I'd quickly like to say I've entered this into the 'Hand tools only' contest so if you enjoy the Instructable it would be much appreciated if you could vote!

I'm a keen gardener and a few weeks ago accidentally stumbled across the concept of hydroponics; basically growing plants without soil by providing them with water with all the correct nutrients in. There are many different hydroponic types but for the purpose of this Instructable I'm going to be focusing on Deep Water Culture (DWC).

DWC is suspending the plant roots over/in nutrient laden water. The water is also oxygenated with an air pump through air stones, without this oxygenation the roots wouldn't thrive. There are many benefits to DWC but the most appealing one to me is the reduced time it takes for the plant to grow and flourish.

Having read a little around the topic I decided to make my own small DWC system as cheaply and easily as possible. Unfortunately I don't have access to many tools and certainly not any power tools so I had to be a little creative at times to finish this system.

The items you'll need to purchase to build this system are:

An opaque storage box (£3 from Poundstretcher)

A length of aquarium tubing (£3 from Pets at Home)

2 six inch air stones (£1.50ea from Pets at Home)

2 way valve (£2.50 from Pets at Home)

An air pump (£13.84 from Amazon)

6 7.5cm net plant pots (15p each from Growell)

You will need to purchase other items to set up the system, but I've not covered this in this Instructable: