I've never grown a melon of any description but I'm wondering why it isn't out in the garden yet. It seems to have a flower bud but is still in its seedling container. I don't think it needs fertiliser I think it needs space and soil. That's if it's the right time of year for it to grow in your region.

Hey Tim, I will put up some updated pics tomorrow. Everything is thriving in my ebb and flow, but I ended up doing away with my two DWC buckets (it got to be too much to keep up with since i built a dutch bucket system outside as well). The formulas on the bottles are way too strong and I dont follow them much. I have a 47 gallon res and mix my nutrients as if I had a 30 gallon res and the ppm's come out to about 950-1100. For growing peppers and tomatoes, the formula i would suggest is 5ml/gallon of each (grow,micro,bloom) at beginning stage. Once fruit starts setting, i use 5,10,10 (grow,micro,bloom). Also, I add about 5ml of cal mag. My pepper leaves were looking a bit wrinkly like yours and this seemed to help with the new growth. One thing i noticed about tomatoes is they do not like a constant wind from fan. Some of my tomato leaves were curling upward and it was because my fan was constantly blowing on them. I changed to an oscillating fan with a slight breeze and that solved the problem. Take a look at my thread titled "Re-purposed old fence into dutch bucket system" i started it about 4 weeks ago and it is really taking off. I would choose a dutch bucket system over DWC any day. The problem with growing things like tomatoes and peppers in dwc like you and i both have/had is that when the plants get mature, you have to pull the lid and add nutrients almost every other day. With dutch buckets your res is easier to keep topped off, you dont have to worry about root rot so much, and you can keep it cooler. Let me know if you have any questions.

What is the cover material made of? Is it shade cloth? That's fine, but it comes in different kinds that allow in different levels of light. You will have to find the one that suits your weather, and you may have to change it at different times of the year. If you attach it with wiggle wire, you can take the cover off and on easily. The cheapest way to build your tank is to simply make a wooden frame and put a pond liner in it. I'd use 2x12 or 2x10 treated lumber. Put 2 metal brackets on each corner to reinforce it. Obviously, keep any sharp edges off the pond liner. My own design for a lid uses a very common white fiberglass paneling that comes in 4x8 sheets. Sandwich a layer of styrofoam between two pieces of that paneling, hold it together with galvanized bolts and washers, and seal the edges with clear silicon. The lid is the most expensive part, but it lasts forever, and your tank will cost very little compared to buying a pre-formed plastic tank. You can get by with just styrofoam as a lid, but it will wear out much more quickly.

