Constant Flow Wicking Beds (1)
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- First video demonstrating my take on Rob Bob's wicking bed design with one major difference. Mine use a constant flow watering system with a central reservoir in the ground that allows a person to add nutrients if needed. These will run on bioponics (compost tea hydroponics) rather than aquaponics in order to eliminate the need to tear them apart and clean fish waste out of them.
More info and subscriber forums at 3dgtower.com
I love Rob Bob’s designs I made his chop and flipped aqua Panik system out of the IBC totes now I’m about to make one of his Wickenburg for my indeterminate tomato plants and basil right now those are two of my favorite plants to grow
I like this concept. Simplifies nutrient load over the beds. Good stuff!
New system, but not the first time I've done it. Previously did it with Earth Boxes after I saw somebody else do it by chaining them together just to make them all one big equalized reservoir. The only difference with this system is that they're larger grow beds and water that flows through them at a rate of 1~2 gallons per minute. Still able to turn over the entire volume of water in an hour.
As others have eluded to, there could be a reduction in available nutrients for the downstream beds. You say No but I will adopt a Wait & See approach because from my hydroponics days, there will be a decrease in oxygen & main nutrients downstream as the water is reused by each bed in turn. There will also be a pH change in the water that leaves the first bed, which will compound as it leaves each successive bed. Please keep us updated as your crops grow so we can see the long-term benefits of this system.
Sorry, I've already posted updates proving those assumptions are incorrect. Let's say that these were just traditional wicking beds. Why isn't the oxygen and nutrient level depleted between them? It's because the bottom of the bed is nothing more than a water reservoir. All I'm doing here is maintaining a constant water level in the bottom. This has absolutely nothing to do with hydroponics, so none of those rules apply even slightly. This is nothing but in-soil gardening, the pH, nutrients, and oxygen level at the roots comes from the soil, just like growing in the ground.
Just a 1-month followup to let you know that all of these dependencies are being satisfied by the soil and the reservoir in the bottom of the wicking bed is still only functioning as a water resource. I will post another followup next month
Your correct, and the fix is to have a greater flow, and a separate nutrient tank.
Do Aquaponics, and you'll learn a lot about nutrient balance between growbeds. Because, you can harm your fish if its not consistant.
@@got2kittys These aren't connected to the aquaponics system, and plants don't take up nutrients that fast anyway.
No matter how hard you try, there will always be plenty of haters. I've been slammed so hard with my log splitter build.
Its funny that the crew using it, loves it. The only folks complaining are the haters on yt.
You never cease to amaze me, thanks for the explanation
Glad I could help! Not sure if you checked out the other two videos on this project, but you will want to. Rob Bob most definitely came up with a good plan on this design!
Just learned about uniseals, Thanks, I'll be using them.
Great video! It's interesting that your setup is exactly like the one I have down on paper that I plan to build this season, only with smaller beds. I don't have a truck right now to pickup IBCs so I have to revert to things I can get shipped to me.
I had to have my tanks delivered to me by friends since I don't have anything to haul them with either, got them from the local sugar factory. I still have two more tanks that I haven't chopped up yet, one is going to be used to make a chop & flip system in the greenhouse just so I can demonstrate a flood & drain bed to visitors. I'm considering sinking the last one in the ground for a rain water storage tank.
As for connecting the wicking beds together, I know there are some people that say "never connect those together in series" because if one backs up then the system will leak all over the floor. I'm not worried, my floor covering is porus and won't flood. Worst case scenario is that I'll end up with 55 gallons of water spilling. Not a big deal.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Unfortunately, I live in a fairly remote area and the nearest tanks I can get that won't cost an arm or leg are about an hour away. I'm not one to ask for favors so I make do with that I can. Good point on them overflowing. In foresight, maybe I'll use a T fitting as this will be indoor for me. It's not much more expensive and only adds a tiny bit of complexity. The ultimate plan is to turn a large size room into an indoor grow area for food year round. I'm about half way there and kind of excited to introduce these wicking beds for root crops.
That's understandable. Well, if you're going to do this in your house, put a little money into a dehumidifier to reduce/eliminate mold damage to your house and feed the output of your dehumidifier back into your reservoir. You'll be glad that you did, and it'll save you on water.
Nice set up. Thanks for sharing.
Nice setup. I am considering connecting my self waterers.
you are the second Larry I find awesome. First was Larry Hall with the rain gutter system
I thought you were going to say "Larry David" Lol
Would it not have been a better idea to place the pvc pipe on the OTHER side closest to the wall so you don't risk breaking it with foot traffic or stepping or dropping something on it during harvest of whatever you're growing?
I know the pipe is there and I'm the ONLY one working in the greenhouse, I'm 50% blind and I know those pipes are there. I've pointed this out every time somebody asks this question. There's also the fact that doing it the way you are suggesting would have taken three times as much PVC and would have resulted in low spots where sediment would plug up the pipes. I thought about it long before I started building it, this is the best way to solve the problems.
Thanks for the instructional video Larry. I’m just starting to learn about the different systems to grow what I hope will turn out to be a garden that will feed me and a few other folks. I’m very interested in vertical gardening. Are you going to be growing root veggies in these wicking beds?
