not cost efficiently. ~R

why do you say that? please back up your statement..
i'd love to hear your reasoning..

what is lettuce worth a head vs. what does one of those ultrasonic foggers cost + lighing + nutrients + media, you'd have grow a lot of crops of lettuce to break even. foggers are much more expensive than small pumps and one fogger can only cover a certain area, a pump would be able to cover more area. thats my reasoning.

theres plenty of foggers on ebay that are under 10.00
i think those produce .3 to .5 L of fog an hour (which is a lot)
i think the question is also besides the price would it be effective from a hobby sort of place

Ive heard of ultrasonic fog around, but I have questions about it... So this means i do not need a resivor anymore? This system just replaces it totaly? And also what kind of system does it work best with? A flood and drain or a aeroflow?

ultrasonic growing??? i have never heard of such a thing. Is there a site I can educate myself about this at? or would someone care to enlighten me?

search google to find articles on ultrasonics. It is not hydroponics but a form of aeroponics in which nutrient is vaporized ultrasonicly and applied to the roots hanging in a light and air tight chamber. you are correct in thinking it is an expensive and uneccesarily complicated system for something as simple as baby greens. Some of the biggest problems are nutrient increases in TDS because the water goes away faster than the plants use the salts. Any systemn failure will result in crop failure much quicker than any of the other types of hydroponic based systems. Although i did not find mention of this i suspect you will also get salt deposits on chamber walls and the equipment as well as clogged nozels or vaporizing equipment. Another point to consider is if building systems with junk from ebay you should consider it strictly experimental to start and test with common plants you don't care if you loose. Any items used in ways they are not desighned for is a risk in equipment failure as well as disaster such as flooding fire etc if used inside. there is a reason most people use distilled water in humidifiers and foggers they foul up with mineral water which is what you vaporize in this system. Personally i tend to think it may be best to let the grant recipients work out the kinks in these newer type systems and determine what varieties of plants need the extra expense and risk of the particular system.

I know its late, but I want to add that you can get really nice ultrasonic vaporizers here: http://www.mainlandmart.com/fogger1.html

You can fog in your house with one of the large ones!

Here is a link that might be useful: powerful ultrasonic fogger / mister

www.ultrasonicdank.com flat and verticle systems

They are right about the foggers getting foweled up with the mineral salts. Also, there still has to be a resivuar for the fogger to work from. I think most people who try this are often simply using foggers in what was originally a DWC system. Lower the liquid level so that the fogger will work and see how it goes. When you decide you don't want to mess with the foggers anymore, put the air pump and air stones back into service and go back to the DWC system for you lettuce.

As far as "is it cost effective to grow baby lettuce at home" Well if you are compairing the price of iceberg at the grocery to what it would cost you to grow the fancy, baby, gormet greens at home, then no it is not cost effective from a strictly economic point of view.

I suspect the reasons for growing your own salad greens are a bit more complex than that. I grow my own lettuce at home in DWC. This time of year under a light indoors since it is way too hot in FL to grow outside right now. I like to grow my own because I can grow the types I like and harvest as I need. There is something about really fresh food in a salad that I like.

I think I once figured out that the cost of growing lettuce indoors in hydroponics was about $20 a month for my size system and our electric rates. That included nutrient, perlite, and electricity for running the lights, fan, and air pumps