Why You Should be Using Hydroton In Your Hydroponics Garden

Hydroponics is all about making a series of decisions that ultimately affects the fate of your garden. One of the most vital decisions that you will have to make is what growing medium you will use to grow your plants. While each has their upsides and downsides, and every grower has their own preferences based upon personal experiences, you should seriously consider using hydroton.

Hydroton is a kind of expanded clay pebble which is typically manufactured in Germany. While it is usually used as a growing medium for flowers and larger vegetables plants like peppers, growers of all stripes have found fantastic success from using hydroton in conjunction with their advanced nutrients applications.

Here are some of the primary reasons why you should give hydroton a try in your hydroponic garden.

Reusable - One of the major advantages of hydroton is that it is a major money saver. Unlike some hydroponic media that can wear away after a few growing seasons, or even after just a single growing season, you can use hydroton over and over again, virtually for as long as you grow hydroponically. All your really need to do them is clean them thoroughly with hydrogen peroxide after each growing season and then give them a good rinse.

Retains Water - The prime reason why most people choose growing media that may deteriorate, such as rockwool or coco coir, over more stable media such as perlite, is because perlite does not hold water very well at all. But what is remarkable about hydroton is that despite the fact that it is a very stable, reusable, easy to handle material, it also retains water reasonably well. This is an important feature because it gives that extra level of insurance that all of the nutrients and moisture that you need will be able to be used by your hydroponically grown plants. It also allows you to weather minor glitches in the performance of your equipment without suffering any major ill effects.

PH Neutral - One of the challenges of hydroponic media such as sphagnum moss and rockwool is that they are not pH neutral. This means that they might cause your nutrient solution to drift either acid or alkaline once it actually enters your grow tray. This can make finding and adjusting for the proper pH levels a little bit of an extra challenge.

With hydroton, however, you will never experience this problem. It is totally pH neutral, and if you establish the ideal pH range of between 5.6 and 6.3 in your nutrient solution, you can rest assured that is will stay this way in the root zone media. It also helps because you do not have to work quite as hard to bring the pH to an ideal level.

Excellent Aeration - Another major positive for hydroton is that you will never have to worry about drowning your plant from over-watering. The loose pebbles provide ample opportunity for lots of oxygen to enter your roots, giving them plenty of opportunity to thrive and grow large.

No hydroponic grower should take the decision of choosing their growing medium lightly. Because while one could argue that every choice you make in regards to you hydroponic garden will have a profound impact on the success of your garden, the growing medium is arguably one of the most important. Choose a growing medium that is well suited to both you and your plants, and your growing experience can be both high yielding and fairly easy. Choose one that does not suit your needs well, and you can find yourself wasting a lot of time and not enjoying the full benefit of your hydroponic garden.

This is why you should consider hydroton as a growing medium in addition to the benefits outlined above. Good luck!