There are different places where hydroponic system plans can be obtained, either for free or for a price. In addition, there are companies that will sell hydroponic drip systems pre-made so that the individual does not have to try to follow a plan to get the system built. Building a system from scratch, although fairly simple with most systems, still leaves the possibility of not doing something correctly which will make the system ineffective. Buying a pre-made system allows the individual to have a product that is guaranteed to work for years to come.

Wick versus Drip

There 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.

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 person 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 the individual does not have to monitor the system as often as other systems since the pump and timer handles everything automatically. In addition, since the flow rate can be regulated, there can be larger plants grown as well as larger numbers of plants grown at a 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.