I have been working with the air lift version in a workshop for the community at a local library – Byers – here in Denver. We made a few alterations to the original design & so far it’s working just fine. Instead of using an air pump and the air needles (I tried this way too but had a hard time getting enough power to get the water to the top) we used submersible pumps. The challenge here was having to get a powerful enough pump to raise the water 3-5’ that isn’t too powerful. We used the Active Aqua 160 gallons/hour. This pumps far more water than you need but to slow the flow down a bit we clamped the hose (not too much to make the motor mad).The people who attended the workshop were thrilled about this design and vision & the whole workshop was a blast. We built community while building window farms! So far I’ve had more success with building the window farm than I’ve had on figuring out how to post in the right section on the blog. (no, I’ve never blogged before).
I would like to post some pictures of the workshop but I’m still looking into how to do that.