Solar Thermally Pumped Hydroponic System

Step 6 Set it and forget it

Fill the "pots" with perlite and plant. In one I planted gota kola, another onion seeds and the third a basil cutting, place somewhere sunny and forget it until instructables has a bottle contest ;-).

Comments

[autokymatic]

Aren't light and algae on the roots problematic? Was it suggested to make an opaque shield for the 1L top planter?

[vampierwolf]

Do you think you could put this in an enclosed system... like a terrarium?

[simpkin]

Great instructable, I just happened to have some spare plastic bottles laying around and grabbed some "Soaker hose" from home depot came in about 50 feet for 8$. I did a slightly modified version using 2 Gatorade bottles one small as the growing container, a large one as a reservoir and painted them both glossy white. Then a 2 Ltr soda bottle painted flat black with an additional hose to the top of the reservoir to provide solar pressure. I was amazed at how responsive this setup was to sunlight and clouds. Going to play with it a little more and soon hope to have many setup growing veggies. depending on our soda and Gatorade intake...

[hootie233]

wait wait wait, what are you guys saying should be done to fix this?

[Tool Using Animal]

it doesn't need "fixing" we were discussing possible future improvements.

[hootie233]

sorry, thats what I meant, i know that this set up would get the job done, I'm pretty excited about it either way.

[Olyveoil]

This Instructable is totally cool and one that I'm definitely going to try. It combines two things that I really love...science and gardening. Thanks for sharing.

[SixTwelve]

What a cool idea! I wonder, though, if you're having any blow-back from heating the nutrient solution? Black plastic can get pretty hot in the sun, at least in my neck of the woods. Now that you've done the proof of concept, it wouldn't take much to heat the air and shelter the fluid. Or am I being a ninny?

[Tool Using Animal]

Nope, you're not. I responded to someone else that you could use a separate air chamber. I haven't done so, but there's no obvious reason it wouldn't work.