greentoe, 1) watering frequency... al has said over and over on this forum that he waters according to his plants' needs, and that this is often around every three days. ray barkalow recommends watering once a week, or at a minimum every 14 days, even if a particular plant still has water in its reservoir. this means watering one half to one quarter as often. if you are seeing information from ray that conflicts with this, please post some links, because this is what i remember from reading his websites and orchid forum posts years ago. 2) dan's watering frequency... the critical thing in semi-hydro is keeping a nutrient water source in the bottom of the grow pot. the media needs to stay damp. however, this level needs to be relatively low in the pot so that there is still plenty of 'airy' media above the water for the plant to grow its roots. this water level should be about a fifth the height of the grow pot. it is NOT ok to add water above this line to try to reduce your watering frequency... but it IS ok to add a wider water tray for the grow pot to sit in. the larger tray can hold a larger volume of water, and so you can reduce your watering frequency. just be sure to only ever have a water level height at the proper place. in my case, i set my plants in saucers that are only a tad bigger than the grow pot. these saucers will hold enough water for about a week and a half or so. but, when i travel, i move the plant, in its grow pot, to partly covered trays that hold a much larger volume of water. 6" pots go into those disposable salad boxes with a hole cut in the top to accommodate the pot. and the large pots 10+" go into 12" by 18" plastic trays i found in the organizer section of a big box store. i loosely cover the top with painter's plastic to cut down on evaporation. then i fill them with water/nutrients to the same 1" for small plants or 2" for large plants as i usually do with the smaller trays. with this set up, my plants can easily go 3 to 4+ weeks before they need watering again. the reason i don't leave my plants like this all the time is that ray, and many other semi-hydro folks, including companies who manufacture the media, believe that most plants are healthier with a water level that rises and falls more frequently... such as every week or two. the idea is that a falling water level will pull oxygen into the root zone. a few of my plants, such as some Homalomena "Emerald Gem"s, could care less, but a few of my variegated Aglaonemas lost some of their good looks during a 1 to 2 year period when i was away from the house a lot, and they remained in the 'vacation' trays most of the time. none of them died or anything... but their leaf color was faded looking. they bounced back when moved back into their normal trays. 3) evaporation... remember that most of what ray has written concerns his method for growing orchids in a humid greenhouse. in a dry, indoor home, surface evaporation will be much greater. however, as mentioned earlier, the media surface will dry and act as a kind of mulch of sorts. i, like petrushka, have begun to add a 1/2" or so layer of gravel to the surface of the hydroton. it sounds like my gravel may be a bit larger than hers, but it will work the same. the kind i use is sold as a decorative polished gravel and the pieces are about the size of the hydroton. now, in my case, i'm not doing this to reduce watering frequency (and it won't change it much, if it all). i'm doing it because i think it looks nicer... and most importantly, to help reduce salt accumulation in the media. salt deposits at sites of evaporation, and reducing evaporation will therefore reduce salt deposition. even with this, i still flush all my pots in the shower, or outdoors, every 3 months at least. 4) watering volume... if you read and follow rays watering instructions, you will burn through a LOT of water. his watering instructions are to fill the grow cups (that have two small holes about an inch up from the bottom) to the top with a running stream of nutrient water, and then let the excess drain out through the holes. his plants are beautiful and he has been doing this for years. so his method works. however, to me, this seems like such a waste of water. also, if you search for forum posts where ray talks about his own indoor houseplants, he doesn't water the same way. he merely waters until he has a little flow out of the overflow holes... and then every month or two, he takes the pots to the sink and gives them a good flush with water to prevent salt accumulation. he said that this seems good enough for most house plants. he believes that they aren't as salt sensitive as some orchids. also, houseplants are growing and respiring at a much lower rate than actively growing plants in a much higher light greenhouse. 5) as for 'water roots' versus 'air roots' and such... the short answer is that as dan and petrushka mentioned above, roots will grow down into the water. what you don't want to do is drown the "air roots" by raising the water level too high. they're not used to this. also, for most of my plants (primarily aglaonemas), their soil roots survived the move to S/H just fine. very, very few roots died during the transition. most of the time i don't even tent the plants (though i did water the media more frequently to keep it a bit damper than normal. thinner leaved plants would likely appreciate a little extra humidity though. 6) how i water... first, i never let my plants go dry. if i see a tray that's empty or very low, i usually water all of the plants so that i can forget all of them until next time to water. i don't walk around every two or three days checking on how 'everyone' is doing. when i water, i dump out any remaining nutrient water in the water tray, and then re-fill to the proper water level with fresh solution. never, ever just "top up" your remaining water to the proper level because salts will accumulate. and, as i said, flush with plain water from time to time as well. oh, and i place a piece of blue tape with the level marked on the outside of the drip tray in case anyone else ever needs to water my plants for me. if someone else is watering, this is the only time i 'top up'. i just tell them to water until the water is up to the line. easy, peasy. even a 5th grader can water my plants now. for feeding and watering my plants, i add 1 tsp of Dyna Grow Foliage Pro 9-3-6 to 1 gallon of water. i just use tap water, which here in portland or, is pretty decent tap water. i don't adjust pH or anything. our water is very soft, and a bit on the acidic side. folks who live in areas with hard water will likely accumulate minerals on their ceramic media faster. you might want to try to water with rain water or distilled water instead. you also might be fine as long as you're even more careful about flushing. well, and a gravel top dress might help as well. do NOT use softened water on your s/h plants. i hope some of this helps. i really like this method of growing houseplants. it takes the guess work out of watering... cheers, nancy

Posted by grizzman (My Page) on Mon, Apr 5, 10 at 8:11 Jimmy, Please do a forum search on TDS, EC, ppm and read them. 1200 on your meter doesn't really mean a 1200 ppm solution. ********************************************************* Grizzman, i see now, with some added confusion, that the ppm measurement that I am getting is actually an EC reading that is converted mathmatically to a PPM reading. I havr read that their is no relationship to EC and PPM as well when comparing the levels of nutrients in my solution as individual properties. So my next question is...the conversion formula (TDS READING X 2)/1000 that is given in many forums, an actual level of TOTAL nutrients in the solution? I guess where I'm going is if I am mixing a one part nutrient solution and not individually, how is the EC reading more accurate? Thanks Grizzman and all other responders!!!

Oops. I kinda missed the boat on your question; somehow I overlooked the "hydro" part. On that note, you'll have to figure out a way to keep the air temperature warmer. This will probably mean growing in a heated greenhouse. Of course, you could do what the rest of us do and merely buy new "pre-treated" bare-root stock each year. That way, every year is a "first-year" crop and the fruit production is its highest. Second and third-year productions are far less than the first year's. If you do the bare-root thing, be sure to order by late October or November or you may be out of luck. They go fast and when they're gone; they're gone. If you can hook up with a commercial grower, you might be able to buy for cheaper. The commercial crew buys them by the pallet. That's about 12,000 individual plants. They're REALLY cheap when you buy them like that! "Pre-conditioned" by the way means the plants have had the necessary amount of "cold hours" before they are shipped. So, if you want to propagate from your own runners, you'll have to make sure you give the new starts about 160 hours of chill time or they won't fruit! Hope that sets things straighter! :O)

Goldcroft and Hydro4me. Thank you for the replys. I called the hydro store where I ordered my supplies and there trying to find out what ups did with my package. I took care of the timer problem. I bought another pump with a built in float switch. Then I took a 5 gallon bucket and ran a hose from it to my tote water tank. Now it comes on every 20 minutes. I also bought some 4 foot shop lights for now. I think they'll work good enough for what I'm doing. thanks again; Joe