iDOO 20 Pods Hydroponic Indoor Herb Garden Kit with LED Grow Light - Adjustable Height 27", 4 Removable Water Tanks & Auto Timer - Perfect for Kitchen, Home Gardening, Fresh Herbs All Year Round

I like the set up of the way mine has 4 boxes that makes 4 separate growing areas. When I had questions, since I am just starting out, I used their chat line on their website. The person I chatted with was very helpful. So good customer service. That is a plus compared to other hydroponic systems I looked into buying. Since I have just started..we will see how “fruitful” my harvests are.Not sure about this, my biggest concern is there is no aeration, and you have to change the water every week. (pain). I'm going to try connecting an air stone for aeration in each tank and see if that will make a difference. If it doesn't work, its going back.FYI: if you do not have PRIME or if you do have PRIME make sure you check to see if its free return. Its hidden in the description somewhere but you have to look closely. If it just says eligible for return, you will have to pay for return shipping. If it says free return, you want have to pay for shipping. I return a lot so joining so joining Prime was a good thing for me.I am very happy with my purchase I actually bought 2 of them. One of them I planted a salsa mix of jalapenos , tomatoes, onions and cilantro which some of the seeds germinated by day 2. In the other I planted a fruit mix of strawberries, blue berries, black berries , raspberries, and apples. The Salsa mix has been amazingly fast growing the fruit mix however only the apple tree, and blueberries have sprouted. I know berries are usually slow starters. But my garden is just over 2 weeks old. Already needing to separate and plant the extra plants that are trying to grow from the holes. You change the water every two weeks and add a little from bottle a and a little from bottle to the water and then set your timer for the # of hours of light you want and it will run for that long and it remembers the length and will automatically turn on. However if you hit the power button to turn machine off the lights won't come back on automatically. I like how there are 4 individual containers with 5 holes each that are removable so you can put them outside or in a sunny window the height of the light is adjustable. you need to make sure you get the poles holding up the light screwed in tightly. I am already asking for a 3rd one for my birthday in 2 weeks. The pictures of my garden are just 3 days shy of the 3 week mark and the last picture was the 2nd day if my garden I pulled out the ones that had already started growing by the 2nd day for the picture.Great for my over all system, I use these 2 liter tanks with an external pump and an air stones to start my seedlings. Works for meI have used this for seed starting, to growing my leafy greens. People are complaining it doesn’t have a pump, seriously it isn’t needed. I have 2 with a pump, and three of these without a pump. Everything has grown equally the same. I like that I can raise the light up, so taller plants have room to grow. I like that I can use 2 trays or all 4. This system is so easy to use. Even a beginner will be successful growing, whatever they choose. There is more versatility with this 20 pod hydroponic system. I plan on getting a couple more of these for myself, and plan on gifting these for others at holiday time. I have no complaints whatsoever, this IS an awesome system!Love how quick and easy it is to set this up, only issue is you need extra pods when starting new plants, comes with just enough to you started.I used it next to another unknown brand and the name brand model. It outshined both of them. Just bought 2 more, love it!! My garden has never been so full and flourishingIt’s a little disappointing. I know it doesn’t have a pump like the others. It was more expensive than my 12 pod one with the pump. They included no stickers at all for the pods. No hole spacers AT ALL! The tags that came with it are just cheap generic ones that won’t stay in the hole. The 12pod came with nice ones with leaves on the top and they actually click in the hole. I chatted with customer service to see if I could buy some they just have the junky ones on site. One said they probably would if I emailed them. The chat closed before I could write down the email so I called and was told no. It’s not supposed to be in there either it’s not listed in the manual. You’d figure if you bought the more expensive one it would at least be comparable with the other one on accessories.I have a number of different hydroponic growing systems, including the big name brand hydroponic gardens, hydroponic boxes, DWC buckets, and Kratky jars. When I saw this system, I was curious to try it out, since the big name brand systems come with higher costs and I am always looking for alternatives.Pros:-I like how the system looks. The containers are cute and it's nice that it is black, so it will have fewer problems with algae.-The lights go up to about 2', so that is good for taller plants.-Comes with a timer that you can adjust the amount of time to be on and off.-Everything is packaged in cute sealed pouches, so it's like opening a present for Christmas or your birthday!-Comes with everything you need to get started right out of the box.-Totally giftable.-The system fits my longer pod cages and sponges from my name brand garden hydroponics system. (A must for me).