Okay! So I saw a link to a windowfarms video two days ago, and now I have a working windowfarm in my kitchen! It was really inspiring to make it
Here are som pics Feel free to Leave a comment! Currently I’m only having a tiny problem getting the same ammount of water to all the plants.

Might have to do with the nozzle piece maybe not letting enough water trough…

So Anyways! Pictures follow!

Video comming soon.

First, some background. This is my first window farm. I have no prior experience in hydroponics, but have grown many aquatic plants. I started making a DIY window farm following the directions of a single-column, 5-bottle hanging V3 window farm. I found that the bicycle needle airlift method just was not as reliable as I had hoped. It would sometimes work, and other times, I would find it not working at all. I researched the site and found that others had set up a t-valve airlift, and it seemed like the way to go. The other guides did not seem to include all the information I needed to get it set up for myself, so I decided to try it anyway. Below, I’ll tell you what I used. I will also say that if this method seems ridiculously simple and it looks like it’s so short that I might be missing something, it’s because it is ridiculously simple and I’m not missing anything… I think.

Parts needed (in addition to the other parts used for the V3 hanging window farm):

Standard aquarium airline. I went with black silicone, because it looks nice and will stop algae from growing in the airline. I bought 25 feet, because it was cheap and I will probably use more when I add columns later.

T-valve. I purchased a metal t-valve from PetSmart. They have plastic ones for even cheaper.

Silicone glue. You want to make sure you get silicone glue that is 100% silicone. I got mine at a hardware store, but they also often carry this at pet stores/fish stores (for aquarium repair). The 100% silicone will ensure that there are no additives that could leak into your water and plants.

Steps taken to add the t-valve airlift to my V3 hanging window farm:

1. To make the sport cap airline connector, first insert 1″ of airline into the sport cap of the water reservoir.
2. Inside the sport cap, use the silicone glue to glue the airline in place. Make sure to form a complete seal. It must cure for at least 3 hours before you can get it wet. I recommend you let it cure for 24 hours before doing anything else with it.
3. Measure/cut 1.5 feet of airline from the cap, and connect this to one of the two straight ends of the t-valve.
4. Connect your airline from your air pump to the perpendicular end of the t-valve.
5. Using your remaining airline, connect one end to the remaining straight end of the t-valve.
6. Run this airline to the top of your window farm and into the top bottle. Secure using zip ties or what ever you prefer.
7. ???
8. PROFIT

Look at my awesome diagrams:

I built my first windowfarm a few weeks ago, using the 3 bottle guide and ran into some problems with my air lift and the stability of my ‘tower’.

I did a lot of troubleshooting and finally got it working reliably, and today I decided that the 5-gallon bucket I was using as a reservoir and the garden stake that I was using for support, was ugly.

I redesigned my system, this time using the guide for the 4 or 5 column setup (called the MAMA, I believe), and I have to say I am very pleased. Not only does it look a far sight better than the old eyesore, it worked right off the bat without any tweaking or “debugging” necessary.

Here’s a picture:

Full view of my garden

Changes since v2:

- The setup is now suspended by thick string. I used string with an alpine butterfly loop/knot at every bottle height. I tied the bottles to these loops and suspended it from hooks in the ceiling. It appears to be sturdy, but I am worried about the weight when my plants bulk up. We’ll see!

-The reservoir is now a beautiful, sleek bottle with an incredibly simple airlift (I wish I had tried this method the first time.) I didn’t have any leaks or problems, like I thought I might. I also realized that the paint looks MUCH nicer than the duct tape. I will definitely go this route with the inevitable second column.

In designing my setup this way, I also freed up my second output from my air pump and my second air needle, and I have enough tubing left from round one that I could add a second column if I get more bottles, which makes me excited.

Unfortunately, the lettuce in the top bottle died. I believe that this is from the part of the roof that extends outside my apartment. I think it was blocking the light to the top part of my window. To remedy this, I planted a new little seed and added two daylight-spectrum CFLs in a floor lamp next to my garden in the hopes that it will get light to that top bottle, and also help out in these darker winter months.

The cucumber plant is the most eager, and has grown the biggest thus far, but the tomato plant is a close second:

Cucumber

Tomato

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll post again soon about the growth of my babies and the construction of a second column.

‘Til then.

I’ve completed the construction of my Windowfarm, so in the grand tradition of the Windowfarms community I’d thought I’d share some photos and my tweaked design

Materials

1 x 2 liter soda bottle
5 x 1.5 liter bottles
5 x 8” wooden dowels
1 x 4” metal pipe holder
1 x 11 ft large tubing
1 x 3 gallon bucket
11 ft PCV pipe
1 x 10 lb bag of cement
A bunch of zip ties
5 x 3” grow cups
4 x 4” aquarium tubing
1 x aquarium pump
1 x T connector
1 x silicon glue from Home Depot
1 x bicycle inner tube presta valve
Some other stuff I missed

Posts read (where ideas were taken from)

Reservoir and t-lift system (no needles): http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/04/16/the-science-of-airlift-plug-flow-is-the-way-to-go/

Lighting: http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/04/15/super-simple-light-system/

PCV Pipe Setup: I can’t find the link but I do remember I watched a video and a bunch of Swedish/Dutch/Norwegian/German guys showing off their setup in their greenhouse. There are the ones that gave me the idea of inserting wooden dowels through the bottles to support them on the PVC pipe.

