How to: cleaning tubes?

Helene — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:27:20 +0000

I started window farming last Christmas and things look really promising so far (meaning, I haven’t killed anything yet). Just wondering, how do you clean the insides of the tubes you’re using to deliver the nutrients? For some reason, mine has the tendency to build up “gunk” (for lack of a better term) and I find it annoying. The water system still pumps water just fine, but I’m afraid that it will eventually get so dirty that it would just clog the passage way.

What cleaning methods and products are you using? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Loud airlift, excessive gurgling?

bennett4senate — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:12:36 +0000

I was lucky enough to inherit one of the windowfarm systems that was used in the Whitney museum installation. It is essentially a suspended, 4-plant version of the basic 3-plant system, with the bottom container used as the reservoir.

I got it up and running today, with two plants (so far). The pump is doing fine getting the water through the system, but the airlift seems to be gurgling quite loudly, with corresponding bubbles escaping from the tube into the bottom of the reservoir.

Any troubleshooting advice for making the system a little quieter by reducing the gurgling sounds? Or if this is the level of noise that I should expect, has anyone come up with timer solutions that would allow me to reduce or turn off the pumps (especially when I’m trying to go to sleep)? I saw the Arduino-controlled timer, but don’t have Arduino skills myself…

Thanks!

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How to: cleaning tubes?

Loud airlift, excessive gurgling?