By Matthew Enloe | Cerca Cultivation
Ready to dive into the world of hydroponics but unsure where to begin? Cerca Cultivation’s experts are here to demystify the process, revealing the essential equipment you need to cultivate a thriving small hydroponic garden right at home. Prepare to unlock the secrets to successful indoor growing and transform your green thumb ambitions into reality.
TL;DR – Quick Summary
Unlock the secrets to starting your own thriving hydroponic garden at home, even if you’re a complete beginner.
Growing Strategy: Beginner hydroponic setups, like wicking or Kratky systems, require no pumps and can be DIY’d with basic containers (e.g., 5-gallon buckets) and a hole saw drill.
Plant Selection: Essential equipment includes a reservoir, a growing medium (coco coir, rockwool), net cups, a water-soluble nutrient solution, and a pH testing/adjustment kit.
Soil & Nutrition: Maintaining a pH of 5.5 is crucial for most hydroponic plants; a pH down product (preferably phosphoric acid-based) is needed to adjust basic tap water.
Seasonal Planning: Visual cues for insufficient grow light include plants stretching, having thin/weak leaves, and often being accompanied by aphid infestations and high humidity.
Cultivation Success: For nutrients, a single-part dry nutrient (like the AeroSpring product mentioned) is ideal for beginners, providing all necessary plant food without complex multi-step systems.
Pro tip: When sourcing grow lights, prioritize LEDs for energy efficiency and less heat, and always observe your plants for signs of stress (stretching, thin leaves) to gauge light adequacy, as this is often the first indicator of an issue.
Stephen: No, I think it is. I mean, I’ve learned things and I’m around you often. So I think that people will definitely, definitely think so. All right, so this is kind of moving into another topic altogether of essential equipment for beginners specifically, so what basic equipment do I need to start a small hydroponic garden at home?
Matthew: More fun. OK.
Stephen: So this might be maybe a more basic, I’m thinking, of a question than like an aeroponic, or not aeroponics, but the garden that you just talked about.
Matthew: So a really basic kit. So let’s I’m going to I’m going to take this question and assume that people are interested in the more DIY approach, which is where I started. There’s different types of hydroponic systems, which I’d love to get into probably on another podcast in the future. But there’s some that don’t even need pumps. So Those are referred to as either wicking or crack key systems. So a wicking or crack key system is going to not have any pump, but you’re depending upon the gap between the top of the plant and the roots that grow down into the water, which isn’t moving, you don’t need a pump. You don’t need an air pump, but that gap actually oxygenates the root zone. allows the plant to not just be completely soggy and be anaerobic at the root zone, which will cause the roots to start rotting. So the basic equipment will be some sort of a container, a five gallon bucket, maybe a 10 gallon Rubbermaid tub. You’re gonna be cutting holes out. So some sort of a hole saw drill, something that can cut a hole big enough to put some sort of a cup that holds the plant in position. You’re gonna need some sort of a growing medium. So, hydroponics is growing plants without soil and a nutrient solution who the plants still need something to hold on to. So that could be cocoa core. That could be, there’s some foam based growing mediums. There’s rock wool, which is, it’s, It’s minerals that have been heated up and spun into a fiber that’s compressed into these little blocks. That’s a pretty common beginner hydroponic medium.
There’s expanding grow plugs which have cocoa core or sometimes a combination of cocoa core, peat moss that have been compressed into little pucks that hydrate. So you’re gonna need some sort of a growing medium. And something I’ve seen people use yogurt cups and they… with an exacto knife, cut slits into the yogurt cup. And that’s all the, that’s pretty much it for the structure of it. It’s some sort of a growing medium, something soft that the plants can germinate in. You can use a soil blend, like a potting soil blend, because they’re not going to be in that for that long. But it gets loose and sometimes it falls through the little slits in the net. cup. That’s what people are making when they the slits in the yogurt cup. You can also just buy net cups from a hydroponics store. That’s one side. The other side is the nutrient solution. And the nutrient solution is going to need some sort of water-soluble, all-balanced plant food. And that’s going to provide all of the food that plants need to grow. You’re going to a nutrient and you’re going to need something to test and adjust the pH. The pH is the acidity of the water. So plants grown hydroponically, typically almost every plant that common garden plant in hydroponics is going to thrive with a pH of 5.5. Neutral is seven. Anything over seven is considered basic. So we want the water slightly acidic. And 5.5 is about the pH of lemon juice.
But what you’re going to need is a pH down, some sort of pH down product, which is an acid that not only fights the weak bases, weak bases would be calcium carbonate, potassium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, but you’re going to fight the strong bases. that’s like, then, so you’re going to need a stronger acid. to fight those stronger bases so that you can actually bring the pH down and not have it just spiked right back up. Because most tap water is a little bit basic.
Stephen: So for people who don’t necessarily know everything that you just said, do you guys have a basic pH adjustment kit or anything or nutrients that will help with that? is that something that, where do people find that kind of thing?
Matthew: So we have one on our site right now. It’s fine. It’s a good solid one. It’s the one I started with. We’re working with a local hydroponic company right now to get something a little bit more advanced. So that’s TBD. Probably before the end of the year, before 2026, we’ll be selling some of their really cool nutrients and pH adjusting. supplies, but we have a pH testing kit from General Hydroponics, which is pretty good. It’s good enough that I use it. That’s kind of the name of the game with pH adjusting. It just has to be good enough. You just got to hit 5.5. There’s nothing really fancy about pH adjusting. Nutrients, on the other hand, is a whole world. There’s. single part dry nutrients. There’s liquid nutrients with steps for every step of the growing process from vegetative growth all the way through like three different blends to get you through fruiting through flowering. And then there’s additives. like calcium, like a Cal Mag. So there’s a whole world. We sell the most basic beginner. Single part nutrients, it’s complete, has everything that the plants need to grow. All of the plants that we sell that we designate as hydroponic friendly on our website, they’ll do well with our nutrients, do well with our pH down. So yeah, it does not have to be that complicated, but you can get as complicated as you’d like.
Stephen: So to kind of summarize that, for the most basic equipment to start a hydroponics garden at home, what are the bullet points of all the things we just talked about?
Matthew: Okay, you need some sort of a reservoir container to hold the water. You need some sort of a growing medium that’s something soft that the plant starts in. You need.
Matthew: Coca-Cola, Rockwool, or our plants are ready to go. They pop right in because our growing medium is, it’s a bonded medium that works in both hydroponic and soil gardening. A net cup, something to hold the plant in place. And you need a pH test, something to test the pH. So that’s either litmus paper drops or a pH probe.
Stephen: Okay. Cool.
Matthew: And then something to adjust to respond to that. a pH down product, some something with a strong acid in it. Phosphoric acid is the main thing that I’m focusing on in a pH down. Just because it’s also a plant food. it, when it reacts with the carbonates in the water, the alkaline. Yeah, it releases the phosphorus as available. phosphorus. And then you need a nutrient.
Stephen: Okay, and you guys sell a single powderized nutrient, you said?
Matthew: some of other people. Yeah, single part dry mute is what we would call it, but it’s a powder and you just, there’s a million ways to dose your, your, there’s as many, it’s probably six main different ways you could approach how to dose your hydroponic system. But the instructions that are on the back of the one that we sell is, and it’s by AeroSpring, our partner, our hydroponic partner. Yeah, so we. Yeah, we saw that one. I like it. I like it. It works great. It’s so easy. But I’m hoping that we get some more advanced level stuff soon. It’s coming.
Stephen: Okay, sweet. So the next question was I think maybe kind of in the same vein as that but maybe it’s slightly more advanced because it’s springing in lights, How do I know if my grow lights are providing enough light for my seedlings?
