by Nathan
Air Lift Help
1:52 am in Uncategorized by Nathan
For the life of my I cannot get the air lift to work using a tank to push water up. I was able to to the T connecter from the bottom of a bottle setup working, but I don’t want a bottom/gravity fed system. I’d like to have a tank on the floor that I know will not leak.
I have the 9904 Petco Pump and I used the instructions on the DIY pdf(bought the exact tubing specified). After tinkering with it I was able to get it to sputter just enough to fill up 1/4 of a red plastic cup in a hour.
I also used a 1.5 liter bottle, a 1 gallon water bottle, a 2 gallon bucket and a six gallon storage tube for the reservoir.
I tried pairing the ports up on the pump, also used them all individually at the same time etc… no luck.
Any suggestions?
Any pics we could look at?
nope… I tore the thing apart to rebuild tonight. I bought an 18 gallon bin today from walmart so I am going to see if it helps having a deeper tank of water
I had some problems getting the airlift to work too, but now it’s working. Here are my findings:
- it helps if the diameter of the upgoing tube is slightly bigger than the waterfeeding tube. Probably has something to do with the way of least resistance or something else.
- if the airflow from the airpump is too big, it will result in very small waterbubbles. Like the ratio air to water is out of balance. What helps is to sqeeze the airflow from the pump until you get the right ratio.
You say the tank is on the ground. You need at least some downward pressure from the tank to the T-splitter. I have some 30 cm of tube going down from my waterbottle before it connects to the T-splitter. Having no waterpressure will result in failure of the airlift, at least that is what I found.
Good luck with tweaking, don’t give up, it’s all good fun!
Well,
I managed to get a decent drip going. The best I’ve gotten so far using an on the ground top fed reservoir and not a bottom gravity fed hanging bottle.
Here’s the setup that works.
18 gallon plastic storage bin from Walmart.
6 feet of 1/2 pvc pipe
3/8th Kel-Tec hose
1/4th air hose
9904 Petco 4 way air pump
A 1/4″ tbar connector
I had to fill the storage bin up all the way until the water level was about 4-5 inches from the top.
I then connected all the pvc pipe and ran the 3/8th Kel-Tec hose all the way thru so just an inch was hanging out the bottom then several inches hanging out the top that i bent down so it would drip. I then connected the air line to the perpendicular side inlet of the t-bar connector, another 1 1/2″ piece of 1/4″ tube to the bottom of the tbar(cut to a 45 degree angle so it will suck in water better) and then another short piece of 1/4″ tube to the top of the t-bar so I could shove that side up into the Ker-Tec hose hanging out the bottom of my pvc pipe. I then pulled the Ker-Tec from the top until the T-bar hit the bottom of the pvc pipe. This kept the inlet pointing straight down to the bottom of the tank. I connected one of the outlets of the air pump to the line and it worked. I had to adjust the pump to about half power.
Now that this works I plan on cutting holes in the lid to feed the four air lines down into(one single hole) and then building and attaching 4 inlets(pvc pipes that extend down the the bottom of the tank) to the lid with connectors on the top so I can screw the top side pvc pipes into that have the Ker-Tec lines in them and the plant holders attached. Cut some holes and rig up something similar for the return line from the planters and then the air pump can sit on top of the lid. I’ll have to reinforce the structure somehow so the pipes don’t push down into the tank.
So far the only down side I can think of so far is the weight of the unit. Maybe I can rig it to caster wheels or something. I’ll try to take some pics as I go.
I don’t know if this makes any sense, but when setting up my airlift systems I always had trouble when using brand-new tubing.
It seemed that the inside of the tubes were too clean, and it caused the water to bead up and drip right back down and dance around, never making it up to the top.
I left them alone dancing around overnight, and the next morning it was working perfectly and every day since, even after turning it off/on, etc.
My theory is that letting new tubes get a little dirtied might help the water to “stick” to the sides of the tubing, creating a better flow.
@Ken, you are right about the tubes, they get better after a day or so.
@Nathan, you can also create a dompler system in which you submerge a T junction connected to 2 inch of tube and a 1-way valve for the water intake. it works perfect over here
I think you are right, Ken, I suspect that new tubes have a tiny amount of grease inside. The grease repels water. After a bit of dirt gets on the side, it doesn’t repel water any more and the behaviour of the water in the tube becomes normal.