Lessons Learned

1. When cutting bottle holes (which dowel is put through to mount to PVC pipe) make sure that you don’t place them in such a way where you block the bottle cap of the bottle above it. If you do the water (without the aquarium tubing) will run onto the wooden dowel, into the hole in the PVC pipe and down into your bucket and/or floor
2. Don’t skimp on the hole saw drill bit which puts the holes in the bottom of the 1.5 liter plastic containers. You’ll slice your hand off (or come close) with a razor.
3. Let the silicone gel that you apply dry overnight prior to using it.
4. You can use larger tubing to encase the smaller tubing with plumber’s tape and silicone gel to stop leakage.
5. Prior to building be sure and plant your seeds in rockwool, or whatever medium you use so that when you are done with the delivery system you can transplant right away.
6. Be sure and secure you pipe to the celling so that it does not fall over when weight is added (as shown in the picture).
7. When drilling holes in the PVC be sure and drill perpendicular to the pipe (mine are a little off which causes the bottles to be off keel).

Next Steps

Repeat timer

I’m waiting on my timer to show up from Amazon so that I can make a repeat timer
http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/09/13/35min-repeat-timer/comment-page-1/#comment-6486

Grow Lights

I also have to mount the final light to my hanging light system and make sure that they are close enough to each of the plants to have a benefit. I wanted to make my own reflectors (which I did out of soda cans on this site) but they get way too hot for comfort so I’m looking for an alternate approach.

Transplant Plants Grown From Seeds / Cutting From Garden

I have already planted seeds (after soaking them overnight) and they have really grown. I’ve used one of the lights on a different extension cord and it sure does make a difference (they’ve sprouted already) and also harvested some mint from my outdoor garden which I plan on putting in my garden as well.

As you can see from the photos the system worked out pretty well. If you have any suggestions to make this design better please feel free!

Pump

The petco pump that I bought for $20 is quite loud so I think I’m going to get a smaller $10 pump and see if it will pump the water up – quieter.

Entire Setup

Base

Top Secured to Ceiling

Reservoir (setup for easy removal and cleanup - just unwind the grow wire and pull out)

Single Bottle With Dowels

My Grow Setup

 November 17, 2011 Update

Here is an update of my windowfarm 

setup

mint

chives

basil

Basil

 Reservoir using presta valve method with 2 metal, 2 neoprene washers and two nuts (and silicone gel)

It has been awhile and I have been busy outside, but I did something interesting with my strawberries.  One of them put out a runner so I planted it.  I actually had runners last summer, but just cut them off at the time.  The original strawberries are getting old and I will replace one of them in the WF with this baby.  The three on the right have all been in the window farm for a year and a half.  The one on the left is the baby and the other three started off just like it and 1.5 years ago.   As you can see the crowns have really grown tall and have divided a number of times.

After deciding to plant it, my jalepenos and strawberries had to get cozy for a couple of weeks.  The runner was only about 18 inches long so they had to be really close.  I have a jalepeno growing in a three plant WF and the top two positions are empty so I planted it in a net pot in the middle position and waited for the roots to take hold.  I held it in place in the net pot with a paper clip.   So a few weeks later, we cut the cord on the new baby.

http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/07/23/jalapeno-spider-mites/

Baby Strawberry

http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/02/13/strawberries-11-monthes-still-flowering/

Left my plants unattended for a week.  Plants sure bounced back when finally watered on the 7th day.

Its playable in HD 1080p, so be sure to turn up the quality setting!

Windowfarm Timelapse

New Pictures:

I took some more pictures of my farm as it’s evolved. The reservoir, airlift and lighting are the biggest changes. I also included some detailed shots of materials I’ve used.

My reservoir is suspended from the steel wires that hold my bottles and stabilizes the whole thing. It's 2 centimeters above ground.

This shows my happy beans and thriving tomatoes. They really seem to like the led's I installed.

This is my version of the pulser pump. It works best of all the attempts I undertook.

These are the different sizes of tubing used in the pulser pump. The brand is Gardena

The check valve. I found this in an aquarium store

detail of the suspended reservoir

top of the farm, they sure love that bulb

as they grow too close to the bulbs, they burn their leaves even though there's hardly any heat emitted by the led's

Hi all

I have quite some experience with my farm so far which I’d like to share. As you can see from the picture, it grew. I now have 8 containers made from 2l fanta bottles with net pots in them. The reservoir is made from an Ikea container named Rationell. They make it from recyled plastic bottles. It has a lid that closes perfectly and blocks out any light. The airlift tubes are wrapped around a net pot and sunk into the reservoir by a stone i put into the net pot. I have strawberries, peppers, cherry tomatoes and beans growing, the 2 remaining containers will get more tomatoes and another sort of beans. After experimenting with wine bottles and using a mixture of techniques taken from @eloinen and @jamesnutter, I went back to plastic bottles, but keeping the 2mm steel cables for suspending the bottles. In my opinion, it looks beautiful and is incredibly sturdy. With the wine bottles, it all wasn’t holding together very well and I experienced quite some leakage. I had some ph problems with my old setup, but it all seems fine now.

