Most aquaponics growers don’t use NFT. But why?
Well, NFT – or nutrient film technique – delivers nutrients to plants in gutters via a thin film of water. That water is sent down the trough from one side of the gutter to the next, gently and slowly flowing over and through the plant roots that line the gutter.
Now imagine that you’re running an aquaponic NFT system. The system water from the fish tank is pumped into the gutter to create the nutrient film. Unlike hydroponics, however, there are solids in aquaponics water. They get trapped in the root zone and cause oxygen levels.
The lack of oxygen isn’t caused by lack of diffusion – after all, the air in the gutter has oxygen in it. What actually happens is that because of the accumulation and decomposition happening with those solids, the temperature of the solution rises. There’s not much thermal mass to keep the solution cool. Oxygen is less soluble in warm water, and suddenly you have an oxygen deficiency.
This is why NFT is used primarily for hydroponics.
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oh my gosh Dr Nate mentioned aquaponics ! been so long…….
So what you're saying essentially is filter out the solids before introducing the water to an NFT system, hence the use of your matrix media amongst other things in your zipgrow towers which look and somewhat act like a vertical NFT gutter.
Explains why I had no issues with it in my test setup. Good particle filtration to keep the solids where they need to be, and lots of aeration. My #1 problem was the size that my tomatoes achieved.
protip: don't do tomatoes in a mixed NFT setup unless you're ONLY growing tomatoes.
Should I avoid NFT for a bioponics setup? My compost teas probably would have some amount of solids in them as well