Nancy Ross

For most plants, you will want to keep the pH around 6.0 to 6.5

Carbon—this takes up over 50 percent of the composition of your plant. Chlorophyll is the best way for your plant to get ahold of this and the sugars that come from chlorophyll is important as well.
Hydrogen—this one is good for helping the roots absorb the nutrients that it needs. In most cases, you will see that the plant will get its hydrogen from the water you provide.
Oxygen—this helps the plant go through respiration so it can grow through the process of creating starches and sugars.
Nitrogen—the nitrogen is able to create chlorophyll and amino acids that help to manufacture the sugars it needs to grow

Calcium—this one is great for helping the plant create more cell walls. If there isn’t enough of this in your plant, it could have a slowing down of growth.
Sulfur—this nutrient helps the plant to synthesize proteins.
Iron—this one is good for sugar creation as well as chlorophyll development.
Magnesium—this one helps with creating enzymes and chlorophyll that help keep the plant strong. If your plant doesn’t get enough of this, the leaves could start to yellow.
Boron—this one works hand in hand with calcium to make more cell walls. Too little of boron in the plant diet could result in some week stems
Manganese—creates oxygen during the process of photosynthesis. This one can also cause yellow leaves if not properly taken into the plant.
Zinc—zinc is really important to the plant because it helps with nitrogen, chlorophyll and respiration metabolism. If your plant has smaller leaves, it is probably short on zinc.
Copper—this nutrients helps with photosynthesis, respiration, and enzyme activation. Yellow and pale leaves are common in plants that are short on this nutrient

Autopot Self-watering System

Dutch Bucket System

The Nutrient Film Technique

The best thing that you can do to prevent these bad microbes is to keep the right temperature in the water so they can’t grow. 68 to 75 degrees is a great temperature and try to not let it variate very much. A pump is a good thing to use because this keeps the water from being still and moves it all around. When the water stays still, it is going to encourage the microbes, but when it is moving, the oxygen is promoted and this alone with keep off the bad microbes

For most hydroponic gardens, going with an HID light, or High Intensity Discharge light, you will be able to get the best growing out of your plants.

most cases, you will need between 20 and 50 watts for every square foot of gardening,

a general rule, a lamp that has 250 Watts should be around 12 inches from the plants while one that is 400 Watts will be about 20 inches from the plants. If you go with a lamp that has 1000 Watts, you should keep the light a minimum of 24 inches from the plant.