Thank you so much! I've been growing with hydroponics since 2016 and regular gardening since 2008.

Thank you! I've been growing with hydroponics since 2016 and organic gardening since 2008.

That's great! I would love to see your plant grow system too.

@@GreenLivingOffGrid we are super old school here. I learned from my grandparents as a kid to garden, they were farmers growing up. I then learned in the conservation corps to plant and grow- even going to a semester of college for forestry. Then I learned from KZbin. I use a paper towel with organic fish liquid fertilizer in a water sprayer to dampen. I put the seed between 2 paper towels and put in the fridge for a week then on the counter till seed breaks. Then those seed trays you get at Wallmart we spray the dirt pod thing with the fish fertilizer and put the seed into it. Then we put that tray onto the counter next to a window. Then once roots show, we put into the tiny clay pot with 50% garden soil and 50% potting mix. Then once root bound bigger pots and so forth. Then 50/50 to it’s forever pot or ground, or bucket.

@@PastorDanplaysboardgames Love this! I think a lot of knowledge is lost on the younger generation that didn't grow up farming. We don't even know how to eat anymore as most rely on prepackaged foods from the grocery story.

Yeah seeds work fine too. The thing I've noticed about cloning plants like tomatoes is that they already have the hormones for fruit production already activated in the stem as they are coming from the original plant that has been growing for a couple months already, so these stems think they are older and want to start producing a lot sooner. We have such a short growing season it can help to get a head start on the season this way. The only difficulty I have is if I try to plant these back into the soil, they don't always take like they do with hydroponics. Not sure why.

@@GreenLivingOffGrid I like difficulty. So I’ll try something from seed or clone and do a small hydroponic system and get it going good before putting in the ground. I really need a challenge.

You bet. Love having you on my channel. Have a great day

You're welcome! Thanks for sharing on my channel. I hope you have a great rest of your week.

I'm sorry there's no way for me to know what the stringy substance is without seeing it. Is it a slimy white substance? Does it look like it could be a string of eggs sitting on your stuff like you see in my video? If it's a different color, could it be bacteria or something going out of balance in your system? How do you fish look? If they are not doing well, or not acting normal, it could be an imbalance in which case you may want to do a water change and use my fish care stuff to rebalance your system. I have videos on that if you need them under the Aquaponics section of my site.

@GreenLivingOffGrid It's a little string of eggs..There was movement inside them ,but I should have quicker to move them. They have been eaten.

Thank you for your email.

yes and the unit comes with them. Plus if you need new nutrients, our store on our greenlivingoffgrid.com provides affiliate links to these products on Amazon

Yeah yellowing and browning on the plants is often a sign of nutrient deficiency. If you haven't given them anything, then I would just start with the basic MaxiGrow solution.

Haha yeah they are pretty cute on my dad's pond. Thought you would like it.

Awesome! I bet they'll work great with your tomatoes

@@GreenLivingOffGrid So far they are doing great.

Chicken manure and rabbit manure are great. And I don't know if the city stuff gets into the bags of soil. The video I saw was particularly pointing to the compost and fertilizers (so-called organic). I saw the video a while ago so I'll see if I can find it again. I still buy the organic soil as I don't have a good replacement for that and I haven't seen the stringy weird stuff in that like I did with the compost bags, so they may be just fine. What I notice more with the organic soil is that it's mostly made of decomposed wood so I still use it.

Here's an article on the city sewer getting into fertilizers. Again, I don't know how much this affects compost but I do recall the bags I bought a few years ago had some definite non-organic content that I found when I pulled out the stringy stuff. It was definitely not breaking down so I questioned it then. So again, with soil you're probably fine and with compost, you just have to be cautious if you don't have any other options. Here's the article I found just now: www.sierraclub.org/sludge-garden-toxic-pfas-home-fertilizers-made-sewage-sludge

This one details with the compost issue. Perhaps you can still get truly organic compost. I just bought the cheap stuff at Walmart or Home Depot years ago when I last used it so it probably wasn't that good. - www.planetnatural.com/compost-sewage/

@@GreenLivingOffGrid ok thanks for the links I’ll watch them now- a little scared lol. I also found like blue tarp like stringy stuff in a couple bags a few years ago when I was paying attention but thought nothing of - I was very trusting then.

