simple indoor water feature

I love the sound of trickling water. So I set out to make my very own indoor water feature instead of buying one to give it all my personality and to avoid the usual stuff found in big departmental stores that everyone has because its affordable. The total amount of money I spent on this project was $40. It could have been $10 cheaper if I had bought a cheaper pump and I will explain why I didn't soon.

Materials needed:
- A container that will house the water and the pump. I used a tall glass jar found at a marshalls for $10.
- A submergible water pump. You can buy this at any hardware store or you could salvage one from an aquarium water pump if you have one ling around. A 60 gallon/hour pump costs about $10. I didn't really know how powerful or not that was so I bought a 90gph pump instead for $17. Now I realise, I could have easily saved the 7 bucks.
- Some small 3" house plants. I bought a few for $2 each.
- small glass tumblers/containers to hold the plants.
- WATER :)

Step 1 Pumping water

Place the pump in your container. Fill with water so the spout of the pump is just below the water level. Dry your hands and plug it in! Always be careful around electricity while handling water.

You can adjust the water level depending on if you want just a slight ripple on the surface or a strong vertical jet of water. Just make sure to submerge the pump in water based on the package instructions.

If you chose a glass container so the pump is very visible, you can hide it by placing pebbles/rocks around it, or by adding artificial/real plants.. use your creativity..

Comments

[Osquar]

I have one question: I can't see how you've connected your smaller glasses to the big one containing the pump. Is there small hoses from the big one to the smaller ones or are they fed with water from underneath?

Awesome project though =) looking to do something similar and I like your design the most!

[2 stroke]

gph is gallons per hour gpm is gallons per minute

[Aldrin Dimatulac]

nice!

[unclelar]

what "thematthatter"is describing is a basic hydroponic system.You may want to do a little research on that subject to learn a little more about the different growing mediums that are out there.then you could do like I do and grow your own herbs and maybe even some veggies!! still very good job!

[firegardeneve]

Will do. Thanks

[thematthatter]

do you have any air/water pumping into the plants, most plants get waterlogged if you put them in standing water. you will see the leaves droop and then the roots will rot off

[firegardeneve]

Thank you for your comment. No I don't. Online research suggested I change the water every few days. I could get a bigger glass container and put the plants and the pump in it. What about liquid fertilizer.. Should I use any?

[thematthatter]

this is my idea, you have a really big container. drill a hole in the bottom of the plant containers(or find one with holes) , put these plant containers inside the big container but keep them above the water level. then get some tubing and connect it to the submersible pump and run like connections off to each little pot so the pump will connect to each pot, the water will flow to each pot and flow back down to the pump. you have your water trickling sound and your plants are happy. the best fertilizer per cost is fish tank poop water, like when you clean out a fish tank with the vacuum tube. the only drawback is that it can have a really high pH. and if light is getting to it, algae will grow and turn it green. maybe some liquid fertilizer would help, you dont need anything too expensive. most house plants are tropical plants so they really dont have a lot of nutrition requirements, like ivy, it will grow in stale tap water!

[firegardeneve]

I'll try that. Sounds like a fun project. Thanks again

[LinuxH4x0r]

Cool!