Fogponics is a form of Aeroponics. It is basically the same concept, except you are using vaporized nutrient solution in the 5-30µm particle size range. This form of Hydroponics is not as popular as Aeroponics, but that is only because this is a relatively newer form of Hydroponics. These systems are typically made up of an ultrasonic fogger, a pump, water, and the system to hold the roots above the fog. One thing to note is your plants do not actually have to have their roots touching the fog you see since it is actually sucking it up. There are a lot of people who have messed up perfectly good systems by adding a fan because the roots were not touching the fog.
Fogponics Advantages:
- The plants grown typically grow faster. This is because more O2, and CO2 to the roots assist in the plants growing faster. Also, the nutrients are easier for the plants to absorb.
- You use less nutrients and water in an Fogponics setup, since you are misting the plants, and not diluting them in the solution.
- Not very much space is needed, if the Fogponics setup is completed correctly.
- Great learning experience. This method has a lot of things that help you learn more about Hydroponics in general.
- This is semi-mobile. Depending on how it is built, it could be very mobile, if you move you growing space around. (Maybe your wife likes to change the look of you basement a lot.)
- Fairly cheap to build.
- Depending on setup, disease is cut down from other forms of Hydroponics.
- Saves a significant amount of resources such as water/nutrients.
Fogponics Disadvantages:
- Dependency on all of the parts working 100% of the time. If anything fails such as a pump, sprinkler, timer, or gets clogged, your plants will suffer, and fast.
- Regular cleaning and sanitation is required. You have a dark, moist, air prevalent environment, what do you think will happen? Bacterial growth! You must also note, that you have to make sure that your sprinklers are going to need regular cleaning so they do not build up with mineral deposits, and stop working properly.
- High maintenance. These systems need almost constant attention. If a fogger fails, well you have mere, few hours to get something in place to resolve the issue. Plants die very quickly when something wrong happens in a Fogponics system.
- This system needs to be cleaned often. Since the foggers are creating such sized nutrient solution vapors, you have to make sure that the foggers are clean. Salt buildup is common, and it can stop a system from functioning properly.
- Roots develop over time smaller, thinner, and weaker than Aeroponics.
Suggestions for best use: Cloning. Fogponics is very cheap to build, plants grow very fast, they are getting vapors at almost the size of what they need to absorb them. This means that the plant has to work less. You can build a quick easy setup from a rubbermaid storage box, pump, and vaporizer from Ebay as a beginning DIY on the super cheap.
Keep posted, we will be posting some of our DIY stuff soon. We will outline an entire Fogponics build.
