General Hydroponics AF20 - Manual (Page 5)

ASSEMBLY
HELPFUL GUIDELINES
STEP 6
Place the Net Pots with the CocoTek Liners into the growing sites and use the Clay
Pebbles to support seedling plants. Always rinse the Clay Pebbles before use and see
the Helpful Guidelines for planting and cleaning the system.
FILLING
Before filling your system with water it is essential that you understand the system
capacity. The reservoir should be drained first before draining the growing chambers.
This will prevent overfilling of the reservoir and possible flooding. Fill the reservoir with
a known volume of water and then start the pump. Adjust the Drain Level Tubes (DLT)
to the desired level and start adding water in 1 gallon increments until the Growing
Chambers and reservoir are at the desired levels. Record the total gallons to be used
for calculating the amount of nutrient to add to the system. See chart for approximate
amount of water the system holds at the two operating levels.
CAUTION: Never run the water pump without water covering the pump inlet.
Reservoir
capacity
Each Chamber Total Water*
low level high level low level high level
gallons
8.0 1.0 4.0 10 16
* Total amount of water in all chambers and reservoir
* pictured above with AF30
PLANTING
To prepare a seedling or a plant for transplanting, remove all soil and/or organic material
from around the roots. Plants must be sturdy with established roots before transplanting.
Choose seedlings because it’s more difficult to successfully transplant older plants. If your
plant has been growing in soil or peat moss, gently remove the plant from its pot and
carefully rinse as much soil as possible from the roots before transplanting. Although
this transplanting method from soil to hydroponics could pose potential risks (soils may
contain disease organisms that proliferate in the rich hydroponics solution) we have in
fact been successful with this method, particularly with culinary herbs and encourage
you to try. You can avoid these problems by starting plants from cuttings in one of our
RainForest™ Systems or RapidRooters™.