Reservoir design for window sill & centered airlift tube
5:06 am in questions, Seeking Advice by Andrew Kisielius
Hey window farmers,
I’m planning an air-lift 2 x 3 bottle drip setup for a small-ish window. I’ll post a full schematic when I’ve got it all worked out (and pictures, of course), but at the moment I’m stuck on the reservoir. I’m trying to fit something on the sill, which is not very deep – has anyone had success with a rectangular reservoir? What did you use? I thought about a planter, but I’d need to find one without built-in drain holes. My other thought was a big PVC U, but I don’t see how to make that look good yet.
My plan is to run an air-lift tube up through the center of each planter, and then have the water drip back down the outside of the tube, which is the inside of the planters, and then back down directly into the reservoir. This keeps the airlift height to a minimum, and avoids hanging tubing. The central tube ought to guide the flow enough to prevent splashing, but still allow runoff onto the hydroton pellets. Has anyone done a centered airlift tube before? Am I missing obvious pitfalls?
Thanks!
Kisil
You could look into Vinyl fence post with square end caps. Use Aquarium sealant for the glue.
Cut vinyl rain gutter to size. The end caps that are made for those have a snap seal fit. The top cover can be made from a cut to fit piece of rain gutter leaf guard. Drill hole in one end of res and fit it with ball valve for drainage and flushing.
I am using a one loaf sized bread box. It’s a tupperware type device I found at Wal Mart. Someone had posted comments about the amount of pressure pushing down with a tall cylindrical res. This works. If you’re unsure what I’m talking about, it’s a plastic rectangle shaped container the exact size of a loaf of bread. Dig? Good luck
I ended up using a 1.5 gallon plastic jug, originally intended for protein powder (heh). It had about the right mix of capacity, height, and opacity I was looking for. It didn’t make the “rectangular” criterion, but I decided putting the whole thing on the window sill would have sacrificed too much real estate.
I’ve been taking videos every week or so, and one of these days I’ll get around to posting them.
I like your center lift idea but on my farm I’ve needed to remove and replant a bottle here or a bottle there as well as redesign different aspects of the whole thing.. If I had hoses going up the center through each bottle it’d be a real pain to take apart any one element without removing those center hoses….
Just a thought….
That is a concern indeed. Great idea though, makes things more streamlined and even quieter !
Have you considered using rigid tubing, which could be pulled out and reinserted much easier ?
If you absolutely want a centered airlift, use rigid tubing, and also cut pieces of a thicker tube and glue them in in the centre of the net pots.
Trying to insert a tube from the top into cups already filled with clay pellets is difficult, and if your lift tube has a bend at the top, it’s impossible to fit it from the bottom.
Doing an ‘in-situ’ replacement of a plant isn’t that much fun, either. (pellets, nutrients and who knows what, all over the floor… )
IN other words, I believe that a centre-feed is completely impractical unless you plan to tear it down and replace all plants at one time.