Micro Hydro Design

hey guys what's up? I was going over a design for a micro grow in my head today using a diy method i saw somewhere on the internet...don't know where though.



basically the design requires a small container to act as the the container for the root mass. A 2 liter bottle to act as an external reservoir therefor increasing the total size of the reservoir system. then connected with air hose tubing. i saw this design as a reservoir level but im not sure which site it was located on.....i bookmarked it but by PC went down lol

So i was just wondering on whether or not anyone might think this would work or not or how i'd have to alter the design for it to work.

thanks.
peace

Is this an unpowered perpetual motion machine?
Without a pump in there somewhere, water's not going to circulate. It looks like here it will just pour out of the 2L bottle and overflow the little root container.

spdr said:

Is this an unpowered perpetual motion machine?
Without a pump in there somewhere, water's not going to circulate. It looks like here it will just pour out of the 2L bottle and overflow the little root container.

Click to expand...

True about the circulation issue I never thought of that cause can't stagnant water produce algae. The way I was think it's more or less gravity fedBasbthe external resevoir is higher than the root mass container. With the water inlet into the root container being the shorter of the two air tubes and theother would be an overflow of sorts setting the depth of the water. I know it works because I've seen it on a forum as a diy reservoir water level but I'm not sure which one it was an I can't seem to find it anywhere. I think I might do an experiment later on today. I'll make sure to post if ot works or not.

Peace,
FedaykiN

Ohhhhh, I see what's going on here. The waterline, whenever it's above the U-bend, is supposed to block the 2L bottle's air intake. If the air intake is underwater, then low air pressure inside the bottle will keep it from draining until the waterline falls below that air intake.

Yeah, in principle something like this could definitely work. If you add an aquarium pump and airstone in the root container, you've got a DWC that you can run unattended for as long as the reservoir lasts!

One suggestion I can think of - If you're just using a standard 2L pop bottle, it might be a good idea to tape up the bottle or otherwise reinforce it... otherwise the pressure difference could cause the bottle to buckle and fold, overflowing your garden.

Yeah thats my idea exactly. An it could be scaled to an even larger system with the right materials, but seeing how i don't think I'd be leaving it unattended very long its not required. Thanks for the suggestion i think i might do that somehow.