Run the reservoir, not a watering schedule.
Pick Hydroponics when you set up GrowScope, describe your system once, and the app stops asking about soil moisture. Instead, every day starts with the reservoir: EC, pH, water temperature, top-offs and when the solution is due for a change — for DWC, RDWC, NFT, ebb and flow, recirculating drip, drip to waste, aeroponics, Kratky and wick systems.
The problem
Grow diaries are built around pots: water every few days, check the soil, log the runoff. In hydro the roots sit in the solution all the time, so a watering calendar is meaningless — and the real risks are elsewhere: warm water that holds no oxygen, pH drifting out of range, EC creeping up as the plant drinks, a pump that stopped, roots turning brown.
Why it's hard to solve alone
Hydro is fast in both directions. Above 24 °C the water holds almost no oxygen and root rot (pythium) can take a healthy plant in days. A reservoir topped off with as much solution as it holds no longer matches the recipe. These are things you only catch if you measure the same few numbers every day and compare them with the right ranges for the current stage.
How GrowScope helps
GrowScope keeps a reservoir log for each tank — one shared reservoir for the whole system, or a bucket per plant — with solution changes, top-offs, readings, pH adjustments, root checks and cleaning. From that log it shows the EC, pH and water temperature ranges for the current stage, warns with a concrete action when a value leaves its range, suggests what to top off with based on EC drift, calculates nutrient doses for the litres you actually add, and reminds you when the solution is due for a change.
How it works
- Choose Hydroponics on the first screen (or turn it on for any box in Settings → My places) and pick the method: DWC, RDWC, NFT, ebb and flow, recirculating drip, drip to waste, aeroponics, Kratky or wick.
- Describe the system: reservoir volume, shared tank or bucket per plant, number of sites, net pot and medium, air pump, pump timer or misting cycle, chiller, heater, UV, auto top-off, auto-doser, change interval, top-off strategy, living or sterile root zone and solution strength.
- Every day the Today screen asks for the reservoir instead of soil moisture: EC, pH, water temperature and how much you topped off. One entry for a shared reservoir closes the task for every plant in it; a root check is suggested once a week.
- The reservoir card compares fresh readings with the stage's EC range (softer for seedlings, passive systems and aeroponics), the pH range and your water temperature target, and explains what to do — cool the reservoir, add pH Down, top off with plain water because EC is rising.
- For a solution change it multiplies the feeding calendar's per-litre rates by your reservoir volume; for a top-off it uses the chosen fraction of strength. In a shared reservoir the recipe follows the youngest plant.
- The Tent tab gets a Hydro section with the system summary, pump and aeration guidance for the current stage, 30-day charts of EC, pH and water temperature, and the full reservoir log.
What you get
You always know when the solution was last changed, whether the water is warm enough to worry about, which way EC is drifting and exactly what to mix — and the AI photo analysis knows the plant is in hydro, so it considers water temperature, pH drift and root rot among its hypotheses.
Frequently asked questions
Which hydroponic systems are supported?
DWC, RDWC, NFT, ebb and flow, recirculating drip, drip to waste (coco or rockwool), aeroponics (low and high pressure), Kratky and wick. Each method has its own defaults — shared tank or bucket per plant, medium, pump mode and change interval — that you can adjust.
Does GrowScope control my pumps or dosers?
No. GrowScope does not switch pumps, chillers or dosers. It records what you measure and do, and tells you what to change; the equipment settings you enter are used to check them — for example, whether an air pump is large enough for the reservoir, or whether an NFT pump on a timer risks drying the roots.
How does it decide when to change the solution?
By the interval you set for the system, and earlier if you have already topped off as much as the reservoir holds or EC has moved far from the value at the last change — in both cases the nutrient ratio no longer matches the recipe. Planned changes are also marked in the feeding calendar.
Can I log the reservoir by voice?
Yes. In the action log you can say something like “topped off 10 litres, EC 1.4, pH 5.8, water 21” and it becomes a reservoir entry; for a shared reservoir it is recorded once for the whole system.
Can I check a hydro setup before buying it?
Yes. The Setup Test simulator accepts a hydroponic system: it estimates the solution temperature from the box climate over the whole cycle, warns if the reservoir overheats without a chiller or runs dry in less than a day, and adds the air pump, pumps and chiller to the electricity estimate.