Finally sufficiently done with our aquaponic windowfarm to post a youtube tour of our set-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zq7T6QNrc4

It’s taken a bit of investment to get to this point, but I think I could pull one of these together for $40 (a bit more because of the fish aspect), and last weekend we gave one of these as a birthday gift to one of my pre-teen’s friends.

I’ve got two kids with good windows for this, so will post another video when I get the second windowfarm up and running.

Innovations:

1. Used an alternative method to perform the airlift, based on a post I saw here – my lift uses the ball inflation needles to inject water into the air hose instead of the other way around.
2. I use the “silencer” at the top of the drip line to support the weight of the assembly. It serves a decorative purpose (finial) and makes it crazy easy to support the whole assembly from a single near-vertical nail in the window casing. I don’t need to use any other supports given the exact 1″ hole I was able to drill into the bottom of each bottle.
3. I used double-sided velcro strips to fasten the tubing going up.
4. I used a 1/4″ OD tubing (short length, angle cut on exit) to control the drip. Don’t actually know if that’s a great idea, but I didn’t want the water splashing the windows and some plants supposedly don’t like getting watered “directly.”
5. I just use 1/4″ OD tubing from the lowest bottle to guide the return water back to the fish tank.
6. I use one of the variable control air splitters to ensure both the air lift and the air stone get enough air pressure.
7. I used a hole punch to round the corners of each “grow hole,” of which I cut 2 in each bottle. The “square” holes allowed me to get a jig into the bottles for a nice drilling support, so getting the 1″ holes drilled in the bottom of the bottles was a breeze.

We’ll see in a few weeks whether some of these “innovations” were really dumb ideas…