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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 November 16, 2014 at 9:16pm

Another thing to keep in mind. If you're not going to use a sump with something to break up the fish poop into smaller pieces, you'll want to run a swirl filter or radial flow filter between the line coming out of your pump and before the overhead reservoir. Otherwise, the small 1/4" irrigation tubes that feed your towers will clog up and have to be blown out with air.

Comment by Max Gfx on November 16, 2014 at 8:35pm

My pump is entirely oversized, it's 2500 gallons per hour. I have so much pressure that I have everything choked down with valves and only utilize that pressure once a month to blow out my pipes. Even though I run enough water to cycle my entire 275 gallon IBC through my sump once per hour, there is still only 70 gallons per hour running through my 10 towers. Add another 100 gallons per hour for my cup tubes and rain gutters that I use for direct seeding two towers at a time in. None of that was planned, that's just the way it worked out.

Comment by Jake Yu on November 16, 2014 at 3:17pm

How powerful is your pump, in terms of gallons per hour?  Most people online are saying I need to a pump that can turn the water volume over once every two hours, but as I keep thinking about your system, it truly does just "work on accident." My feeling is I just need a pump that can pump the total volume of my fish tank up a certain head height to the overhead reservoir, and gravity will take care of the flow rate. Is this correct?

Comment by Max Gfx on November 16, 2014 at 11:27am

I don't make the first cut all the way through to the other end, that keeps it from closing up so you can start the second cut from the other end. That way, your final cuts are just about 1" long on each end.

Comment by Jake Yu on November 16, 2014 at 10:54am

Comment by Jake Yu on November 16, 2014 at 10:54am

I ran into a slight problem. The slot in the PVC pipe doesn't stay open after cutting. I think I can work around this by using smaller PVC as 3 spacers, and cutting holes in media. (See pictures) It should work, it just makes the whole process slightly more difficult. How do your PVC pipes not close after cutting? Maybe I need to buy a thicker, stronger kind of PVC pipe.

Comment by Max Gfx on November 15, 2014 at 10:32pm

Definitely not, water is 8 pounds per gallon, much easier to just rely on a pump for lifting water than lifting a fish tank.

Comment by Jake Yu on November 15, 2014 at 9:46pm

Actually, maybe like this but symmetrical ramps up top:

Comment by Jake Yu on November 15, 2014 at 9:21pm

Do you think putting the fish tank above the reservoir would work, to further utilize gravity? Like so:

Comment by Max Gfx on November 15, 2014 at 6:15pm

That's exactly how mine works. The only difference is that I use a sump tank (look up a CHIFT-PIST type system). The 1/4" OD tubing fed from the overhead reservoir 6 feet high let's gravity feed the towers at 7 gallons per hour, as long as the reservoir is vented (not pressurized).

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