Cycling water, nutrients in pots, garden beds, containers, hydroponics

[Brian in Victoria BC]

TL;DR Summary

I use a system with an airlift pump feeding into a boar scare that tips into a watering pipe with holes in it to water my plants. Water trickles back to a tank to be reused. It efficiently uses water.

I have used this system for 5 or 6 years, and it works pretty well. My plants are kept moist all the time and any extra water drips down into a sump tank and gets pumped back to the plants. It's all on a timer, that has 15 minute on off settings. The first part is the timer. Because if you leave it on all the time, plants can get waterlogged. Then there is the airlift pumps. Each airlift pump has its control tap that lets enough air to the airlift pump so it can pump water up to the "boar scare". When the boar scare tips, it goes into a container then out through a pipe to the plants. Most pipes, I have a little hole every 30 cm (1 ft) to let out water. You have to have the boar scare and pipe to spread the water out across your plants. Then the water drips down to the bottom of the soil and gets returned to the tank where the airlift pump is. In this one, I have the airlift pump tubes tapped straight into the paint can that holds the water.

Below I use the T joints, one pipe goes to the bucket, one lets in air and one goes up to the boar scare. There are 2 airlift pumps here because one of the sends water up to another bucket filled with rotting weeds. (as an experiment)

I don't have the boar scare working yet, because it is so rainy this year. Thin black pipe to the right of the boar scare brings down the air to the airlift pump. You can see a little white tap to the right of the yogurt can. This regulates the amount of air into the airlift pump. You must have a tap for each airlift pump.

This is a great little mains electric timer. You can have 15 minutes on or off all through the day.

This is a strong "dual diaphragm" air pump. It currently runs 11 airlift pumps in my garden, my solar tracker and my fishpond. All at once.

Here is a diagram of a pretty easy to make airlift pump. Tubing is 1/4 inch internal diameter for the water tubes, and aquarium air line for the air. air. I usually go to the hardware store and find the tubes that snugly fit in each other. And then buy a little of the wider pipe and the required length of the 1/4 inch pipe.

And a video of the same type of airlift pump working in my experimental greenhouse.

 

[BillTre]

Looks like fun. Similar to a fish room in many ways.
What do you grow?

 

[Brian in Victoria BC]

Looks like fun. Similar to a fish room in many ways.
What do you grow?

I mostly grow Tomatoes, peppers and basil in summer, and swiss chard, welsh onions and kale over the winter. I get my biggest crop of Swiss Chard in March and April when other people are planting theirs. Just before the plants flower. I have a "bean boat" where I grow runner beans with the same system in Summer. It's a rock planter that looks like a boat. It has a "hold" with about 150 liters of water in the bottom of the boat for cycling around with the airlift pump, and about 40 cm of soil over the hold. I get great crops of beans because the soil never dries out in the boat. Victoria gets desert amounts of rainfall in Summer.