Sorry that my post wasn’t clear, and I agree that the pump shouldn’t be placed below the water line. What I meant was that the T-Valve should be below the water line, not the pump. Thanks for offering clarification Ingo.

Thanks HardwareJunkie, sounds like I’m doing everything right. When I take my young sprouts of of the dirt I dip them in a bowl of water to remove the dirt. Works well.

I’ve had similar luck with this design. Works fantastic and flows very very well!! My post with picture is here: http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/12/18/my-airlift-system/

Thank for responding so fast, I apologize I didn’t do the same. I’ve since given up on the beans and moved on to tomatoes. I’ve updated the original post with pictures as well as some videos of the water rate of flow. I wonder if it’s something about my nutrient mixture? I really want [...]

Oh yeah, and thanks for this initial post. Really kicked me over the edge in getting things working. I was pretty close to abandoning the needle valve method! Improvements to your design: check valve from reservoir to T-valve (to assure bubbles ONLY go up), check valve from air pump to T-valve (to make sure the [...]

As frustrating as the airlift system has been, I’m having a blast. I’ll post the drip/second question top level.

Thanks for the encouragement Kevin! I think this sort of “drips per minute” recommendation should be added to the instructions to help people understand when they have succeeded. I was trying too hard! Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDdaB93p3n0 As for the timer, why do we need to turn it off at all? Why not just let it [...]

Thanks for replying so quickly Kevin. I do…well…sort of. I have a control valve on the output of my pump. It works great for adjusting the flow and it actually has two outputs (I use the second output to pump into an airstone in a second gallon of water to release the chlorine in our [...]

No matter what I do it appears that the air wants to bubble back into the water reservoir. I’ve tried everything, different size hoses, nothing seems to keep it from flowing the wrong way. I put a check valve between the reservoir and the T-joint and that helps, but now the water just flows too [...]

I’m at about 4″ from the bottom, I’ll try moving mine up too. Really, what seems to be the larger issue isn’t getting columns of water to go up, but to get them past the first 28.5″ section. Where the two section connect the column seems to break up. Anyone know why this break exists [...]

Tried the caulk, but it apparently just isn’t sealing well enough and is leaking. I need to try something else. Checking out method’s B and C now.

No dials on top of at the outlet. The only thing on the outlet is the nut that holds the outlet port in place, it is metal and not black plastic as the picture shows. It doesn’t turn. The description does indeed say adjustable, it simply is not. I’ll bring it over to Petco today [...]

Please have a look at the Parts List (http://our.windowfarms.org/instructions_dev/parts_list.pdf). Item 26 states that washers are for “Method A”. Perhaps a typo? I recently purchased a Petco.com pump model number #9902 off the website. Unfortunately the check valve does NOT fit snugly into the sport cap, this thing is going to leak. FWIW, I’m using [...]