-My plants sprouted within days (I have attached pictures of my plants at 2 weeks, 3 weeks and 4 weeks), so the growth is impressive and shows that the lights are strong enough for growing what you like.-I experimented with both my longer pod cages, sponges and nutrients, as well as with the iDOO cages, sponges and nutrients. My plant roots look great when I used my longer pods and sponges. 4 of the 5 plants in the longer pods sprouted, while 3 of the 5 plants in the iDOO pods sprouted. (It could possibly be due to the seeds though, since the ones that did not sprout were Echinacea, Cilantro and Spinach, which are sometimes a bit challenging to germinate.)-It works great with an air pump and air stone added.-When using the iDOO pods cages, sponges and nutrients, the ruby red leaf lettuce and basil seem to grow great, so I think other herbs and lettuces would do well with these pods. For plants with bigger or longer roots, I think maybe using longer pod cages and a different type of sponge would be better.-Hopefully iDOO has replacement LED panels, because it seems easy enough to be able to replace the lights if they go out in the future.-Comes with tags to label your plants.Cons:-The price is still a bit steep, considering there are no pumps, although the system does seem to be adequate for Kratky if you follow the directions and change the water and nutrients each week, so pumps are not necessary.-A pump system would still be nice.-I didn't have the time nor energy to change the water and add nutrients each week, so my plants in the iDOO pods may have suffered. I changed the water and nutrients every 2 weeks instead. My other non iDOO nutrients were fine for that. I'm not sure if the iDOO nutrients were as well. Possibly.-The iDOO sponges may be a bit too hard for the roots to grow through, since they seemed to be not as bushy or long using the iDOO sponges. However, they still seem to work for my lettuce and basil plants. My lemon grass is still very small, so I don't know if that is due to the sponge. I do hope that iDOO tries to use better sponges in the future.-It's not very easy to see the water level. Maybe they need to make the plastic window more clear?-It would be nice if a couple little holes in the deck with plugs were added so that we have the option to add a pump with airline tubing and air stone, as well as be able to add some sort of automatic watering system.-Spacer caps for empty spaces would be nice, since I have heard the other iDOO hydroponic systems come with them.-The telescoping mechanism for the lights seems a bit flimsy. If iDOO used a thicker, rectangular rod with either a button system or a lever system to adjust it, like some other grow light stands out there, it would be better.-It would be nice if the lights could go up higher. Maybe up to 4' above the top of the containers, so we could grow taller plants?-I think the lights need to be wider (the same width as the containers), since they don't seem to reach all the way to the front or back.-Although 2L containers are not bad, with potentially 5 plants, it would be nice if the containers were taller so more water could be added to the containers and maybe we would only need to change the water and nutrients every 2 weeks instead?Overall, I do like this system and recommend it. It is attractive, works and I have good growth, especially when I used my own pod cages, sponges and nutrients. However, using the iDOO pod cages, sponges and nutrients are good too, if you plan on growing lettuce and herbs.This is just four plant pots with a light. No pumps or anything like that (kratky system). The baskets are very short, about half the length of an aerogarden basket. There are no covers supplied to cover unused slots (important to stop algae growth) and cant find them to buy as a spare either. Looks like you cant swap baskets between Idoo growers because they all models use different dimensions.I bought this as a gift.to get someone into indoor gardening and wish I had done a bit more research and saved myself dty quid!The exact same item can be bought for fifty nine quid on Amazon but with different branding on the front.The product is reasonably well-intentioned, but they cheaped out on the telescoping light stand. The LED mating for the threads is metal, but the telescoping poles that raise and lower the LED has plastic threading.Literally within minutes of assembling this, I tried to raise and lower the light, and snapped the threading. The mount for the light is completely broken. They should have used metal threads for the metal mating, not plastic on metal. I am trying to superglue it to salvage it, but the this is quite a glaring design flaw.On the photo you can see some plants that I adopted from Bunnings as I was too impatient to grow them from seed. To make the plants stable, I used some clay pebbles I got from Bunnings.What IDOO doesn't tell us is that it's very important to adjust pH in the solution. I wish they also recommended what tomato variety is good for their small hydroponic system. It's also important to use a different solution for flowering stage. So if you want to do it right, you'd probably spend about $200 more on these extras.I like that IDOO decided to make a model that implements the Kratky method. It was a good decision as that pump in the previous models was a disaster. Although I'd probably still buy a pump that is made right.The light is OK considering the price. If it becomes a problem, I'd probably buy Spider Farmer light for $90.