Matthew: Oof, look at the plants. That’s the first question. If you’re going to go buy plants, that’s a whole world of questions that you need to answer. First is like how many plants are you gonna grow? What’s your canopy? So that’s the amount of leaves that are going to actually need the light. Are you going to be doing cooling? because if you’re going to be cooling your grow room, then you’ve got more options for lights that run hotter. What’s your energy bill that you’re okay with? Because a thousand watt sodium metal halide bulb that’s running for let’s say 18 hours a day is will have a noticeable increase and will also need cooling on your plants. LEDs have come a long, long way and usually an LED will have some sort of like conventional sodium metal halide equivalent. But it’s hard to know with LEDs, like what that conversion is. So, Yeah, like what I have to do is I have to go find when I’m sourcing grow lights, I have to ask those questions. And then I have to do research on those specific plants about what type of part that’s photoactive region that tells your light spectrum, how much like how many actual photons the plants expect.
Stephen: So getting back to like as a more beginner though. What could I, because I don’t know how I would go about all the, that would take hours of research for me to even understand a lot of the thing that, yeah, exactly. So is there, is there anything that I can do by looking at it? Like from looking at it, like you said in the beginning, what would be those visual cues that I’d be looking for to know if my grow lights are actually enough for what I’m growing?
Matthew: It would take hours of research for me to get you what you want. So. So yeah, you have a grow light and you’re like, are my plants sick because I’m doing something wrong or is it just not enough light? It’s a good question to be asking.
Stephen: or doing my plants just not like me.
Matthew: Or do my plants just not like you? I can’t answer that last one for you. I’m sorry. So what you’re going to be seeing is you’re going to be, imagine lettuce is a great example because we all see lettuce so often and we’ve seen it in the grocery store so many times. Ahead of Romaine, maybe 10 inches, 10 inches tall. And the leaves are pretty compact and a nice dark green. But your romaine, all the leaves are spread out like wide and they’re all really thin and they’re curling a little bit and they’re skinny and they’re stretching. So what the plant is doing is it’s responding to those low light levels and it’s actually the hormones that the plant are producing are telling it open up, I need light, because in nature it would be in the shade. So it’d be like open up, need light, so that I can finally get to the point where I produce a flower and put the seed down, which is what I was born to do. So open, and the leaves will actually, the cells in the leaves will actually elongate. And that’ll push those leaves out to be longer and thinner. So you’ll see that in a poorly lit, a poorly lit indoor grow, skinny, thin, weak, like you touch them and the leaf breaks. And then also usually, usually accompanied by that, you’ll see two other things. That plant is so weak that if, for instance, aphids come in, they’re gonna love it. cell walls are thin and they’re easy to pierce and just suck all of the all the sugars out of each cell. So you’ll usually see an aphid infestation and those aphids most likely didn’t come when you put the plants in.
They could have, but they probably came through the front door. As you were walking in there’s aphids and the pests. Spider mites aphids are the two worst indoor. pests and they come in through the front door. They’re just hanging on our sleeve and all it is one. They are so prolific. There’s that and then you’ll also see a lot of humidity. So these are the three things that I’ll see together with insufficient lighting, insufficient dehumidification and.
Stephen: Hmm.
Matthew: Sometimes that’s as simple as making sure that it’s not a super closed room with no way to get air exchanged out of the room and aphids. And once you have aphids, it depends on how far the outbreak’s gone. But the first thing to do is to try and get those aphids from the plant that has most of them away from the plants that don’t have them as fast as possible. So you’re gonna be removing that plant, potentially washing it. And sometimes you can wash it off. Sometimes you wash it and just call that the harvest. You eat that one. Good. Now you’ve got an empty space ready for you to go to plant another plant. But there are all sorts of pesticide measures that you can take everything from very benign, like some things that are practically useless, like like diluted milk. I would hate to say if diluted milk works for you, let me know. I’ve never seen it work. To neem oil, is really, neem oil is really common and mildly effective. An organics spray that I find to be much more effective is called Azamax or Azera. It has the concentrate from neem oil. It’s just more concentrated, but still comes from.
Stephen: Hmm.
Matthew: Still comes from the neem tree. And then up to synthetics, which I’m not that familiar with. But there are synthetics that can kill pretty much anything.
Stephen: Yeah, it’s, there’s a lot to it. mean, you you’ve made an entire career out of it, so I get it. A lot of these questions are quite long answers, but I think they should be. They’re helpful.
Matthew: Yeah, yeah, I I hope it’s helpful.