air from the vent and it’s to the side.

What could I do about the indoor air? I don’t really have other places to put the Aerogarden without vents. Should misting them with a spray bottle mornings and evening help? Do I need to put up some kind of wall to ensure no draft or put a low speed fan on them when the light is on?

I’ll start doing the R&R every 2 weeks and do 12 ml AG nutes, 3-5 ml CalMag, and order some KoolBloom. What is the best way to do the R&R? Both times I almost split the main stem by taking the Aerogarden top off and setting them aside. It’s very tough to do.

Hi scarfguy , I know it seems like an unnecessary step, but the tap water here is extremely hard with high levels of calcium which interferes with the uptake of other nutrients, especially phosphorus.  Friends have tried using tap water and adjusting the pH but it was an extra headache and didn't work out well.  

I love Aerogardening because it's easy and virtually every crop has been successful.  For me, it's easier to start with neutral water and then add the recommended nutrients rather than monitoring fluctuating pH levels and guessing about calcium levels when deciding whether to use a CalMag product.  As a bonus, it's easy to keep the Aerogardens clean -- definitely easier than keeping the mineral sludge off of the faucets and shower heads, ha!!  

Thanks airscapes for the info about RO systems.  It's definitely something to consider.  I also garden outdoors -- is all of the water treated by the RO system, including your outdoor faucets? 

lorak4195, I defer the others here for advice about water. However, if well water works for you, then it's fine. I've read that half distilled water, half tap water works well for some people. Your plant could be suffering from nutrient lockout due to the water.

If the roots are healthy, then I'd wait a while to pitch the plant--especially because it is bravely producing tomatoes. I would look closely at growing conditions in the room. Start by pruning off all of those branches with dried-up or curled leaves. (Leave any branches with healthy blooms, but prune off all curled or yellowed leaves, as they won't come back.) Keeping those dead leaves interferes with air circulation, and seems to burden the plant, too.

To counter low winter humidity, misting should help, or you could try using a small cool mist humidifier in the room.

Do look again for drafts when the furnace is on and sending out heat. One of my AGs gets a strong air current when the furnace is on, even though the vent is far away and the air isn't warm. This same AG is near a cracked-open window, and the cold draft from there sometimes dries out tomato plant leaves badly. A tent or shield may help with drafts and humidity, but I haven't personally tried this.

The 68 degree room temperature should be okay. Did you check the water temperature? Water that's very much over 72 degrees F. will cook the plant--but this problem will usually show up in the roots.

I forgot to mention that Koolbloom is an optional supplement, although it increases flower production and helps retain fruit that has set. Adding Koolbloom has tremendously improved my cherry tomato production! If you use it, add smaller amounts than the label recommends at first--too much can shock your plants.

Your plant still may have a disease, but the healthy roots say otherwise.

With Bounties, I now empty the bowls completely at R&Rs, but I used to siphon the water and my plants did fine.

When I'm draining the bowls, I unplug the pump, and tilt the deck forward to remove the plants. (Sometimes I raise the lights, too.) Then I set the plant and deck into a bus tray temporarily until I can dump and refill the bowl. (Thank you, campingcorgis!) The roots don't seem to mind this--they're very forgiving.

At this time I also trim the roots if it seems like a good idea, and clear roots out of the pump filter and water level indicator. To replace the plant, I just tilt the deck back in the same way it came out. Then I plug in the pump as soon as I've added water.

As it happens, I was draining Bounties today. Here are two Sweet Heat peppers from a recent Grow-Along, resting temporarily in a gray bus tray. They were planted 182 days ago, so many roots are brown, but there are white roots threaded through.

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I closed the vent in that room yesterday and I'll continue to monitor it. I checked the tds again and it was 800ppm. The next R&R is in 2 days. I checked the water temperature and it is 77 degrees.  I figured out it's coming from the control unit panel as it's around 80 degrees.  I'm pretty sure that's my problem and I have a plan to fix that.  I never realized it could be the unit itself.  Back when I planted the seeds I found out my LED light wasn't working and just blinking.  I contacted Aerogarden but they would not sell me a replacement LED light anymore...they were for sale when I bought the unit.  Instead of spending another couple hundred bucks I researched DIY fixes and determined what I thought was the light power supply was faulty.

