Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thought I'd put this up as a concept for comments.
NFT always seems to have problens with things like tomatoes and any large rooted plants, also support etc.
This basically uses plantpots filled with media sitting in stormwater pipes (you pick the size). Water is fed in from the top through the media then flows down plastic mesh. If you used hydroton as the media and the pots had a decent lip you might not even need the centre support pipes.
I am sure I partly ripped this idear from another of the forum members, but I can't remember who, so I appologise.
Badly drawn schematic:-

So... are you drip feeding eaach upright tube via the top inlet pipe?... or is it a continuous flow??

And I'm not clear as to the purpose of the mesh and/or the pvc pipe under each pot?

Rupe

The only reason for the pipe under there would be if the pot would not support itself on the lip of the pvc pipe ie needed to be held up. The mesh is to allow the water to flow onto and down it ie your nutrient film. I would see the ideal situation for this in a standpipe system. If you have sufficient drop between the bottom of a GB and say a sump all or part of that water would be diverted to the inlet pipe which would continuous flow through the media/mesh.
All you would need for support is two poles, one at each end of the horizontal bottom pipe and one across where the top of the up pipe is (so you could wire it on) any pipelength above this is where you would wire across to support the beans or tomatoes.

I expect that you could simplify by ommitting the mesh and the extra pvc support pipe and just make sure your "net pots" are the right size to be supported by the primary pipe. Then you have less stuff to get all tangled and clogged by roots as the plants start getting big.

It is often easy to get carried away adding bit to a method but I've found it usually works out better in the long run to take a step back and simplify.

Now if you are running a CHIFT PIST system with constant pumping, where the sump water is clean after going though the grow beds, you could simply branch off from the primary pump feed into the NFT towers and let them drain back to the fish tank. This makes needing to squeeze things into a minimal fall less tricky.

To add to TCL... perhaps you could adapt modify the idea in the pics below.... flow is along the pipes (ala NFT)... rim of media filled pots sit over the pipe connection...

TC
The mesh is there to carry the film, I am unsure whether you have seen them but it used to be popular at one time to have chains, eithe galv or plastic instead of downpipes from gutters. Water tends to follow a surface, a good example of this is trying to locate a drip spot on your ceiling to the hole in the roof often far apart in terms of vertical. I agree that the support pipes are perhaps redundant

Rupe

The purpose of this is to save space (horizontal) and use perhaps waste fall or as TC says pump excess. Vertically there is far less chance of roots blocking pipes and it is easy enough to pull the pot and trim the roots. I also feel that the roots will get better aeration this way. The only planting restriction in terms of spacing will be foiliage (spelling) cover and not root space.