And finally, if you want to dip your toes into hydroponics and get your very own hydroponic closet I recommend you get this very excellent guide - Hydroponics for the Home Gardener it contains all you need to know to get going with this awesome indoor gardening method.

When you’re choosing a hydroponic tent there are a couple on the market.  This post will focus on the benefits of the BudBox.

Purpose built, highest quality grow rooms are designed to save time and money. Whether you’re a professional gardener or setting up for the first time, the BudBox provides the perfect growing environment allowing you to maximise your crops yield effectively and with ease.

Thanks to the BudBox’s revolutionary flame retardant and lightproof reflective inner coating you can relax in comfort leaving your plants to do the hard work for you.  There will be no chance of the material catching fire and every last bit of light will be reflected back on to your plants.

Part time gardeners can pack everything into the hold all bag and store it away for next time, so if space is an issue the Bud Box is the perfect hydroponics tent for you.

To help maintain a clean and tidy environment Velcro cable tidies and an inner pocket have been added as a result of valuable feedback from our customers.

The heavy duty, military grade zips, combined with exterior light baffles provide a secure, lightproof and lockable grow room that can be discreetly used.  Keeping your plants away from prying eyes.

The BudBox is very easy to set up all you need to do is erect the push fit frame making sure the poles are firmly pushed into the white connectors, slide the cover over the top and bottom, it will be tight because it needs to be, if its too tight push the poles in further. zip up the cover and your ready to start growing!

The Features of the BudBox include:

• Multi layer (triple) specially designed material
• The BudBox is presented neatly in its own holdall bag
• Light weight, quick and easy to assemble and re-pack
• Durable, flame retardant and lightproof woven cover
• Brilliant white, wipe clean reflective inner surface
• White powder coated poles and white connectors
• Adjustable intake and exhaust vents from 100mm to 200mm
• Velcro cable tidies and large lightproof electrical ports
• Strong support bar for hanging the grow light and filter
• Handy internal pocket for a log book, meters etc
• Military grade zips giving full, easy access to the crop
• Removable catchment tray to stop unwanted spillages
• Suitable for any style of indoor growing system
• Can suport up to 1000w lamps - MH or HPS
• Complete with easy to follow setup instructions

Go on take a look at the Budboxes available right now Bud Box

As with any type of indoor gardening method, hydroponic gardening requires  grow lights is the plants can synthesize food and grow.  However if you’re new to hydroponics the information available on the internet may make choosing your lights for hydroponics difficult.  This blog post will give a brief overview of what lights are suitable for hydroponics.

High Density Discharge (HID) Grow Lights

Originally HID lights are were often used for this purpose and still are. HID, or high-intensity discharge lights, come in several varieties, including metal halide grow lights and HPS grow lights. All HID lights require a ballast in order to control electrical current through the light.  However these types of hydroponic lights get very hot and require a cooling system.  They need to be kept at a distance from your plants so they don’t burn them.  They are also very expensive to run but once you have a ballast, this type of hydroponic grow lights are quite cheap to replace.  Just take a look in the shop.

LED Grow lights

LED grow lights are becoming more and more popular. These grow lights, using light - emitting diodes, produce a lot of light in colors useful for plant growth, and are cost effective as well. They are more expensive at the outset but are very cheap to run and last for a very long time.  They are also a lot cooler so they can be placed within the plants to ensure that light gets into all the shaded places.

Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL)

For those who have a very small budget and a small space, compact fluorescent lights (cfl) grow lights are probably the best choice for you.  These lights are also know as energy saving bulbs and you can get them in low wattage from your supermarket or DIY store.  You will need to get enough bulbs to create at least 90w of light to grow 1 plant.  It’s much more convenient to buy a specialist plug bulb holder (roughly about £6) and a cfl which is at least 125w.  These grow lights don’t get too hot, you should be able to handle the bulb without being burnt however they will burn the leaves on your plant if they touch it so you do need to ensure that they are moved with the plant growth.

If you’re new to hydroponics I would suggest using cfl for your grow lights, they’re cheap and don’t need any special equipment like ballasts.  If you’re an experienced hydroponic Gardner try out LED grow lights, you’ll save on enegy costs and they can just be plugged into the mains.

From my own experience of hydroponics without a fan (I was trying to keep things simple) my plants were weak, bendy and I had a seriously mould problem.  My hydroponics setup was in a small enclosed space which had large ventilation holes but this wasn’t enough to prevent the problems that occur without sufficient air flow.  In hindsight it’s clear to see that I needed to exchange the moist air that my plants had created with drier less oxygenated air.  A fan would have helped prevent the mould or at least slowed down it’s growth.

For many hydroponics setups that use MH / HPS lights a hydroponics fan is necessary to keep the temperature from rising to high and scorching the plants.  I had used CFL (compact Fluorescents lights) as my hydroponic lights so heat wasn’t really an issue.  However there were one or two occasions where I forgot to check the plants growth and accidentally burnt a few of the leaves.

When growing using hydroponics it is beneficial to try and create the condition that the plant would normally thrive in.  For example plants grow stronger as a reaction to their stems being flexed by the wind.  This ensures that their steams and branches are strong enough to proudly hold their flowers or buds.  In hydroponics, a fan compensates for the lack of natural wind, helping the plants grow stronger.  You wouldn’t want to grow a beautiful plant only for it to collapse under the weight of it’s stunning flowers.

So what are the options for a Hydroponics fan setup?