The wicking beds are going to be primarily for root crops and other plants that can't be grown in towers (tomatoes, peppers, corn, etc). After the 12 wicking beds are done, I will be installing 64 of my towers on the north side of the greenhouse that will actually run on aquaponics and those will be for salad greens and herbs.
Sinse you hooked up your planting beds in series, won't the last bed have access to less fertilizer than the first bed, decreasing across each intermediate bed along the way? I think you would benefit from looking into the Dutch Bucket style of water distribution.
Nope, not at all, nature doesn't work anywhere near that fast. The nutrients also aren't exclusively in the compost tea that flows through the bottom. I also have 3 dutch buckets here as a test, they only seem to be useful if a person is doing hydroponics.
So 6 years later do you love it or hate it - seems every time I do anything like this - there are few things I wish I did a little differently... - would love to know how it worked out an update?? TY
Having them chained together is a great idea, but the continuous running pump isn't necessary. I only run the pump for an hour every couple weeks in the summer to top off each bed's reservoir, and maybe every month in the winter. Much easier to do that than it is to go top off all 12 of them one by one.
So you love it?
And they are working great 6 yrs later... I really want to set one or 5 up but my in ground garden is all set up so.... just trying to do my research. And what ever I go with I don't want to change it again lol...
Yep, still working 6 years later and about the only thing I would do differently if I rebuilt them would be to use 1" schedule 40 PVC to chain them together instead of the 3/4" thin wall stuff. But, I just used what I had available.
Can you run it through your aquaponics system without your return water killing the fish???
You wouldn't want to connect this to an aquaponics system because you'd have no way to clean out the solid waste that would settle out in the reservoir of each bed. You'd have to completely empty every bed to clean them out.
If you’re using aquaponics and you add compost to the soil, will it hurt the fish?
Aquaponics would be of no benefit with these, all the nutrients the plants need can come from the soil.
Curious why your lines are run inside instead of outside along the wall. It seems they would be less vulnerable and minimize tripping(not that I'm clumsy) Love your work.
Because it would have required 3 times as much PVC, more bends, and created more potential for low spots that would plug up with settling solids. I'm more concerned with "keep it stupid simple" (yes, I intentionally say it that way) and not the least bit concerned with neat and pretty. I'm the only one working in the greenhouse, I know the pipes are there, doesn't bother me to step over them. Those pipes are also the least of the obstacles.
Larry Athey thank you. It's not obvious at first glance
There is also a second row of wicking beds going in, so the plumbing will actually be right down the middle of both rows.
Larry Athey now it's clear, should have watched the whole series, see you've already answered this in 2nd. Thanks for your work.
Hi Larry,
Hope you still replying to messages.
I'm trying to build this system at home too.
However I cant find the exact dimensions.
Did you have plans with which you based this design on?
Or perhaps able to provide a link to where this information is available.
My question is on the height of the reservoir.
I've got 4.33inch perforated pipe as reservoir.
Not entirely sure what height to make the outlet at.
Must the top of the outlet pipe be just below the top of the perferated pipe?
Im working on metrics, so 110mm perferated pipe and 25mm pipe for water distribution.
Pls excuse if conversion to imperial not accurate.
I didn't base it on any plans, I honestly never do anything based on anybody else's plans. Even the greenhouse was just a matter of looking at other people's designs and making mental notes of the features and ideas that I liked. If you keep things simple, there's no need for any plans beyond what you see in your mind.
Thanks so much for your quick reply Larry.
It's an expensive exercise here in South Africa given the limitation of products, so don't want to drill all IBC to later find their useless.
Doing this for 20 bins as well so would like to have some level of comfort that it's correct.
Just a question then on the water height inside the IBC.
Must water level inside the IBC be at same level as the fabric, or below the fabric, or above the fabric?
I drilled my overflow holes high enough that the water was slightly over the top. The soil will only wick up what it can hold, gravity guarantees that for you. One thing that I would suggest is that you never try to follow somebody else's plans exactly as you see them on paper. Understand what the end goal is and work backwards to see how they got there. Otherwise, when something goes wrong, you won't have any idea how to troubleshoot things. Think more like an engineer.
@LordLarryWho Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, makes sense.
seems to me that if you connected the beds in parallel rather than in series that any nutrients added would be more evenly distributed rather being concentrated at the furthermost bed.
The nutrients are in the soil, so there would be no benefit to parallel over series. Also, even if there were nutrients in the water, plants don't absorb them as fast as you're implying.
awesome bro! thanks for sharing
Wont the water be deoxygenated when moving down different beds. Also things might get anaerobic down in the gravel. Just a thought.
This isn't aquaponics and as long as the water was kept moving and aerated, those problems never happened when I did this previously.
Deoxygenated? Errr, that would be pure hydrogen, wouldn't it? I think that would also require electrolysis to accomplish that. Even if anaerobic pockets happened in the gravel, with the water constantly flowing (you might want to study up on how/where/why anaerobic bacteria colonizes), who is going to smell it if there is a foot of potting soil on top of it? Your comment makes it look like you spend way too much time obtaining information from really bad sources full of armchair experts.
