Hi, Lynn, I don’t think the surface area matters much. but it is probably much harder to spiral 25 cm of tubing in a 1.5 litre bottle to get it sitting almost horizontally. (If possible the constriction end should be slightly lower than the air input end) and again, this is a lot easier to [...]

Hi, Daniel, I suggest you try it a while in a bucket like what I did. Get rid of the check valve. Faith, hope the constriction and desperation should keep the air flowing the way you want it to go. I used some airline tubing as a constriction and I went to the store and [...]

Hi, Daniel, I think most of my tubing is 6 mm and some is 4 or 5 mm. I never use check valves anywhere. Have you tried slowing the air right down? I find that all you need for one airlift is about 15 to 20 litres per hour. I have often had problems with [...]

Thanks Daniel. I pretty much agree. The key ingredient in this one is the “constriction” at the end of the long “tail”. I have pumped 1.5 meters high with 10 cm submergence and really that is just amazing! It even worked with about 7.5 cm submergence to that height. I’m thankful that I had a [...]

Hello Keiko. One thing you need is an adjustable tap on your air pipe. http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8124/8660038327_5d8305d1d7_c.jpg shows the things I use now for my pallet gardens. It is easier than the T-joint method. The 25 cm piece does not need to be straight but it does need to be flat on the bottom of your reservoir. [...]

Yes, Noomil, I found that too. Lately, I have attached the tube to stiff wire with elastic bands and bent the wire so that the tube stays where it should be! Before that the darn thing would occasionally blow back and with murky water you could not see what the problem was. If the tube [...]

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8366/8458303695_d31c5b4077_c.jpg is a way of doing the airlift that gave me really good results.

Hi Steve, there are many reasons. If you want to try a bucket on the floor airlift method, I have one at https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/–X7M3UzqLJk/USZcthh6n4I/AAAAAAAAAXE/EWxbJFIoGaI/s800/airlift+in+bucket1.jpg I have tested it to about 7 ft high. Works well. Britta Riley who started this with Rebecca Bray spent a fortune on water pumps early on in the project and they [...]

Can you do a video? 11 inches is plenty to go to 6 ft high as long as you can keep your air supply slow enough. I have never used check valve in my life. Have you tried removing the check valve? Also, your issue could be that your tubing is new. New tubing behaves [...]

Pictures? I think your T-joint should always be at very least 8 inches below the standing water level in the reservoir. Then it is impossible to deprime it.

Tanita, I am going to be a real pain and ask you to try get the kids to adapt the flip flop too! All you have to do to get that to work to water a window farm is instead of a V shape, find something with a wide U shape. Hot glue the ends, [...]

Yes, Tanita, please test that one! Also the current number 15 is probably worth looking at. Especially note that new tubing has some sort of shine or sheen or perhaps a coating from the manufacturing process on it and it stays for 3 or 4 days and does not give representative results until after it [...]

Hi Tanita, I have a bunch of videos about using one valve to run several airlift, I don’t windowfarm but I currently have 3 continuously running airlifts from one valve. This comes off a 60 litre per hour bubble pump that is rated at 3.5 watts http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17DC16567E0712FA Video’s 11 to 15 are about this latest [...]

I think people are right about the back pressure thing. Perhaps the best solution is a tub or pipe or aquarium to vent your excess air. Just read the capabilities of your pump. If it is one psi, that max it can do is just over 2 ft deep in water, 2.3 ft to be [...]