Pump

I have my pump on a day timer. It runs for 15 minutes every 2 hours. It has a break between 1am and 7am. For the end and the start of the cycle, I let the pump run for 30 minutes.

Airlift

I have two individual t-joint airlifts installed. What I noticed is that they take a while before they start performing well when installed for the first time or after changing the water in the reservoir (i.e. they come out of the water). I guess this is due to air in wrong parts of the hoses. In the beginning, I always fiddled around with the installation because I thought something was wrong. However my finding is to just let it run for an hour or so and see if it sorts itself out.

Water exit on top

You may see on the pics that they’re not identical on the 2 columns. Actually this was unintended but proves as a good solution for my pepper. It doesn’t like to much water, and the short end shoots most of the water  on the bottles wall, making it flow down directly to the next bottle while only a few drops now and then actually get into the container.

Water and nutrients

I’m running my farm on some bought nutrients which seem to work fine. I change the water about every week to 10 days, checking the pH every now and then. It’s usually between 7.2 and 7.8. Once, I had it hitting 8, don’t know why and after a water change it never happened again.

Fortunately, we don’t have chlorine in tap water here in Switzerland, so no need to air it out first.

On my to-do list:

• Adding lighting. I ordered a 20W solar kit with a battery, charger, alternating-current converter and a bunch of red-and-blue LED growing bulbs which should arrive any day now. I want my garden to be independent from the power grid. It is quite an investment and I will have to grow a lot of veggies for a return on investment. But for me, it makes no sense having to buy a lot of electricity to grow plants.
• Starting a worm-tea manufacturing process.

Edit: I put a lot of info in the pic’s descriptions, but don’t know why it’s not displaying. Anyone know what went wrong?

Hello everyone,

I just finished my windowfarm system last night. I started with the 2.0 instructions, but made quite a few adjustments along the way. One thing I really want to showcase is the airlift system. Seeing how many people are frustrated trying to build submerged airlift systems, I really recommend using an external system instead. I skipped using inflation needles, and went straight for the t-joint. But I figured there had to be a better, more reliable way than submerging a t-joint.

I got a 3-gallon water dispenser from Walmart, the kind that has the pouring spout. I took regular 1/4″ tubing, and wrapped a ton of plumber’s tape around it, and stuck it in the spout. (the spout screws apart, so you can actually pull the tube through) The water drains through the tube very well, it gets full water pressure since the spout is at the bottom, and you can even use the lever to stop water flow. I put a check valve on the water tube, so no air could bubble up into the tank, and I connected the tube to the perpendicular part of the t-joint. Then air comes in from one side, and the air/water mixture goes out the other. It’s helpful to keep the water tube perpendicular to the ground, and the air and air/water tubes parallel to the ground.

The system is incredibly reliable, and adjusting things and taking things apart is really easy, because it’s all out in the air and easily accessible. No wet hands!

Here’s a video of my entire setup, you can see the airlift system:

Lincoln’s Windowfarm on YouTube

(I’ll add pictures later)

———————————————-

A few quick questions, since I’m new at this:

• What kind of water should I use? Is tap water alright, or should I use distilled water?
• What kind of nutrient solution would be best for green veggies? (lettuce, swiss chard, peas)
• Would aeration of the nutrient water help? (via airstone)
• I’ve been reading a lot about the benefits of kelp, and I was wondering if that could be used as a nutrient solution alone, or if it was just supplementary.

So I tried to put together a basic setup using materials available in Beijing, China.

1.5 liter NongFu Brand spring water bottles, some velcro lashing, Hailea brand air-pump (http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=8547141687), and some simple aquarium tubing.

Anyone else building in Beijing?

Help.

At first I was building it my own way, which had its own gigantic problems. But then I switched to something that looks basically identical to how the kits and kit instructions work. (The current ones with the long instructions — V 3 modular if I’m not confused.) It managed to get a tiny bit of water going up the system, but mostly it’s just bubbling at the bottom. I checked and there’s no leak that I can find. The water is just coming out the air needle, going down the tube somehow, and bubbling out the little gap at the bottom where the air’s meant to go in. I made sure the whole thing was as straight up and down as I could get it. I originally had a straw around the tube holding it straight (with its own angled bottom to let water in), but the bubbles were pushing water up that instead, which was just insulting.

The “add media” option isn’t cooperating with my computer, so I just stuck these on imageshack. Hopefully that’s not a problem for anyone.

You are looking at:
-1 basketball inflation needle
-2 segments of standard aquarium tube — I have no idea where you get the rigid stuff
-1 joiner/adapter thingy that goes between mini and normal aquarium tubes
-1 useless blob of silicone caulk

Ideas what I’m doing wrong?