Oh How much better sumps are than trying to get a air powered system

The  best thing is you  dont have to wait  for glue to  dry air tight.

here it is in all its um glory

a  pump runs water up a 1/2 line  hits a t and fills the top  2 pods right now they drain into 4 side pods but when I run out of room  I’ll add 4 more in the  corners   simple sweet  I haven’t given upon the air powered ones but now that I have a few that work I  can take my time on them and get em right

Simple is better

well I decided that I still wanted to try my first Idea again. it holds around 20 plants , it pumps for 15 minutes and then drains for 30.

Hers the start up 2 tubs one shallow and just fist inside the other.

A small pump(40gph) and some1/2 inch tubing a few twist ties not shown is the aquarium rocks.

I hooked up the tubing to the pump used a twist tie to crimp the other end closed then made small holes every 3 inches on alternating sides.

I looped it back into a figure 8 put in the plants in and added rocks to fill in the spaces and….

right now its filled with 5 gal of boiled water(to kill the chlorine) but the peat moss is still feeding the plants well back to the air powered system

a few more drips to work out

so yeah I pulled a line out of each system again yesterday I just have to give it more time to dry I think so I’m not going to touch the things again till this weekend(and if they are not behaving by then I’m moving to pvc) they both work just have a few drips that I wont have in my final systems

ver 0.2 works

Yup folks ver 0.2 is running great I just need to retouch a few seals(the glue works great but you can still accidentally pull out a line) before I go to work in the morning I’ll also finish the gluing for f0r 0.3. you see since I spent most of the day waiting for glue to dry on my six small pod Ebb and Flow system that I decided to get a jump on 0.3 its a 5 pod Ebb and Flow/ Gravity drip system.

Heres the starting materials. well most of them.

The first thing I did was to use small peices of duct tape to hold the pods so I can see how long I need to cut the first bit of wire.

Now here I’ve cut my wire from a coat hanger and threaded it through the holes I made in the ends.

I’ve cut another piece of plastic to make the base plate for the grow pod section. Here is the first hole with a smaller bottle testing the fit.

Here you can see I’ve looped the top wire around and tied the ends, snapped on the base and run spokes from top to bottom. Hope fully this will hold the weight with out flexing as much as 0.2 does.

KInda looks like 0.2 but with bigger pods right.

Well The five spokes running from top to bottom will also hole the weight of my one gallon bottle there will be 1 E/F line to each pod and 2 fill lines to go to the top 2 ltr reservoir which will have 5 drip lines running into each pod these will feed the roots tiny amounts of nutrients between floodings. I may have to add valves for both the e/f and drip lines to get the timing right.

The lines drying look like the las one but heres my top reservoir with the drip lines on. and drying.

Well thats it for today I’ll get more done on the morrow.

oh ya and I joined a web ring

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Tannim Kyraxx

Digital Librarian

Apartment Farmer

well

I have decided to take the 2 side cars off of ver 0.2 I’ll just seal of the extra tube and work out the timing so I can get on to ver 0.3.

sprouts up or why I want this system up and running this weekend

A ziptie glued to a ruler for measuring sprouts.

Well its been a good day on the farm^_^ ver 0.2 liked the new glue just fine hooked it up and up the water went. I did get a little worried when I saw that the water only got half way up the grow pods but some aquarium rocks displaced the water quite nicely and add some filtration to keep any peat from clogging my jets. I have the side cars(2 ltrs) hung off the frame plate with zipties and their E F/ drain lines glued into the juice bottle and drying. (I’ll give the pvc ver 1.0 to whoever guesses the scifi reference in the previous paragraph)

now as to why I need to get this little monster up and running see i started some seeds some in jiffy peat puffs and some in paper towels. The seed started in in the jiffy green house are labled the crop number(this is 1). a-f and 1 -12 . sprout transplanted from that first puff(I coulden’t kill all but 1 on each block so I just split them up and spaced them out)

2 came up on this one

As you can see these little guys are up and running now we gotta get the buggers into the pots.

now that lil drain hole just wont do so i poked holes around the bottom inch or so.

I used a quarter of a coffee filter to line the bottom.

I added some rocks just a few layers.

then I started to to add in peat moss and more rocks.

now its time to put in the jiffy with c1.a1.1

a few more rocks but mostly peat.

a final layer of rock on top just for the look of the thing and a sharpie to label the pot.

Now repeat and split the basil and leeks up space the sprouts out a bit.

well I’m letting the glue dry and will work out the timing and timer in the morning.

Goodnight all don’t forget to guess at that scifi reference in the comments.

Tannim Kyraxx

Digital Librarian

Apartment Farmer

ver 0.2 day 2

Well it does not work it drips I should have used a different epoxy. My Father suggested silicon so I went to the store what I ended up getting was this stuff.

it claims to be water tight and to permanently seal well we will see I may have maid the same mistake a second time but come on $6 for 3oz aquarium silicon or $4 for 4oz of weld? I will also make sure it has plenty of time to dry. After chipping away all the chunky epoxy and cutting the lines shorter here is what I have.