@@GreenLivingOffGrid damn

Cherry tomatoes need a 5-15 gallon DWC container and they grow 4 to 6 feet tall. At full size, they go through 1 gallon of nutrients per day. If your system is a small 12 pod system, it simply isn't providing enough room for plants that get that large. Might want to try my DWC course on Advanced Hydroponics to build a 5 gallon bucket system for your tomatoes.

@GreenLivingOffGrid 4 to 6 feet tall ?? I didn't know that they grow that big , the small kit that i bought came with the grow sponges with the cheery tomato seeds already in them , the 12 pod hydroponic system that I have only holds 3.8 liters ......I'll definitely check out the dwc Thank you , I appreciate the help

@@Jose.Q_ Yeah they grow real tall. These units are great to start large plants in but you need to upgrade them to a larger system as they grow.

Ask here

What's your question?

​@@GreenLivingOffGridDid you use the smaller Mr Stacky or the big Mr Stacky

@@onlinemoneyhub8513 It's the 12inch Mr. Stacky

Thanks for your comment. I only drilled half inch holes in them. Added potting soil and manure. I'm still growing potatoes in them. They work well!

I know mine didn't make it even with my rock containers where I thought they might be able to be hidden and hatch. The problem is that even if they hatch, the adult fish will eat them when they're small, unless you separate them into a separate tank for hatching and growing. They need to be separated until they are big enough the adults will not go after them.

Our pleasure!

Yeah they are good. I've actually purchased all 3 of their sizes. Love them!

I usually only soak them about an hour just to ensure everything is covered well, although my seeds have done well without soaking, the pods being soaked definitely helps keep them more moist.

Thank you!!

Yep sounds like you found the problem. You just have some very happy and lovey fish for this past Valentines week. How fun!

You are so welcome!

Yeah I would just go back to what was working in the past. I've had mixed results when trying to adjust PH so I too have stopped doing that. As they say, if something is working don't fix it.

It is possible as plastic leaches into a lot of things. You can of course create a similar tray with glass tubs although I don't think these dimensions exist anywhere. Glass (if covered with dark paper to keep algae from growing in it) will likely work just was well.

No sadly there are no live plants in the fish tank (too cold in Colorado winters), but the plants above them in my aquaponics system are real.

Awesome! Yeah this is my first longer video in a few months, but I have been posting shorts this summer. I'm experimenting with that format too in order to see how they do. I love Kratky Hydroponics but have been using these really awesome DWC units sold on Amazon for small kitchen grows. The do really well too!

Yeah I too found it difficult to change water weekly, especially when my plants became full grown, but in non-recirculating systems, I can usually get a month of growth in the beginning stages without needing to change the water and then I just re-add nutrient water already premixed as needed in the later stages. If my grow is only 2 or 3 months total, I can usually get by this way without needing to do a full water change. The key is to set it up properly with the right mixture of nutrients the first time. This particular grow was using a different nutrient mixture than what I usually used on these plants and this is why they ran low on cal-mag. So I just boosted that and everything turned out well for me, but I did catch it early and that is key!

With my lettuce plants, they're fine for the first week or two to have roots submerged as long as you provide an air gap of about 1/4 inch when they get large, but when you first start them, full submersion is fine. They will naturally use the nutrients up and provide their own gap within a couple weeks. In my video, I filled them up to the normal level you start with which is all the way up. And at this size (on the left) they were using the water up so quickly that they had no problem with root rot as long as I didn't refill them more than once every week or two. Lettuce grows so quickly so I usually only have to refill them once before harvesting them in this size planter.

Yes it's one of the things I teach how to create with my gardening courses at greenlivingoffgrid.com - www.greenlivingoffgrid.com/courses/