I did something very similar, but I took into conisderation Bernoulli’s principle. In other words, I used the tubing with the 1/8″ inside all the way up. Why? Because, it will have greater pressure all the way up. I have mine shoot up about 5 feet straight up. With the 1/4″ inside tubing it didn’t make it. The nutrient solution shoots up really fast now and constantly. It doesn’t jam, and has been running for 3 weeks now non-stop except to change the solution once. Of course, for your specific design I could accomplish it with a stronger air pump, but I didn’t want to spend more money! All in all, I agree this is a better design as it maximizes the pressure from the air pump and the water! Good work
Yep, I just used smaller tubing throughout the entire stretch. I had to get a smaller T, but it works great! I will try to post some pictures soon… maybe a blog post too. I have
As this very narrow tube will eventually get clogged up by something resisting even this greater pressure (if not by algae, the by debris or aerobic bacteria), and as normal methods of cleaning it probably won’t work, here’s an idea: Run a nylon chord through it, twice the length, outside and inside, so that by pulling at it on the outside you can clean up the inside.
I think you did really well. But it is better if the pipe coming from the bottom of your reservoir dips down lower and comes up below the t joint. So you will have air entry at the side of the t, water entry below and the air/water mixture going straight up out of it. Sorry it is a bit more tubing to buy but it is totally worth it. I do not think it matters a whole lot if it is the same size as the water/air mixture pipe or a bit smaller. (Probably easier if they are the same size).
Brian
I’m getting a few main things from posts on pumps: 1) it is not necessary to use the air inflation needle (if only to prevent water back ups) 2) a tube with a smaller diameter allows for greater water pressure 3) the T is awesome and super cheap. I used the air inflation needle technique with 1/4 ” tubing for a windowfarm, and the water won’t reach the top bottle. Are there any other suggestions for increasing water pressure besides these 3?
I did something very similar, but I took into conisderation Bernoulli’s principle. In other words, I used the tubing with the 1/8″ inside all the way up. Why? Because, it will have greater pressure all the way up. I have mine shoot up about 5 feet straight up. With the 1/4″ inside tubing it didn’t make it. The nutrient solution shoots up really fast now and constantly. It doesn’t jam, and has been running for 3 weeks now non-stop except to change the solution once. Of course, for your specific design I could accomplish it with a stronger air pump, but I didn’t want to spend more money! All in all, I agree this is a better design as it maximizes the pressure from the air pump and the water! Good work
Yep, I just used smaller tubing throughout the entire stretch. I had to get a smaller T, but it works great! I will try to post some pictures soon… maybe a blog post too. I have
As this very narrow tube will eventually get clogged up by something resisting even this greater pressure (if not by algae, the by debris or aerobic bacteria), and as normal methods of cleaning it probably won’t work, here’s an idea: Run a nylon chord through it, twice the length, outside and inside, so that by pulling at it on the outside you can clean up the inside.
I think you did really well. But it is better if the pipe coming from the bottom of your reservoir dips down lower and comes up below the t joint. So you will have air entry at the side of the t, water entry below and the air/water mixture going straight up out of it. Sorry it is a bit more tubing to buy but it is totally worth it. I do not think it matters a whole lot if it is the same size as the water/air mixture pipe or a bit smaller. (Probably easier if they are the same size).
Brian
I started using these as well in some of my experiments. I prefer them to the air needles.
I’m getting a few main things from posts on pumps: 1) it is not necessary to use the air inflation needle (if only to prevent water back ups) 2) a tube with a smaller diameter allows for greater water pressure 3) the T is awesome and super cheap. I used the air inflation needle technique with 1/4 ” tubing for a windowfarm, and the water won’t reach the top bottle. Are there any other suggestions for increasing water pressure besides these 3?
@veganalien13 The best thing to do with any of these air lift systems is to have as deep of resevoir as possible. The other minor modification to this design I show here. http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/12/04/strawberries-9-months-new-wf-first-snow-of-the-year/ This puts a little more backpressure on the line going down into the water and helps to keep the air from bubbling. Others have done the same type of thing by adding bigger lenths of tubing to theirs like at the bottom of this post. http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/setting-up-my-second-column-week-3.html