A Common Choice: Hydroponic Drip SystemThere are different places where hydroponic system plans can be found, either for free (DIY) or for purchase at a retailer. There are companies that will sell hydroponic drip systems pre-made. These systems can be more simple than trying to follow a plan to build a drip system. Building a system from scratch, although fairly simple, still leaves the possibility of not doing something correctly which will make the system ineffective. Buying a pre-made system allows you to have a system that is up and running quickly and that is guaranteed to work for years to come.Wick versus DripThere are two systems that are most commonly made from scratch and those are the wick system and the drip hydroponic system. The wick system is very simply constructed. It uses a tray that holds the plants which sits on top of the reservoir that holds the water and nutrient solution. These two pieces are held together by a wick which allows the water solution to transmit these elements into the tray with the plants. The down side to this system is that there is not a way to regulate the amount of solution that is getting to the plants, which means that a small amount of plants can be grown at one time. This would make an ideal choice for someone wanting to grow a limited amount of plants or with very limited space.The drip hydroponic system is built in much the same way with the tray that sits on top of the reservoir. In this system, however, instead of using wicks to transmit the solution to the plants, there is a submerged pump system that transmits the solution to the plants at whatever rate the gardener sets on the meter. The solution goes into the tray a drip at a time so that there is a constant flow of nutrients without the plants becoming overly submerged like in other systems.There are benefits to using the drip hydroponic system, such as the fact that you do not have to monitor the system as often as other systems because the pump and timer handles everything automatically. Also, since the flow rate can be regulated, plants tend to grow larger, have a higher yield, and higher numbers of plants can be grown at one time in the system. One down side to using the drip hydroponic system is that it is more expensive than the wick system since the pump for the system has to be bought as well. However, this is a popular system, especially for use in greenhouses where larger numbers of plants are grown at a time.
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