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

I’ve got a east facing window in the Sunset district of San Francisco and I just started growing Oregano, Freckled Lettuce and Peas! I’m very excited and thankful to this whole community for helping me get up and going. I’ve posted a picture below (pre-planting of lettuce and peas).

I just purchased a timer for my air pump and I’m trying to figure out, well… the timing. Right now I have 3 starter plants, 3L of water to 3.75mL of FloraNova7-4-10 nutrient, a pH right around 7.0 and blues eyes and blonde… oh sorry, wrong forum. I have been watering on a 1 hr on/30min off cycle which, as far as I can tell, has not caused any serious natural disasters. My timer has 20 on/off settings.

So first question, how long can I let these guys dry out for? I’ve heard some people turn their pump off overnight (such as my anti-bubbling couchsurfers yesterday). I know this can vary a lot, but anyone have any advice?

Second, how often do I need to change out my water/nutrient solution? When it evaporates? Every full moon?

Thanks again everyone, what an awesome resource you have created!

Eric

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)

We plan on helping out spreading the WindowFarm idea through Colorado. By hopefully sometime be able to set up some time to traveling to elementary, middle, and high schools and presenting our WindowFarm project we made from scratch. Using tools that anyone can buy from a local store and such. In order to do this we have created a mobile WindowFarm system (as you can see in my profile picture) to help maneuver the WindowFarm around. Here are some other pictures as well of our just 1-3 bottle system we have set up for it.

Here as you can see are some microgreens and some zuchinni growing and yes we are switching out the zuchinni to a smaller plant. We also have the main tubing right in front as well.

Here you see the set up we have with the main air tube, we have the straws for covering the chains we used so they dont rust.

We have a ten gallon tub filled with liquid nutrients. And you can see the setup we have in the water of our siphening system.

Here is I say a rough draft of our mobile WindowFarm. We are looking to simplify it down a little bit but this is just a start for now. The mobile system main use is to use for travleing to school to school without having to carry everything. It can also be used to move from window to window if necessary and I’m sure many other reasons. But I’m hoping for everybody who see’s this to spread the word so we try and kick this mobile system off the ground.

If any questions please email me at fcchavez10@yahoo.com, or message me on my profile.

i have an air pump already but it only has one place the air come out. in the v2 model pics they have 2 tubes comming out of the pump and going into the airlift tube thing. do i need a pump with 2, or would a pump with one work. it may seem like a small question to ask but im working on a minimal budget so the money i cna save on not having to buy a new pump will go on other things

thanks in advance to any help

(my most asome plant so far, but not the consumer of the nutrients in 2 gallons of water)

so right now I don’t know the nutrient concentration in my reservoir since the plant do consume but water also evaporates. so can anyone tell me how to measure the nutrient content?

Thanks,

Bram

Setting up the column(s).  I would prefer not to suspend it from the ceiling.  I think the metal columns look more structured, which is very appealing.  Also, there are a lot of opportunities to grow vining plants, and upon obsessing on how to manage creating this look, the following items have been picked out:

1. Welded Wire Fencing, that can be shaped in a wave pattern; meaning that it would curve to the south on one side and then curve to the north on the other side, making semi-circular curves in which to suspend the bottles on one or both sides.  The way the fencing is, it would be so easy to use plant tape to train or trail the plant, make a  modular system and it would keep the tubing very straight.
2. Acrylic Rods, 1/4 inch,  9″ wide to slide through the bottles and suspend them on the fencing.
3. 1/4 inch rubber gaskets, on the inner and outer side of the fencing to keep the rods from sliding around.

I am trying to work out how to build a system without a pump.  I was wondering if anybody knows if it is ok to have water running over the plats constantly, and if not, how much water they need.

Thanks.