The other day some one asked for more info about my water bottle Aquaponic tower flow spreaders. Well they don’t really photograph very well and are sort of difficult to describe but this video might help.
I was having trouble with the inflow to my Aquaponic towers either clogging, or flowing too much water into the top or slimming up the media at the top of the tower and causing splashing or over flowing. Well I noticed that one of the towers where I had drilled the hole rather off center in the cap and I had a long splash guard bottle on it, the water would actually spray against the bottle and trickle down into the tower nicely and that tower had far fewer problems with the cap clogging or splash issues. So I finally made the other front porch towers similar. I drilled a new pvc cap so it would spray to the side against the inside of the bottle and trickle down.
I think I’ve been running this way for several weeks and only had one clog to clean out. The splash issues have gone away in those Aquaponic towers too. I think this works very well.
Thanks for the post. Just wondering if since you are thinking to redo the other towers if you might be interested it trying something. I like your idea with the water spraying out to the side and distributing down the bottle funnel into the vertical grow towers. I saw in the video that on the back side (the side away from the squirting water) you are getting a build up of algae. Just wondering if 2 or more holes would help prevent the build up. It maybe that the pressure from the water would prevent the algae build up, but maybe this would be counter productive as it would reduce the pressure coming out of each hole.
It is an idea but I fear if there is enough pressure to spray out multiple holes, I may wind up with too much water going through the tower. Of course the algae is likely to build up eventually even with spraying water, the one bottle is older than the others.
Would it be possible to see a diagram of a tower system for about 12 towers? How big a fish tank? Looking to try this great way of growing in Northern MN for year round production.
This is kinda a diagram for a basic system
You can do more or less towers easily enough. How big a fish tank do you want or how much do you have space for?
David, Just happen to run across this post. We have an installation of Zip Grow towers running down here in Rochester, MN. If you happen to find yourself down this way sometime get in touch with us through our website, we’d be happy to show you our setup. We can’t claim the years of experience that TC Lynx has, but we have it running pretty well so far.
Hay Chris,
Ya need more pictures of YOUR farm and the Aquaponics on Your farm on your web site!
Good to hear you have worked with Nate to get a good system set up for your region.
I may have a lot of experience here in Central FL but that doesn’t really mean so much elsewhere when it comes to growing methods and getting good looking produce.
My primary transferable skill is plumbing (and trying to do it so my electrical costs for running pumps is as minimal as possible.) Costs more up front in plumbing for larger pipe and fittings but I minimize my pump size/pressure needed to reduce my ongoing monthly electrical bills. How important this is depends much on the local electrical rates, in some places it may make little difference and in others it might be a hefty chunk of change.