Instead of using 1.5 litre watter bottles, i used what we already had alot of, 2 litre coke bottles, which did have a bid of a indent at about the right place.  I purchased a small air pump and some red duct tape, red because im growing strawberries so why not   I will post some pictures of my completed planters and reservoir this weekend.  I had no drill so had to use a large pair of sciccors.  I made a small puncture and then cranked the closed sciccors round and round till the hole was just large enough for the bottle threads to go through.  I was then able to reattach the caps whch held them together without the need of any additional rope or chain.  With all bottles assembled and the hook hung, its time to work on the plumbing.  i need to pick up some more tubing first unfortunately :S  So I will get some this weekend and also get some puictures posted

I have got my bottle columns up and running now.

And am doing some tests for waterproofing, timing and P.H readings.

I have added my nutrients, clay balls, the whole shooting match is ready for the plants now.

HOWEVER.

The P.H seems to keep rising into the 7′s. Not ideal. I was wondering if this may account for the high tide marks I am getting in my bottom reservoir.

It’s a sort of brownish stain.

Could it be;

A: Clay balls not washed off prperly before using?

B: The nutrients. A Rather dark liquid called “Boi-juice”. Or.

C: The very high P.H precipitating the iron out of the water and leaving a film on the reservoir?

D: Or is it plain old algea? I thought that would be green and nasty. This is brown and kind of like a dirty water mark.

I just wanted to get the whole water flow, P.H, plumbing and timing right before putting plants in

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

And I wil try to answer any questions of yours.

Thanks in advance.

Ciaran

this was my first try, previous summer outside in my garden, when the frost period is over ill try and make a similar and bigger system in mu living room window.
the ropes on one side in a water reservoir(also a bottle) and  go op into a hole of the plant bottles,
it works pretty good, don’t need to give more water than once every 2 weeks or so, i tried “upside down”  tomato’s here.

I heard about window farm from one of the TEDx video and felt it’s a nice idea to do. I live in an apartment (Hartford, CT, USA) and I’m interested to get started on this. A short intro, I have no knowledge on farming except having interest to grow something for myself.

Is this enough to get started? Will it be profitable to get it started for growing strawberries or beans…etc? Suggestions and advise please, of course I will be buying the kit from windowfarm due to lack of time to setup the whole thing.

Thanks in advance for getting this group together.

Thanks to everyone’s advice, experiments, and idea-sharing, I have completed my first system (version 2.0 airlift)! But I have a few questions:

1. When I watch YouTube videos of other folk’s systems, the water seems to be really flowing. I get a drip every few seconds, but the airlift tube is definitely mostly air, pushing up the occasional bead of water. The tubes in the videos seem to be mostly water, with the occasional bubble of air. I have incorporated the suggestions from other similar troubleshooting posts and comments, but I still feel like I have a suction problem. Below is a photo including design notes. I would really appreciate any thoughts (or directions to earlier posts which address this).

2. My pump is very quiet but the tube gurgling sound is obnoxiously loud. I inserted the top tube into a small bottle with holes per the “silencer” instructions, but this only seemed to magnify the echo noise. Has this happened to anyone? Is there an alternative to the silencer bottle?

Thank you all for your help and support! Sincerely,

Mark

Bloomington, Indiana

I have a question, do any of you know where to get the net pots? I’ve tried the boeren bond, gamma, praxis and even the growsjop and a specialist in hydrophonics nearby (according to the hydrophonics specialist the net pots are outdated) so if any of you know a place to get net pots I’d be realy glad to hear!

Bram

(Ps, I know a place that sels them online but the shipping cost is like 20 euro’s)

But the things that were easy were putting duck tape on the bottles so that the sunlight would not get through. And putting the pump in. And now we are putting it together, and and putting the tubes in the correct places. It is about finished and ready for the seed’s and to be put in the window!

- Olivia and Sammi

I did cut off some of the dead/wilted leaves from the pea stalk, but while it’s not “leaning” as bad as it was, it’s not sticking back up yet and it’s been a week (Maybe i’m rushing things?)

Since they initially sprouted out of the growing material, I’ve been adding recommended amounts of Pure Blend Pro Grow (3-2-4) in the reservoir water (Mixing 3 – 5mL in a 2L bottle before adding to/topping up the reservoir). I don’t yet have a way to measure the PH in the water, but plan to pick up a test kit during the week. (Would an Aquarium PH test kit work well?)

Any recommendations anybody has to save my plants would be helpful!