Let's not forget that I AM a commercial grower, at least a small one, whereas you are blowing bubbles in a bucket of water with a $6 air pump. First, I don't believe that you grow anything commercially, simply because you haven't learned the differences between the 6 types of systems yet. Second, you have no idea what plants I have grown, or even how I build the systems I grow them in, or even why I make the design choices I do. Again that type of stuff you only learn by doing, and I have done plenty. That's why I'm building my greenhouse to grow commercially for our local community. And I have never bought, or ever will buy a commercial hydroponic system, I know how they work, and how to construct them for the plants needs. I do however enjoy looking at commercial systems, but I have never seen one yet worth the money. The Aeroflow (which I was buying, disassembling, and re-building into a better machine ten years ago) does not use misters. Well the new ones I have read about do use misters. The aeroflow isn't exactly nft. It does represent the manner in which system designs tend to overlap. I never said it was a strict NFT design, but it's a NFT with modifications. But the modifications don't change the fact that it's classified as a NFT system, and not even close to the water culture sub-category of DWC (recirculating or not). I would give you NFT/recirculating water culture if the roots were at least half way submerged, and the pump runs 24/7. The roots would need to be at least 75% submerged 24/7 before it could be considers any type of water culture system. Including a stagnant water culture system (no pump at all), or a water pump only recirculating water culture like you recomend. Roots grow in the thin layer of "nutrient film" as the very shallow layer of nutrient water cascade down back into the reservoir. This design takes advantage of what I keep telling you, which is that almost all of the oxygen in any body of water will be at the very top, thus the importance of maximizing surface area. It has nothing to do whatsoever with your false statements about how much dissolved oxygen is at the top of the waters surface verses farther down. Furthermore, no mater what you do it's imposable to raise dissolved oxygen levels above the waters dissolved oxygen saturation point. The plants in a NFT system get water and nutrients from the flow of water, they get very little oxygen form the water. They get 90% plus of their oxygen from the roots that are hanging in AIR above the water line. Hopefully you can see that the "types" of systems are not very well-defined. The most popular machines combine properties of the different classifications. The six types of hydroponic systems are clearly defined for those of us that that know what they are, how their different, and what makes them work. That's how you learn to identify the systems, know their pro's and cons, and the very first thing anyone getting into hydroponics should learn (something you clearly have trouble with). As I already mentioned that doesn't mean that you cant combine aspects of more than one type in the same system. But only by knowing what makes them different, how and why they work can you identify the primary system type of any system (again something you clearly have trouble with). But combining different aspects into the same system doesn't create a new type of system. It creates a sub-category/classification under one of the six primary system types. The waterfarm is really just nft over rocks. These types of statements are exactly how I know you haven't learned how to identify the six types of hydroponic systems yet, and why I posted the definitions for you in the first place. High-pressure aeroponics, when built over a table or tube, actually becomes an nft system as soon as the pump cycles off and the misted water flows back into the reservoir. First there can be more than one sub-classification. Aeroponic/NFT would only be the case if the roots were long enough to reach the bottom of the root chamber, and if the water level was shallow. Second, It could just as easily be a aeroponic/water culture system or even a aeroponic/flood and drain system. That's where knowing what makes all six types different, as well as what makes them work. Without knowing those fundamentals you don't know how to classify it, or even how the modifications affect your plants for the desired effect. You simply use livestock watering troughs that you can reach across. Or build your own out of a wood frame lined with a pond liner. Being able to get to the plant to harvest is a challenge with any growing method. I have also seen some cement troughs as well. But any way you build it, it will cost ten times as much to build/construct verses using a drip system instead. Real commercial growers have done their homework and know that drip systems are much more cost effective because they did. Not if you buy the nylon stuff, kiddo. Look up the "Florida weave." It's standard commercial practice for tomatoes, inside or out. First that isn't twine old man. Twine is a organic product, that is a synthetic product. That's why referring to things in the proper context is important if you want people to know what you are saying. But regardless that doesn't change the fact that you would need to use more than three times as much of it to support tomato plants in a water culture system verses the same crop grown in a drip system. Again there is just no need to make things harder or more complicated than they need to be. A RDWC system lid does not "float," You can use lids and baskets to support the plants, if you design it well enough to be able to support all that weight, again much more costly on a large scale for commercial growers, and for absolutely no benefit over using a drip system either. a simple post in the ground on either end anchors the twine to hold up the plants. I can also attach to the greenhouse hoops overhead, another very standard commercial practice. You must be thinking of growing in really short rows if you think two stakes (one on each end) will support all the tall tomato plants with no root support. Commercial growers grow them in long rows to make the most of space. And I know very well that the poly string used in commercial tomato production is usually attached to the greenhouse structure. But that has nothing to do with my point about needing to use a much, much more extensive support structure to support the weight of hundreds and hundreds of large tomato plants that have no root support verses the support structure needed for the same crop that has root support. Support that not only helps the plants stand up without falling/tipping over easily, but also supports much of the overall weight of plants foliage and fruit as well (needing much less artificial support). Again more work and expense for absolutely no benefit over using a drip system. Run to waste drip into perlite is the current standard for hydro tomatoes. It does waste water and nutrients, as well as typically just dump the runoff back into the ground, another environmentally damaging practice. Your using the wrong places to use as your role models if you feel that way. Today's commercial non recirculating drip systems are fine tuned to keep the roots moist, yet have very little run off. And coco coir, and pine shavings will hold moisture much better than perlite will. However I do agree that some commercial run to waste systems do just run off into near by soil. However even so that's far less of an environmental concern than how traditional agricultural floods their large fields with thousands of pounds of chemicals every year. But again, newer well planed run to waste systems run the run off into aqueducts that only water the field grown crops. If they don't have any close by, it's run back into the sewer system where sewage treatment plants process the water. If they don't have a city sewer system, or near by field grown crops, the run off is typically just ran back into the soil. Environmental concerns do not factor into commercial standards, at least until the government passes relevant regulating laws. Yes, but the government has been doing just that for over 100 years. Ever since the big dust bowl (I forget what year) that was caused by soil erosion from farming practices. You simply wont get any city to grant a business license for a commercial agriculture business without the city granting you the yearly water rights for the amount of water you expect to use. And in the event that the figures in your business plan were wrong, your not likely to be allowed more water. At least not without heavy fines anyway. The biggest benefit of DWC over any other method is that the large body of water regulates root temps. Not exactly, a water culture system with a depth of over ten inches doesn't necessarily constitute a large body of water. Ten inches deep and ten inches wide is less than 7 gallons. One cubic foot of water is 7.48 gallons, I don't call that a large body of water. Though it is true that the larger the amount of water there is, the slower it will be to change (raise or lower) temperature. But in my experience and weather conditions, relying on water volume to keep water temps down in our summers require 100's of gallons, as well as a in ground reservoir as a minimum. That's why my 3 greenhouse reservoirs are 300 gallons, and 4 feet deep in the ground, as well as insulated from above ground heat. Because ground moisture is a big factor in how well geothermal energy works, I will be installing soaker hose around the reservoirs, and set on a timer to keep up good ground moisture as well. That's what you are seeing when your bubbler bucket seems to work so well. It's not the magic bubbles that make the bucket work, so much as it is the temperature regulation of the roots. But if you would set up those buckets as RDWC, you'd have several times better results That's such a a bunch of BS. You have no idea how I built my water culture systems, or seen them working. You have no idea what the water temps were, how the temps affected the plants, or any of the observations that you would need to see to come to any conclusions. But rest assured if I took out the air pump and only used a water pump instead like you recommend to people, the plants would have just wilted and been extremely sad looking. The water pump would be better than using nothing at all because the falling water would help aerate it, but the roots themselves are helped ten fold by the direct contact with the air bubbles themselves. That's a well known concept that completely goes over your head, and you just are not able to understand that simple concept of how much that helps. I have nothing against using falling water to help aerate the water. But it's simply a mistake to solely rely on that alone in a water culture system if you want healthy plants.