Aquaponic Gardening

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A 10-foot grow wall of V-Tower planters. The advantages here over another well known tower planter is that these are more friendly to use under grow lights due to their shorter length, yet provide more space than their 3-foot towers. Also, there is no need to pull the media in order to plant a V-Tower, simply spread out the slot and media with your fingers and drop your starter plants in. The miniature DWC tube makes up for the difference in length between the V-Tower and their 5-foot tower. This grow wall also utilizes a gravity fed overhead reservoir that delivers a constant 7 gallons per hour flow to each tower...Some people call it knocking off their design, I call it an improvement upon their design.

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Comment by Max Gfx on September 20, 2014 at 8:08am

I've been slow at adding any more pictures or videos of this tower system since our weather is changing out here and I have a bunch of insulation work to finish up. I just got around to planting the towers a few weeks ago. I'll get more posted soon - now that there are actually plants growing in these "zero mega-bucks in research" towers that couldn't possibly work.

Comment by Jim Fisk on September 20, 2014 at 7:56am

I really like this and will try to fit it in next season after GH is finally finished. Screw "some people" you only have to change a design 10% to be in the clear and you have a great advantage in terms of $ by using standard pipe as opposed to the far more expensive square deck post material. You are the man! It never ceases to amaze me how these discussions go on and it can take so long to discover them and I make it a habit to check the "Leader board" a few times a week. That goes for your pellet heater as well. I would like to see someone try and fill a vertical planter like this with Hydroton

Comment by Max Gfx on July 19, 2014 at 9:35pm

I still use expanded shale in my upside down aqua/hydro tomato planters. It's good stuff, I prefer it over hydroton. I'll post more pictures and videos as I have time. I would be very interested in seeing how you use Matala filter media, as I am sure the people at Matala USA would too.

Comment by Pices on July 19, 2014 at 9:26pm

Thanks much for sharing your DIY vertical grow system design. I have used expanded shale as a solids filter with red wigglers and it does clog over time and of course is difficult and tedious to clean. I will consider a redesign with Matala media. Thanks again for sharing this info!

Comment by Max Gfx on July 19, 2014 at 9:19pm

The water first passes through the coarse low density media then through the medium density media and finally drains into the sump tank. So far I've never cleaned it, the worms seem to be doing a good enough job breaking things down for me.

Comment by Pices on July 19, 2014 at 9:15pm

Thanks, so the water goes through the thin section of the filter, not the long section? How often do you rinse the filter media?

Comment by Max Gfx on July 19, 2014 at 9:09pm

Not near the system right now so I can't take a picture. But it's nothing more than a bucket between my fish tank and planter return drain lines and the sump tank. Has nothing more than pieces of green Matala filter on the bottom and black Matala filter on top, and the bucket just has six 1" holes in the bottom that drain the water into the sump tank. I tossed about a cup of red wigglers in it back in February and it looks like they're all still alive.

Comment by Pices on July 19, 2014 at 9:02pm

What is a "bucket filter", could you post a picture?

Comment by Averan on July 19, 2014 at 7:43pm
That's the key I think, catching and removing the big pieces, using worms to break down the smaller pieces into water soluble fertilizer.
Comment by Max Gfx on July 19, 2014 at 7:37pm

If you look at any of the Bright Agrotech videos, his emitter lines are the same thing I'm using (plain old 1/4' OD deip irrigation line). I've been using it for over a year in my basement system and never had it clog up.

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