The First Hydroponics Test Lab

By Russ Antkowiak

Aqua Culture is now starting a new project and is building the first hydroponics consumer test lab. Our goal is to test as many hydroponics products at once as we can.  This means that we will have a controlled group and a test group with our goal being to discover how many products are as good as they claim to be.  

The first part of the project is to build the test lab and we quickly realized that the test lab is the same thing as a backyard, only larger.  All the requirements are basically the same.  So we are going to show you what it takes to set up a backyard hydroponics garden.  Our test lab is in the worst place you can imagine; it’s in the Arizona desert on an asphalt parking lot in front of a 20 foot high concrete wall and it is on a slope.  The surface temperature on a hot day can reach 135 degrees Fahrenheit so the trick for us is to beat the heat and still raise produce.  If we can grow plants in this hot environment and scientists can grow plants in the extreme cold of the South Pole, anywhere else will be “a piece of cake.”

Step One – Pick Your Spot
The first step is to pick the place for the garden.  With hydroponics there is no need for a soil yard, you can actually grow a large garden on a piece of concrete.  The first thing is we make sure of the access to the sunlight.  Make sure that in the summer and winter, no shade or as little as possible will be on your growing area.  We have found an easy base to place your garden on is a simple 2’ x 4’ frame with a crushed granite base.  The crushed granite has a lot of great proportions; it becomes very firm and easy to level, plus water will sink through the granite and not make a puddle and it never creates mud that sticks to your shoes! You’ll want to place stakes around the outside of the frame to keep it from moving.  In our case, we had to drill ? inch holes through the asphalt plus drive ? inch rebar into the asphalt.  If you look at our photo the rebar around the frame, you’ll see our parking lot is not level or flat but the sand box frame and granite will create a flat surface to work on.

Step Two – Plan for Electricity
Most hydroponics units use an electric pump, and in the winter, a water heater can be used to help fight off the cold.  Our outside test area is 40”x 26” and is divided into 4 test plots.  The 4 test plots will be divided into two green house areas and two shaded cloth areas with a total of 52 electric outlets being needed for the 4 plots.  This should be enough to place heaters in the reservoir in winter.  We are using a spectra pure R.O. water system to provide us with an almost pure water supply.  Our water out of the tap is around 700 to 800 ppm, but after the R.O. system it is reduced to 40 ppm or less.  We feel that this will give all the tests the best chance to be a success.  Our spectra pure system will make about 100 gallons of pure water a day.  Our R.O. system is in the front display about 100 feet from the rear test area and is a gravity flow.  Initially we tried a ? inch tube to the rear test area but it was too restrictive, so we increased it to two 3/8 inch tubes, with each one feeding two of the four areas. This solved the problem and now all the gardens have access to R.O. water.  This garden area will have a mirror garden of all the gardens.  Two of the tomato and melon gardens needed to have a reservoir cut into the asphalt, you can see them in the photo, it is a 20 gallon tank sunk down about 10 inches through the asphalt.  These reservoirs must be at ground level so the sleeve gardens can return water into the reservoir.

Step 3 – Determine the Electricity Requirements of Each Plot
Two of the plots are shade cloth areas and the other two plots are low energy requirement greenhouse areas.  We decided which gardens were going to be used with shade cloth, which ones will have 4 x 8 tables and which one would have a sleeve garden. The other mirror sleeve garden will be in the second shaded cloth area.

Our test greenhouses were developed to work in the Arizona desert whereas most greenhouses are made to be used in a cooler climate.  The greenhouse is so efficient that we only use a small 1/3 horsepower cooler when the demand is high and only 1/10 horsepower when the demand is low. Our electricity needs will be very low and I will give you more details on all the test gardens and test results in the next issue. GG

Russ Antkowiak has over 20 years of hydroponic gardening experience and is the owner of ACI Hydroponics. He may be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can visit their website at www.aci-hydrponics.com .