I wasn't sure the wattage and the voltage of the light panel so did more research.  Two YouTube videos  and different approaches but I went with the new external power supply and just plugged the power supply into the light and the unit.  In the comments for one of the videos a person said "There are a few different hoods. I have two 12 volt, 30 watt hoods and 1 24 volt, 45 watt hood. If you don't want to mess with capacitors, you can buy an appropriate power block (think laptop type cord) and wire it right in, bypassing the power block under the lamps - just throw that away. You'll have a power block outside of your hood, but if you make sure to get the right type of connector to the block, you can use the lamp cord on the aerogarden (Plug it into the new power block instead of the hood) and that way the aerogarden timers still turn the lights on and off. About 10-15 bucks for a power adapter. Not as neat, but more doable for those with less electronics comfort."  I knew mine was 30W but still wanted to double check the voltage.

To figure out the voltage needed I got the power supply to work for strobing lights and put a volt meter on it and the voltage stayed at minimum 8.5 and went all the way up to 9.9.  If it was in the high teens I could pretty much assume 24v but it's not. There's 4 leds for each parallel run printed on the board not 3 nor 6 so I still wasn't quite sure if it's 24v or 12 v based on a standard light strip. It does have a label on the light panel "30W-V3.1-3116" so thought 4 lights in series needs 4x3.1 =12.4V.  Both the labels and the test confirmed it was likely 12V.  I tested the light on a 12 Volt Car Battery starter and it lit up perfectly.  If 12 volts wasn't enough pretty sure it would have been dim and not even had enough power to light.  So at a minimum I need 30W and 12V DC so went with double that, 60W, and 12V at amazon www.amazon.com/dp/B07GFFG1BQ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1.  I tried plugging it into the Aerogarden plugin but when the light was off the power supply light blinked.  I figured there was some sort of control signal coming through so just plugged the light into a manual outlet timer.  I never thought that the control board and/or pump power supply could be bad as I think that's the problem.  It shouldn't heat up so much.  I determined I won't need the control panel...although for future plantings I'll have to figure out the pump and light schedule for germination vs high growth mode.  The high growth mode runs the pump 24/7, I verified the pump is 3W and 12V, bought a duplicate 60W power supply as well as a female to female adapter and just plug it into the wall and plug the pump into it.  I'm pretty sure this has been the problem all along.

Thanks again everyone.

Update
When I received the power supply and the 5.5mm female to female adapter I doubled checked the pump one last time.  I realized it was 12V AC not DC.  I purchased a 1 Amp 12V AC power supply and when it arrived plugged it in.  Again I made another mistake the 5.5mm adapter I got was 5.5mm x 2.1mm and it didn't work so purchased the correct 5.5mm x 2.5mm female to female adapter.  It arrived yesterday and I plugged it in.  Unfortunately the temperature was still 74 deg F which I'm pretty sure is still too high.  I did some research and learned if the pump runs continuously, like mine does on high growth mode, it will heat up the water.  I read on a couple posts that people get by with a 5 min on 25 min off pump cycle like what is set for lettuce.  It was mentioned the pump only needs to run a little to aerate the water.  I put it on a new timer for 5 min on 25 min off and now my temp is stable at approximately 71 deg F.  I also figured out that the control panel backlight won't turn off.  I remember that used to so that's probably something also causing more heat but that's unplugged now as well.  

Can anyone confirm that the 5 min on 25 min off will be alright?  I have the old Aerogarden Ultra LED but I can't find out if the newer similar models like the Bounty Basic run 24/7 for high growth mode.  I also wonder if it's because I haven't cleaned my pump before.  Maybe it has some roots and gunk causing it to run hotter than typical or maybe it has always run hot.  I can't find much info on this subject and have a replacement pump I could try but will probably kill my plants if I install the replacement pump.  This website aerogarden.com/learning/the-pump-is-not-working-in-my-aerogarden.html has some details but not really enough details.

I also heard that there are DC versions of this same pump such as www.amazon.com/ZAOJIAO-Submersible-Fountain-Brushless-Aquarium/dp/B07WFZSG95/ref=asc_df_B07WFZSG95/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=475740782809&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15079360424039368818&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033594&hvtargid=pla-1025965944923&psc=1 that are more quite but can't find much info for that as well to help with temperature if 5min on 25min off doesn't work.