I glued these first and then the drip lines for the other 2 grow pod.

I glued the inside first gave them a little twist and pulled them back just a tiny bit to try and help settle the glue into the holes. I also set them on the edge of the table so

they could dry for a bit then I came back did the other side and just set them down to dry again. At this time I gave the juice lid a second coat not really thick just a little to make sure its sealed. after all that had a few hours I hooked up the Ebb/flow lines to the pod caps.

this glue really doesn’t show well in the pics sorry. well this is where I went to sleep I want the glue to dry as much as possible before I run test 2

Thanks for reading

next post: Sprouts, 0.2 test 2 transplanting, and spacing. in a few hours.

Tannim Kyraxx

Digital Librarian

Apartment Farmer

yesterdays build

Ok well heres how yesterdays build went.

I also ended up using 2 wire coat hangers.

Basically just normal stuff plus the epoxy, 3-way Ts, line valves and the lid from one of the the tubs, I got for my large Ebb/Flow system. (coming about 5 weeks from now)

I started by seeing how much of the tub lid I was going to need to make the Grow pods support plate.

When I cut it out I used my knife. I found that scoring a few shallow cuts then flexing the plastic made it a cut much more easily.

Next I used a bit of soda bottle to mark the holes in the frame plate. I made sure to size the holes to fit the middle of the 24 oz bottles that are going to be my grow pods, I cut the ends off past the little lip so it will res on that one its in the frame plate. againI cut small and worked it a little at a time till I got the size right.

All right pods in I just pushed them through the hole it crushed in the tapered bit by the caps but it won’t matter.

Now to the Ebb/Flow lines and the drip tubes for the other 2 bigger grow pods.

Ok the epoxy. I made a few mistakes here I got the fast acting one for plastics, not the water proof one as it was $2 cheaper. I mixed way to much the first time by the time I did 2 lines it was hardening, mixing just enough for 1 at a time worked ok but take a look you can tell this is not going to work.

Well afeter a few hours to let the epoxy set and its time for ver 0.2’s first test…

… Results:Epic failure it make bubbles and drips a bit.

Thats up to last night tonights once I’m done or in the morning.

Tannim Kyraxx Digital Librarian Apartment Farmer

The Start of the journey.

I have started a new project. I am learning about hydroponics plant life and in general new ways to make sure I can feed myself and my loved ones regardless of whether or not the trucks and trains are moving.

On 1/11/08 I started seed some in jiffy peat pellets some in paper towels kept moist to start them sprouting. I have started:

chives

plain parsley

basil

rosemary

sage

tomato ( early bird hybrid)

leeks

I’ll add more later once I get some of the kinks worked out. For now as of 1/16/08 my basil and leeks in the jiffy peat have sprouted I’m going to hold off on my large ebb and flow system for now and build a small air powered ebb and flow system. Here is ver 0.1

For tools I used:

• A box cutter
• Electric tape

• A bit of coat hanger (I bent one end to make it easier to hold)

For build supply’s I have:

• A small soda bottle
• A large apple juce bottle
• A water bottle (not shown in pic because I found it after I started)
• 25′of standard air line(about$3 at mega-box store)
• A air pump (about$10 at mega-box store) it came with 2 check valves

To Start I used the knife to drill 2 holes in the soda cap

You could also use a drill it would take 2 seconds instead of 20 but I’m using what I have. The best way I found to start and drill the holes is to put the cap on a covered table (I just used my Idea/hard copy log book) hole the knife firmly point straight down on one side of the cap and twist the cap. You are not tying to stab straight through the cap just keep enough pressure to keep the curls of plastic comin. Use a new (at least newish) blade, the sharper the blade the less likely it is to slip and cut you. Pick up the cap and clean up the other side, just leave it a little small not much but the tighter you do this the less likely its going to leak

For the first test I just need 2 lines one for the air in and one for the water outlet. I put the cap on a bottle

Heres it all set just plug it in and it works great the box says it will pump 6 airstones in ver 0.1 I only have 3 pods each filled with 2 lines one high one low so it both fills the pod and drips right to the roots one the pump stops the water drains back down to the resevoir in this case a apple juice container heres the lid

here

Now for the pods. I used a pen so that it would show up better in the pics but the first line is just bairly in the hole the second goes up to the roots

its gettin hard to hold I’m not planning on useing this version for more than morking out the prototype so I just need a way to hang up the pods, I decide to ziptie them to a coat hanger so i can hang it up

now its rigged time to hang it up fill the resevoir plug it in and pray

well its reither pretty or efficient or even water tight yet but ver 0.1 is in the bag. For ver 0.2 I’ll be using a six pack of soda bottles I’ll have one ebb/flow line for each and I’ll use the plastic ring they come with and some string or wire to add stability. I’ll also have in each cap a second drain line with a shut off valve. I’ll use a 2 part epoxy to seal the lines.

Well thanks for reading I’ll have ver 0.2 in the next post please feel free to leave comments, criticisms, or questions.