I don’t believe there is an easy answer to “what is the best” plant or hydroponic system. You can grow practically any plant anywhere in hydro in any system. I think the main questions in response are: Are you growing indoor or outdoor? How much space are you going to have (vertical towers or horizontal)? Vertical Example: http://www.tomorrowsgarden.net/ckfinder/userfiles/images/480x640xrain,P20towers.jpg.pagespeed.ic.VUbdDM95uI.jpg Horizontal Example: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pvgV439m4BU/UZL4Go09z7I/AAAAAAAAAo4/xGKcKkx3fNY/s1600/IMG_3980.JPG Then if you are growing outdoors I would look at your zones and go from there. Let me know and I can voice concerns or help once the top two questions are answered. 73dave has the most common setup that I have seen for strawberries. I use something very similar but I don’t use grow median, I just have high density foam disks that hold the strawberries in place and allow the roots to dangle into the water. Now if you go with a median it is important to remember how strawberry roots grow. They will tend to form a root ball around the median. If grow median less they will not ball and instead grow very long with many smaller shoots. I would recommend, and this depends on your setup, going with hydroton (clay pebbles) or growstone hydroponic substrate (relatively new to the market). The reason I am siding with those is because you normally already buy rooted strawberries and putting a rooted plant into rockwool is a pain in the butt. The coco will hold to much moisture, in my opinion, in a system like 73dave has setup and not allow proper aeration of the roots to occur. Perlite is small and can fall through the cracks of the net pot depending on size, and holds more moisture than you need in my opinion. I also didn’t bring up using a substrate like lava rock because it tends to be too large and again a pain to deal with. I would recommend going with a 3” net pot to put the plants into. It gives them extra space if they start to develop off shoots; however, it also depends on how long you are planning to keep them. If this is a one time, only summer grow the 2” net pots would work. If this grow will be indoors and over several years (I believe some strawberries can live up to five years) then the 3” is a must to allow the plant to expand correctly. If you go with a smaller net pot, it can be a pain to upgrade at a later time. Hope this helps! Keep us posted with your setup as you go. As a side note, some manufactures already have premaid towers, here is an example: http://theaquaponicsource.com/shop/aquavertica-towers/aquavertica-tower-5-ft/ They aren’t that expensive, so give a gander at those before you make your own setup.

Hi, I just pulled a bunch of hydronton out of one of the Dutch buckets to check the roots. As I expected, the hydronton just an inch below the surface was damp. Its been almost 11 hours since the last feeding. Roots for just a little off white. I did break some of the roots pulling handfuls of hydronton out, but tugging gently on the attached roots did not break them. They also smelled pretty good. No rotting smell. I have a large airstone in the nutrient tank that bubbles 24x7. I also add 4ml of 35% food grade H2O2 per gallon once per week. I had a black mold problem a couple of weeks ago and the H2O2 fixed the problem. The 4ml per gallon is to maintain sanitation and add extra oxygen. I maintain the nutrient temps between 68 - 71 degrees. One concern I've had that may be related. I use 4 inch rings, which after getting clogged, pours nutrients two inches away from the stem, but does not cover much of the total surface area of the Dutch Bucket. As a result, the roots are not spreading out much further then 3-4 inches from the stem. Once per day I manually scoop nutrients from the reservoir and wet the hydroton across the full surface of the Dutch Bucket. Mike

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As for nutrients, i am currently looking at switching to something from the GH Flora series, which seems to be the go to for beginners, so no recommendation there. You definitely do not remove the plants from the rockwool cubes, you just put the rockwool cube into the system and fill around it with the clay medium.