Hi all, I'm new, please bear with me.

I live in West Virginia and am currently on *quite* a limited budget (trying to start a biofuel business w/ some friends), and I'm trying very hard to be as self sufficient as possible.

After days and days of reading all over the place, I settled on an NFT system using 4-inch thinwall pvc. Probably not the best place for a beginner, but it was what was available.

If anybody wants, I'll post pics of the system, but i'll try to explain it.

4-50" pieces of 4" thinwall pvc w/ holes approx every 10 inches

1 elbow at the uphill end of each pipe

1 cap and the downhill end

1 drain hole w/ 1/2" tube from each pipe, drains into nutrient reservoir

1 45 gallon Rubbermaid container as reservoir

1 526gph submersible pump (I swear it's a lie, there is NO WAY this thing pumps almost 9 gallons a minute, MAYBE 4.)

hose from pump flows to 1/2 pvc piece w/ 4 T's, one for each pipe, of course the ends are capped.

The flow is VERY CLOSE to equal in each pipe.

The system lives in my "sun room", an all window room that has been getting to around 70-85 degrees the last couple daytimes and as low as 55-60 at night. No grow lights are in use, but if/when they become necessary I have lots of full-spectrum lights from when I had my lizard.

I had great luck this year w/ my tomato garden, and with the idea of being cheap, I clipped suckers to use for the hydro garden. I let them sit in water in mason jars for about 4 days. 100% of them survived w/ no apparent side effects.

Oh, I should note, our water here is extremely hard. LOTS of iron and LOTS of calcium.

Obviously, there is no local hydroponic store, period. Paying $30 for 3 quarts of 3 part hydro mix + shipping is cost prohibitive right now too. $6+shipping for 1 lb even seems a little much. We DO have a local farm supply shop, but I figured mixing my own right out of the box might not be so recommended. So, I read some post that someone had fine success w/ miraclegro. I compared it to every other fertilizer I could find in any local store (note that it's the end of the growing season here), and it seems to be VERY close to the recommended levels of micronutrients recommended on any given site. About half of the 15% nitrogen is from urea, which leaves me about 7 available, which is right on par w/ what most hydro ferts offer. It contains all other micronutrients listed in ~ the same concentration, so I figured "why not". $9 for 150 gallons worth seemed ok.

So, here's my question. I planted 17 tomato plants into this system, leaving 3 open spots. 15 of them seem fine, but a couple of the taller ones started to slump over, sorta limp like--color is still great. 1 of them is turning lots of yellow and curling, under I think. 1/2 of another one is yellowing, the other side is doing swimmingly. I should note that after 4 days, only 1 sucker showed any root growth, but I was impatient and I have about another 2-3 weeks to get good snips, in fact I'm taking some more tomorrow just in case.

Here's the variables that I don't know the answers to:

~I used cut-off aluminum cans and perlite to suspend them in the solution. Perlite should be fine, aluminum cans might be a no-no.

~Flow rate. I read that like 2-3 litres a minute was fine, and I really think that's about what I've got.

~My slope is very slight, but solution doesn't back up, and appears to flow through the holes in the cans just fine.

~HOW DEEP SHOULD THE SOLUTION BE? Right now I have the drain tube pushed up high enough inside the PVC that the most-uphill can has ~1.5-2 inches of solution up the side. It occours to me that this might be too deep.

~My nutrient solution is not aerated beyond the bubbles generated by the overflow from the pipes. Someone said it's not necessary, but I figure it couldn't hurt. I've been considering putting a float system on top of the reservoir, since it's there and all, but w/e.

~I mixed one bag of MG (says it's good for 40-50 gallons, but then that's for a once-every-2-weeks feeding) into ~45 gallons of water. Why so much? I don't know, why not? I thought if it was too diluted, there's enough flow and depth that it should be able to get what it needs. But, am I over fertilized? I obviously don't have a Ph meter, but I might be able to borrow one from a local pool.

~Or, am I totally just over reacting? I know I should expect some loss w/i the system, especially since nothing actually had roots. Like I said, limited budget and all, don't want to be spitting in the proverbial wind.

And, lastly, I'd like to hear HONEST suggestions for good nutrient solution. MG was to get me started, I knew it probably wasn't a good long-term solution. I'd like to know what will give me the maximum volume of nutrient solution for the lowest price. I hear people talking like 1gram per gallon, and I probably don't need 45 gallons of solution, I just want to make sure it gets aerated and my pump doesn't go dry. I'd REALLY like a general purpose option instead of a "use this for 2 weeks then this for 4 then switch to this".

Oh, one more thing. I found lots of seed sites, but none specifically say they're open in the off-season. Anyone want to recommend some? I'm looking specifically for okra and black/purple tomatoes.

Sorry for the long post, just want to make sure I'm understood.

~Clark