NFT Project

NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique and is the method that uses the pipes or channels with the holes and plants set in them.  It is important to filter the Aquaponics fish tank water before sending it through NFT pipes, otherwise the fish poo and uneaten fish feed tends to clump up in the pipes and among the plant roots causing anaerobic, smelly conditions that are not very good for the plants, fish or relations with neighbors.

For my Aquaponics system at that time, I had a pump in the monster bed that was controlled by a float switch. I set up the plumbing from that pump to go into a header tank above the pipes. That tank would fill up and I did my best to balance things so the tank would slowly drain between pump cycles and provide a continual flow of filtered water to my NFT pipes.

Most of my NFT pipes are 4″ sewer pipe with 2 1/2″ holes cut to hold my yogurt cup home made net pots (Next blog post will show off my methods with those.)

Even with the 4″ pipes, plants like basil can grow big enough to cause root clogging and overflows. Using NFT in Aquaponics requires regular checking of the plants and pipes to make sure everything is flowing well and do what pruning or plant removal is necessary to keep things working right.

I find the pipes to be good for small plants and herbs. They are at an easy height to inspect and harvest. Keep in mind that long runs of NFT tend to heat up aquaponics water and can leave it depleted of dissolved oxygen so don’t go running super long distances with just one flow of water.