For those who are confident with electrical wiring, there seems to be a trend of wiring up computer fans as DIY Hydroponics fans.  They are popular because they are quiet and use very little electricity. I am not confident with electrics and therefore this isn’t something I would do myself but I’m sure a search on google would give you all the information about creating this type of hydroponics fan that you would need to know.

For those who have enough space in their hydroponic setup then use a desktop fan.  They are readily available and can be bought cheaply.  If you wait until the end of the summer months when shops are selling off their surplus stock of fans, you will be able to grab yourself a fantastic deal.  This type of fan can be plugged straight into the mains so there is no wiring to be done.  However ensure that the electric cable isn’t a tripping hazard.

Of course if you have a hydroponic tent then their are fans specifically designed to fit inside.  Why not pop over to our shop and bag yourself a hydroponics fan at bargain prices. 

Hydroponic Extractor Fans

Hempy Buckets are a simple DIY hydroponic system that can be set up by anyone who has a bucket and perlite (hydroponic growing medium).  Dark coloured buckets work best especially if you are using grow lights  as it helps to stop algae from growing.

About a inch from the bottom of the Hempy Bucket you will need to create a hole to let excess water drain out, this should be about half a inch in diameter.  You may want to put metal gauze or netting over the hole to prevent any perlite from falling through.

Once you’ve create the hole and covered it with metal gauze or suitable material you can fill your Hempy bucket with perlite and add water until the excess runs out of the overflow hole that you have created.  The perlite has capillary properties so it will absorb the water and spread the moisture until all of the perlite is damp.  It won’t feel wet to the touch but if you press a few pieces of perlite between your fingers it will leave a small wet mark behind.

Once you have damped the perlite, add in your plant.

You would water your bucket every day with a suitable nutrient solution, the aim is to let the water dry out from the bottom of the bucket, allowing the plants roots to come into contact with the air before you water again.  However it is nearly impossible to over water your plants with this DIY Hydroponic system as the perlite traps air within itself allowing the plants roots to always be in contact with oxygen.

You can scale down the hempy bucket by using plastic bottles cut in half, plastic cups, pretty much any thing you can find from around the house.  Remember though to scale down the water flow hole to compensate.

We’ve added a whole section on HPS Grow Lights. Our High Pressure Sodium (HPS) Grow lights are available in 1000w, 600w, 400w

Buy clicking the links below you can view our HPS Grow lights by wattage and find the cheapest HPS Grow Lights available on the Internet.

Follow these simple tips to ensure that your hydroponic garden is safe
1) It doesn’t help in anyway to continuously leave the grow lamps on in your garden, unless for those plants and/or a plant growth stages that really call for a 24-hour lamps requirement.

2) Make sure you periodically check for any damaged cords; worn out cords with wires exposed can increase the risk of fire and even electrical shock to the operator.

3) See that the grow lamps are not exposed to water as several grow lamps accidents reported are because of the same reason.

4) Organizing the cords of the grow lamps and keeping them away from fire is always advised. Tangled cords pose tripping hazard so bundle them and tape to make the place more organized.

Hydroponics is best described in simple language as a method to grow plants in a soil-less environment using Hydroponics systems that use mineral nutrient solution to grow both terrestrial as well as crop plants. The word Hydroponics is derived from Greek roots, ‘Hydro’ meaning water and ‘ponos’ implying labor. It is noteworthy that Hydroponic gardening dates back to 3000 years and examples of this type of farming can well be seen in these two wonders: Hanging gardens of Babylon and Floating garden of the Aztecs of Mexico.

Educate your children with hydroponics

Plants grown via hydroponics grow substantially faster than
those grown in soil.  Plus it’s difficult for children to see how the
roots of the plants grow in soil, but the can easily be seen by using a
hydroponics bubbler system.  There is more detail about bubbler systems
here, but I’ll give a very quick overview.  In a bubbler system, plants
are grown on a medium such as rock wool with baskets.  The roots of
plants which fill the baskets are submerged in a hydroponic nutrient
solution which is aerated by a air pump and often a air stone which
sits at the bottom of the nutrient solution.  The aerated solution not
only delivers water and nutrients
to the plants roots but oxygen as well, prevent root rot.  Because the
plans don’t need to use their energy locating nutrients and water they
can place all their effort into growing upwards.

We know that children have very short attention spans; by growing
plants hydroponically a child can see clear growth in the plant most
days once it is established.  They will also have a better
understanding of the plants requirements as they will be adding
nutrients, water and light to their plants and will be able to watch
the effect this has on the plant.  While traditionally this is the sort
of basic science lesson a child would learn a primary school, place a
seed into soil and watch it grow.  Using hydroponic methods
enables a child to see quick results.  By growing plants hydroponically
in the classroom children can experiment with the effect each necessary
elements, light, water and nutrients have on the health of the plant
and its root system, turning the simple action of growing plants into
an exciting science lesson.

As we attempt to teach our children a better way to look
after our planet and its population, hydroponics can have a starring
role.  Hydroponics can increase the amount of food grown within a
specific area, there is no need to strip soil of its natural nutrients
and fewer pesticides are necessary resulting in less damage to our
environment.

Hydroponics is the next generation of farming,
hydroponic methods could decrease the amount of the worlds population
that die from starvation while helping to convert excess carbon dioxide
we have created into oxygen.  It’s our children who will be the
generation who make the greatest leap in fixing the planet so why not
teach them from an early age the hydroponic information they need to
make a difference.