Oops, when I came home after work this week my chili plant looked half dead. The container for the plant was completely empty. Somehow the tube moved and resulted in emptying the plant container in the main container.

I need to find a better solution for this..

Until recently, my aeroponic/hydroponic setups were made according to a simple system. Namely, the water container is also the container where the plant is growing in/on and where the pump to spray/wet the roots and aerate the water is in.

Over time I realized 3 things about this setup.
– You need a pump per plant, meaning adding plants equals adding pumps. This uses more energy and is noisier.
– Roots tend to clog the pump after a while.
– From the outside of the container, you can’t see what the water level is and you need to work with the sound that the pump is making ( unreliable ).

My idea was to experiment with a ‘shared’ reservoir. In this main reservoir I would pump the water to a separate container within this reservoir which would then overflow back into the main reservoir. The plant pots are connected by a small tube ( communicating vessels ) with the main reservoir and because the level in the main reservoir changes by pumping the water into a separate container, I would generate a flow of water and therefore transfer the aerated water to the plant pots.

Findings
– Flow is dependent on functioning communicating vessels. This is also not so reliable.
– Transparent hose got algae grow (eating up my nutrients)