We all love the grow beds, the plants, and the top of the garden. There are times that cleaning and sanitizing your hydroponic reservoir is an afterthought.
Maintenance and cleaning of the hydroponic reservoir is not exciting, but it is a vital component of the hydroponic system. It is where the food for the plants are stored. In this article, we will converse the importance of maintaining your growth clean and well sanitized.
Adding bleach while you have plants in your system is not recommended. So, if you are to clean your hydroponic reservoir using bleach, you must make sure that you will not leave any bleach traces, or they can kill your plants.
How Important is it to Keep Your Hydroponic Reservoir Clean and Sanitize?
Human health is one of the top benefits that we get from a clean hydroponic system. If you do not maintain a clean environment, you will reap unhealthy and unclean produce.
Another benefit you can get from a clean hydroponic system is the general health of your plants. Keeping your grow area clean and well sanitized will close all the pathways for fungal pathogens and disease that may affect your plants.
Lastly, it is essential to maintain the cleanliness of your hydroponic reservoir to proper standards. It is not only advised, but it is mandatory. Whether you want to be organically or otherwise certified, you should keep in mind that sanitation and sterilization have a very high standard for sanitation and sterilization.
Sanitation and Sterilization
The general cleanliness of your grow room is sanitation. This process may involve removing dead plants from the system, sweeping and mopping any spills or messes, cleaning out filters, and other things that will keep your harvest and planting zones well prepared and clean.
On the other hand, sterilization is the process of killing microbial life. It includes microbes or fungi that could cause disease in your plants. The question is, why kill microbes? Isn’t microbial life a good thing?
Any microbes that live in the plants’ rhizosphere’s root zone are vital for nutrient uptake and defense against diseases. However, we need to sterilize tools and other system parts; we do not want to sterilize the plants.
Growers should sanitize their grow equipment and room to avoid the scattering of pests and disease. For example, if the grower uses the same clippers in harvesting lettuce head with powdery mildew on 30 more heads. Then the grower accidentally spread the powdery mildew spores to those 30 plants. He might have avoided spreading it if he had dunked the clippers in a bleach solution.
Sterilizing is regularly accomplished by utilizing bleach, hydrogen peroxide, and antibacterial items like Lysol. These can be connected in splashes, dunks, or douses; anything it takes to slaughter off that microbial life.
It would be best if you used both sterilization and sanitation methods to make sure that your grow room is as clean as possible. Each is accomplished with different materials and processes, and you will want to know when to use which.
Cleaning Agents
The best cleaning agents for sterilization are bleach and hydrogen peroxide. Using vinegar is another option for organic types. On the other hand, degreasing agents are more general, but they will not kill any microbes. It is used only for cleaning up spills.
There is a device utilized for sterilization, and it is called an ozone machine. Ozone can be driven out into the mid-air of your grow room. Whatever it interacts with will be sterilized.
You should not be around wherever an ozone machine is running. It is much more secure for people to use ozone to sterilize their hydroponic solution by pumping it into your supplement reservoir.
It is super imperative to note that there are harmful doses of these agents to the plants. Ideally, you get it that you should not go throwing away bleach or hydrogen peroxide into your reservoir all willy-nilly. If you want a great way to murder your plants, then that is it.
But there’s a safe amount of peroxide which you can include in your reservoir while you have got plants in it. Do not add bleach while you have got plants in your system. Spare that for sterilization and flushes between developing cycles.
Sanitation agents likely should not ever be getting into your reservoir. It is more than likely that they will kill your plants. Utilize these around the range of your plants; just avoid having them on the foliage.
The Process of Cleaning and Sanitizing of Equipment
Begin by sanitizing and sterilizing your grow room. Start at the top, and work your way down; brush walls and surfaces, clean and wipe floors, and others. Keep your working regions clean. The less mess you have gotten, the less potential for plant disease you will have too.
Keep all your equipment, components and devices sanitized and sterilized. Including your scissors; in case you do not have those clean, you are opening up the plausibility of the disease every single time you cut a plant with them. Keeping your equipment sterilized is the key to constraining the spread of disease.
Once you have got it cleaned down, you will be able to continuously utilize bleach or peroxide to sterilize it. Do not forget to flush it afterwards, and fill it up with clean, fresh water.
How to Maintain the Reservoir Portion of the Hydroponic System
Keep Proper Nutrient Solution Temperature
It is necessary to maintain your nutrient solution temperature at between 65-75 degrees. When temperatures get too high, broken up oxygen levels go down and make an environment ready for root spoil. Temperatures that get too low will moderate down plant development.
For small reservoirs, aquarium radiator areas are typically sufficient to warm up a nutrient solution that is too cold. To combat rising temperatures, check out these tips for cooling your hydroponic supplement.
Top off Your Hydroponic Reservoir
In the circulating system, you will have to beat off the supply between reservoir changes. Water is misplaced due to dissipation and plant forms and may have to be replaced to keep the system running appropriately. Littler reservoirs will have to be topped off more regularly.
Change Out the Water
How frequently you alter out the water on your hydroponic system depends on your set up and inclination. You are going to find out numerous distinctive opinions on the subject. By and by, it is prescribed week by week or bi-weekly supplement changes. In case you get to know your system, you are utilizing an EC meter; you will go a week or two longer.
Provide Proper Aeration
A well-oxygenated nutrient solution is vital for solid root development. It is fundamental for plant procedure and revitalizes the beneficial organism’s development that reinforces the root system. It is never an awful idea to include an additional air stone to preserve a high amount of broken-down oxygen.
Clean the Filter
It is a better idea to have one if you do not have a filter someplace on your hydroponic system. This will anticipate plant matter and flotsam, and jetsam from getting into your nutrient reservoir. Clean the filter regularly to diminish the build-up that pests love. A deep-water culture system does not entail a filter, but it is excellent to clean gliding floating fragments out of the nutrient solution.
Do Regular pH and EC Checks.
Keeping up legitimate pH and EC levels are imperative errands when keeping up your hydroponic reservoir. pH ranges ought to be kept within the 5.5-6.5 run. Make sure to do a few investigations on the assortment of plants you are growing to regulate your hydroponic garden’s correct EC levels.
Check Your Equipment
It is a great mindset to check over the equipment within the hydroponic reservoir on a customary premise. Broken pumps, aerators, and connections can go unnoticed for a brief time before your plant appears signs. Keep in mind to continually look over the equipment in the hydroponic reservoir to avoid extreme events.
It is a great idea to have extra parts that will serve as backups. As most of us experience, things break at inconvenient times, so it is better to be prepared all the time.
Sanitization and sterilization are the foremost successful preventive measures against creepy crawlies, molds, pathogenic fungi, and plant infections. Car maintenance is essential to keep a vehicle working effectively. Sanitization and sterilization procedures are essential to keeping your garden and equipment working at an ideal execution level.
By joining sanitization and sterilization practices, gardeners can ensure their speculations’ safety and drastically alter the result of their garden’s performance at a negligible cost.
Jenny M
Tribal Writer
Edited by
Patricia Godwin
