Rocko: I started hydro with Aerogardens about seven or eight years ago and it quickly became an obsession. I loved it. Here's a few things I learned.
1. I've got to guess that the lamps are very blue, probably somewhere between 6,000 and 6,500K, which would make sense because if you think about it they're designed to keep you plants in perpetual vegetative growth for continuous harvests.
2. There's not much opportunity for flowering what we're growing in an Aerogarden without drastically changing their diet and photo period. Diet needs to change from a high N and low P and K formula to a low N and higher P and K formula for flowering. I quit using their nutes for our special herb because it was a constant underfeed/overfeed situation and near impossible to flower with. I went to Technaflora's, "Recipe for Success." Their $30 starter/sample kit has everything you need and in an Aerogarden it will last you a long time.
3. Check and adjust your pH daily and change your nutes weekly and you should do fine. Your reservoir only holds 112 ounces according to my wife's measuring cup and things can change very quickly in that small amount of water and nutes so you really have to stay on top of it. General Hydro has a nice little pH starter kit for about $20 but you'll like an electronic pH pen a lot better than the slower chemical tester that comes with the kit. Most hydro stores have the yellow Milwakee pH test pen for about $30 to $35 and that's much quicker and easier to work with.
4. Be sure to close of all your unused holes in the planting deck or you'll have algae problems. A/G sells a set of plugs that are better than my friends and I were able to come up with. They're about $10.
5. When you buy stuff from A/G make sure you buy over $50 worth of supplies. They were shipping free on orders over $50 and you saved $10 shipping and handling.
6. Wrap you pump in a ladies short nylon sock, like they wear with flat shoes, and it will protect the pump from the plant's roots that can get in there and lock it up. You can buy a pair of those short nylon socks at Walmart for about $2. A pump sock at a hydro store is $7 to $15 and the short Walmart nylons work just as well. Cover the whole tower and pump very carefully.
7. If you're going to be an Aerogardener I hope you bought the seven holes model with the tall 24" hood and with 3 high intensity flat CFL's? That's the best one for what we want to grow. You'll also want to have a spare pump, filters and a set of lamps on hand. Treat it gently like it's made out of Chinese plastic because it is.
8. Use good water. A/G says any potable water, other than spring or well water, will be fine, but the crap that comes out of my tap didn't work. A gallon a week of filtered bottled water shouldn't break you and you'll have much better luck.
9. Walmart sells a good little 5 gallon aquarium air pump for about $6 to $7 and the 99 cents store has the air stone that will fit fine in the bottom of your A/G. Don't forget to use the one way check valve in the air line that came with the pump. In the event of a power outage it will save you pump from the nutes siphoning out into the air line to the pump and burning it up.
10. A lot of Aerogardeners do all kinds of weird things to their A/G's but I haven't found most of the things they've done were really necessary. You have a well designed, complete, compact, table top growing system that can be adapted to what we want to grow very easily if you can follow their directions and use common sense. And they'll be very helpful at A/G customer service if you just don't tell them what you're growing. Read everything they sent you with it and questions are best answered by their customer service reps who you can pester for free at their 800 number. They also have a lot of good growing tips free on line. I hope this helps. HSA