True, true and true. Self-watering and sub-irrigated planters have been around for hundreds of years, plus you can find anaerobic areas and low dissolved oxygen water in the ground without any effort. Do people and plants worry about that? Nope. Some things just aren't worth worrying about because all of the effort it would take to over-complicate it, you won't gain you anything worth bragging about anyway. All I'm doing here is making a bunch of self watering planters that maintain a constant water level and allow me to add nutrients to all of them from one central location. Never had problems with this in the past, or even with regular planters that don't have a constant water flow feature.
Larry Athey thanks Larry for responding and clarifying.
You say your views are just those of a hobbyist. Looks like a pretty professional set up to me.
Ever seen a race car hobbyist taking a go-kart to a race track?
is there a follow up video showing progress, or see it in action ?
Yes, this is the first video in a play list of 4 videos.
yep, after i wrote my question i found the other videos, thnx they are great!
What is the benefit of having constant water flow?
The water at the bottom of each bed remains the same all the time and you only have to add water in one place rather than having to babysit 12 beds individually (in my case).
@@LordLarryWho But could that not be done by simply plumbing the different beds together without having the water constantly flowing? It is like having an underground stream flowing rather than having a static perched water table.
Hell, I don't know, I already built it and it works for me. Plants in each bed take up water at different rates, sooner or later one bed will become lower than the others. This solves the problem for me, but build yours however you want to, I'm not changing mine.
I have found with wicking beds that you have to let the reservoir dry out sometimes, or over fill and flush some water out through the over flow. Otherwise the water becomes stagnant and nasty. I expect this constant flow set up would solve that problem. Now off to watch the rest of the series. This looks interesting. 👌
@@shanewaters592 Even without constant flow, I don't see how that would really matter to the plants.
How can I find an electronic meter to measure ammonia and nitrates? I want something to get live data for my prototype that I did.
Hanna Instruments makes one that measures pretty much anything, but it's $800 or more and still requires you to add reagents to the test tube. Other than that, there is no perpetually automatic way to do it.
I should also mention that not all elements can be detected by firing electrical current through the water. It still requires a chemical reagent to be added to the water to change its color and then that color intensity can be measured using light and a photo transistor.
Hello Larry. Thank you for the reply. Sad that it is not possible because it would have been so easy to acquire information and change things quickly on fly. To be honest I don’t like doing it manually especially with colors. I have problem seeing and identifying colors. Medically tested😬.
I once bought a digital meter on eBay where I could check pH, temperature and EC. It was so easy to monitor and I had plants grow so fast. Blindly I had retarded the plants but once I did new ones with live data, I was able to keep things with the range and it was amazing. Right now I can’t fire up my system with fish and plants until I am competent to get data out of it or else it will be blind and I won’t learn anything. Did you ever use EC at least in Aquaponics to check the strength or it’s just the conductivity in there won’t be any good to use as a guide?
Please see my prototype here and I will appreciate if you have inputs on it. I learn a lot from people like you who have real passion on this hobby. I have seen several of your videos and I love the hard work you are doing.
Here is a link for my prototype. I designed it with so many components but for my several reasons. You inputs are appreciated. ua-cam.com/video/HGAbBpAadic/v-deo.html
Nice clean system. As for my use of electronics in aquaponics, no, I've never seen any need for it because I've found that aquaponics will actually work completely by accident. I figure all of that electronic stuff and turning the operation into a daily science project is for hydroponics. Nature doesn't require all of that stuff. I've never seen a case where if the system wasn't cycled and bacteria has colonized that aquaponics didn't work all by itself. All I do is feed my fish and top off my water as needed, that's it.
Larry Athey that is good to hear. I will then just try to throw in some fish and see what happens.
Nice but the not being able to clean the reservoir out bugs me.
OK, entertain me...Why isn't that possible? Tell me why, and then I'll tell you how I do it...
Darn, I thought I'd get you to play along. OK, you do it with a hose-end sump pump with the bottom screen removed. I did it for the first time 3 years after I put this together and it wasn't even worth the effort, there was hardly anything in the bottom of the reservoir.
What size pump did you use sir
I copied your setup just my pump runs to strong
This is why I have a ball valve right before the water starts flowing into the beds. I use a 500 gallon per hour pump so there's enough pressure to flush out the main water feed line if I need to.
@@LordLarryWho ty sir. I too have ball valves and did not think to close them. I also put individual valves between each ibc incase I need to isolate an issue.
Looks like hydroponics
I'm not using a soil-less medium, so it wouldn't qualify as hydroponics.
AI ? Stick it
The video predates AI, it's called an animation you short bus window licker. Save it for Halloween, little boy, and don't forget to say Trick or Treat in advance next time. LOL!!!
@cecilsabourin9462 Let me help you again, that's not AI in the intro, it's a simple computer animation, the same as what Pixar was doing back when this video was uploaded. You're clearly a very jealous and unintelligent person with seriously challenged spelling and punctuation skills. It's safe to say that you shouldn't be allowed n UA-cam without parental supervision. Go take a nap already, junior.
It's always the people who have never done anything who have the most complaints and ridicule. Jealousy is an ugly disease.