Aquamist IV
Price: $280.00
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I bought an Aquamist IV a couple of years ago and while it is a good idiot proof beginner system it is not a true aeroponics system - it's more of a poor DWC with a sprinkler.
Description: The Aquamist IV is basically a 10 gallon square reseviour with a pump that feeds water to a spinning sprinkler in the middle of the 2' x 2' x 1' res container.
The plants hang in baskets from holes drilled in a peice of 2' x 2' x ~3/16" fiber(?) sheet, with 8 gallons of water for 16 clones there is only a couple of inches of air between the water and the bottom of the baskets.
The sprinkler head works like one of these, very thick drops of water. There is a mesh screen around the sprinkler to break up the water drops.
The top options allow for clones, 16 small plants or 8 medium size. I opted for the 16 site and my last grow got away from me a bit. The 8 site would give much better light to the lower branches - I kept a couple middle sites open and next time around am going to use shorter clones. The tops bend towards the middle and I have to attach some type of support.
The Aquamist comes with a nice PVC stand, keeps the res off the ground and brings the plants up to working height. The res also has a well for the pump to sit in, gets the bottom water.
The unit comes with a nice 250 GPH mag drive pump.
The Aquamist comes in 4 sizes, from 16" x16" (II) to 46" x 24" (I).
Pros:
Simple, resiliant, safe, all in one container.
It doesn't get much simpler than: a sprinkler for aero; oxyginate the res with the sprinkler; keep everything in one container so there are no leaks.
Good construction, beautifully simple design, nice pump, hard to clog the spinner (because it puts out drops of water the size of a fertilizer truck - oh yeah, that's a con. I think).
Has a side drain pipe connected to the pump that can empty the res without taking the top off.
The plants are in a 2' x 2' square rather than in a longer PVC tube, good for smaller gardens.
I could assemble it in a few minutes with no special tools.
It's like the rainforest, except it's square instead of hexagon. And the Rainforest has a 17 gallon res, is 2' accross so the res might be ~2' deep, allowing for more roots to hang in air instead of water.
Cons:
It's a Deep Water Culture system with a sprinkler.
The top is difficult to take off when it's loaded with 16 heavy plants and soaked roots. The inside has to be cleaned every couple of weeks, in addition to draining the res twice a week, or silt/dead roots/etc will clog the pumps filter and the sprinkler will stop. Not to worry though, since you have a deep water culture system your plants will live until they drown in the un-oxygenated water rather than drying up as in a normal system.
The Last Word:
The unit is beautifully simple and easy to use, resilliant and will take abuse from people new to hydro. You can screw up royally time after time and not kill your plants.
It is not an aero system.
While it was great to get my feet wet I want a true aero system, so I'm either going to: adapt this system with micro jet sprayers and a res for the Aquamist chamber to sit on so I can use the 12" high A.M. chamber for the roots to hang in with no water at the bottom; or make a system with PVC. Probably do the first then the second.
Recomendation:
1. If you're new to hydro and aren't set on aero this is a good unit to start with. It will give you years of good service, just remember that you are not buying an aero system - you are getting a DWC system.
2. If you don't want to shell out the $280.00 for the Aquamist IV you could make as many of these as you need, cutting holes in lids for 2-4 plants per bucket:
I'm no hydro expert but from my experience the bucket and garden hose will give you an as good or better system than the Aquamist or Rainforest. If I were looking at either I would consider the Rainforest if it has a deeper res than the Aquamist IV. (17 gallon res with Rainforest 318, 10 Gallon res with Aquamist 4 - Rainforest for 18 sites, Aquamist for 16.)
