by Hillary
Airlift woes
9:10 pm in Getting Started, posts with pitcures! by Hillary
I successfully got my airlift system up and running about a month ago. As you can see I used 4 x 1L water bottles instead of 3 x 1.5L bottles and a 12″ tall cylindrical water reservoir. The gallon reservoir didn’t create a tall enough column to pump the water all the way to the top bottle so I chose to use the taller cylindrical vase, however, I find that I have to top it off with water every single day and adjust the pH at least every other day. From top to bottom I’m growing rosemary, deer tongue lettuce, blue basil and lemon basil. This is the system right after setup:
Initial set up
Top bottle with silencer
The plants were doing well for a week or two- I was changing the nutrient solution in the reservoir weekly (using approx 5.5mL each David’s Grow base and grow nutrients per 1.5L water), keeping the lights on from 7AM – 11PM, filling the reservoir and adjusting pH as necessary.
One month after setup- lettuce and basil flourishing!
About 2 weeks in, I decided to use some of the rosemary and, not knowing the first thing about gardening or harvesting herbs, I think I ruined the poor plant!
Dead rosemary 
I assume this is just user error (in cutting the plant) and not a problem with the system or lighting or anything. I haven’t removed it from the system yet, hoping against hope that it will miraculously thrive again but I’ll probably end up replacing it soon. For the future, can anyone tell me how to properly harvest rosemary?
Another problem I’ve experienced is some of my basil leaves are turning brown and dying!
Brown basil leaf
My question is this: is the dying basil a result of improper pH levels (trying to keep the system around 6.0), not enough light, lack of nutrients?
Admittedly, my lighting set up is rather crude. I mistakenly bought 100W CFLs that were only labeled 2700K so perhaps that is the fatal flaw. However the plants are getting some natural light from a glass-paneled patio door not pictured off the the right.
I have some seedlings that I started that I believe are ready to be transplanted (more lettuce, more basil, and chives) but I’m not sure how to do that since I started my system with adult plants. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Please help! Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.
You might have harvested too much off the Rosemary plant. Although you can have the plant continue to grow, it looks like you might have cut too much.
http://www.howtogardenadvice.com/plant_list/herb/grow_rosemary.html
I have been using David’s Grow as well. They have a store in Rosell, IL that I had gone to. I had bought a kind of beginners hydroponic kit and beside the Base and Grow, it has stuff called Bloom, Fulvic Acid, Root Roids and Soluble Silicate. In the chart, I have been feeding mine the “flowering” formula, but I have strawberries and you only have greens. I have a gallon resevoir at the bottom and I replace the whole gallon solution once a week. The level goes down an inch or two every 3 days or so and I top it off and correct the ph at that time as well. If yours is only 1.5 liters then I can see why you’d have to check and fill it every day. You may want to try and find something bigger. The trick being to find something just as tall.
Somewhere on the site there’s a list of plants that seem to be less successful with this method, and rosemary is one of them, so don’t feel terrible if it doesn’t work out! It actually does fairly well in a regular pot, so you might try transplanting what you have left into soil and see how it does.
I have a three bottle airlift system going, the base container is a tallish three liter bottle and it needs topping up every couple of days or the lifting action fails. As Tony says, it’s no surprise you are constantly having to fill yours. Maybe you could take one of the bottles away from your column, which would use less water, and also make it easier to push to the top without the base being full. Another system wouldn’t be too much of an investment, and then you’d have room for more plants!
I have seen the leaves on my plants go brown as well, it may be the pH : the solution I’ve got going starts out very low, which I used to correct, but then it goes up as the days go by so I’ve actually stopped correcting it, and I think by topping it up it kind of self-regulates. Anyhow, I have fewer browned leaves these days.
Hi again ! I looked up a few things:
Your lights seem to be 100W equivalent CFLs using 20W, which is good for you electricity bill
The warm white colour shouldn’t be a problem, and they’re certainly procducing enough light.
As for the brown leaves: If this is spreading, it could also be a fungus (Septoria).
I’ve noticed that the bottle the rosemary is sitting in has of water sprayed all over it.
It might be a good idea to try and reduce that to a minimum by letting the tubing end
almost within the clay pellets, because Septoria seems to like wet leaves …
Just guessing here
Either through evaporation or the plants consuming it, a fair amount of water will disappear. My window farm system uses a 17L bucket. I fill it to 10L and add nutrients. After 10-12 days, I will have less then half the solution left in the reservoir.
Thanks for all the feedback!
The silencer is looking a little green and slimey these days so perhaps it is Septoria…? I’ll try adjusting the tubing as you suggested @samenrahamen. The brown spots are not affecting my lettuce though, which is interesting. hmmm.
that is algae. This can be prevented by blocking light from your nutes (rez. tubes, and silencer).
I’ve grown rosemary in soil a few times. It’s strange, as it looks fine for a week or two after it’s dead.
Brown spots are hard to diagnose. I’m not that familiar with unhappy lettuce, but it could be: too strong nutes, to weak nutes, fungus, root rot, too strong nutes getting on the leaves, not enough water, too much water…
Those spots will stay, but if it’s not getting any more, than things are good.
Looking at the brown on your basil and the at the setup with the lights it appears to me that the leaves are getting too close to the lamp and are being scorched. I’ve seen that look before. If this is the cause, prune away from the heat but no more than one third of the plant. This will not only prevent scorching but it will also encourage branching. Of course you could also back he light off a bit.
If you are still having airlift problems check out our system, http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/04/26/our-hydroponic-window-farm-experience/ We have 8 feet of lift with an air system
I remember reading that when you first posted and being quite envious. Your system looks amazing- I one day aspire to such success! Thanks for reminding me about it. I’ll definitely take some pointers from your experiences.
rosemary tends to like dry conditions. i think soil and ignoring it is usually a good way to go, just dont ignore it for too long. water it as the soil starts to contract from the edges of the pot. the same with basil. every time i try to pay attention to basil and water it, it dies.
Wow–this looks great. How long did it take you to build?
Re: Rosemary, I’m not good with plants but I live in Vegas and here the streets are lined with Rosemary! Its a great ornamental plant/shrub that loves our climate. It never rains hear and the sun is almost always shining so to plant it in a system that constantly has water dripping through it will probably not work well. If you insist though I’d do a whole column of just Rosemary and with its own timer and tons of light.
Oh , and by the way, My only Wf consists of five pots of just basil. currently all of the leaves have the brown tips exactly like yours but it only started showing up when I began to add liquid plant food to tap water for refilling the reservoir instead of just straight distilled water. …
The Rosemary looks too wet, I treat that plant as a succulent when cloning. I have better success that way. I’ve grown it in rock growbeds and sand. I found that it doesn’t like its’ feet wet.