This system was built in less than a day and additionally:

• Combines aquarium aeration with the air pump.
• Pushes water up 202cm (6.6 feet) with a 1.5 litre/hour pump (I don’t think pump size matters at all here, this one cost R60, or about $8).
• Moves roughly 100-120ml in 6 hours (I think that’s how much I slept last night).
• (Accidental) varying dripping time.
• You can probably run many ‘percolators’ off one pump by splitting the air feed, or using a very long aeration stone.
• The system runs very quiet (The air pump makes more noise than the gurgling).
• The top 500ml bottle can be converted to a baffle or silencer quite easily.
• It may possibly even be converted to a non aquaponic pump?
• No pump-strain, T-junctions, valves or needles (or things that look like them, I’m a wuss, ok?)

I recorded a brief video to document my experiment with an airlift system.

If the video doesn’t show up (the preview certainly isn’t showing it), then you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4xkUsAlM_0

Okay, as requested by Britta, here’s the introduction to a piece of equipment that may provide a cheap solution to a problem that those of us who chose to use a setup featuring a comparatively powerful aquarium pump have:

How to reduce the interval to a minimum when it’s not about a steady drip, but quick flushes.

The Lucky Reptile Easy Timer doesn’t need specified switch-on times to be set – it’s enough to program an interval and the duration of the power-on time.  The shortest interval is 15mins, the shortest power-on times are a mere 15/30s.

As I haven’t got an aquaponics setup, that should be enough time for the pump to push the entire content of my reservoir through the system once.

Lucky Reptile is, as you will have guessed, a German company, but the timer is apparently also readily available in the UK. I was unable to find comparable entry-level products, quite surprising, given the number of foggers operated by lizard and orchid lovers around the world.

Mabye someone else knows of one, and can add it here!