We have now gotten this to work with a simple bottle instead of the bucket. The trick was to use a small enough T-joint that can go into the bottle, a long enough water intake tube so that air doesn’t go out that way, and then coil it together using simple metal nuts and push [...]

Have a look at the alternative T-airlift I just posted. It only requires tubing and a T-joint. Since posting we have gotten it to work with an uncut bottle. The main trick is to have long enough of a water intake tube so that the air doesn’t escape that way, and sticking it to the [...]

Oh ok, sure, we’ll add some duct tape or something then, and see how that turns out.

@Trygve, thanks for the comments. Good points! First off, with the light, I have no idea, we will have to wait and see. The thing here in Malaysia is that we have plenty of sun, year round, and it’s comes into the window from the top. Whether this is enough, I don’t know yet. For [...]