I tied the airpumps, in phase 2, into a common header. This has resulted in a more effcient use of the air. This got me thinking about a project I've been wanting to do for some time...

I've been wanting to build an airlift ever since I saw one built by Mr. Glenn Martinez of Olomana Gardens in HI.
Just to give an idea how well this design works.... We are lifting water, 34 inches and have a flow of approximately 100 gallons an hour.

By building the airlift, we are using air, that we have been paying to generate anyway. With the airlift operational, we have removed a danner pump. It's job was, just pumping water to the shallow water raft bed.

This new project consisted of two parts. One, building the airlift, and the second, building a bigger filter to clean the water before entering the raft bed.




Here's the lower section of the airlift, that goes into the boittom of the fish tank......



The 1 inch 90 on the right hand side, will have a 1/2 inch pipe installed. This will be the 'riser' that the air and water travels upward.
The air enters through the clear tube, the check valve keeps the air from going to the left. The air must travel to the right and go up the riser.



In the next picture, you can see the 1/2 inch riser coming up out of the fish tank. We installed a union on the riser, incase we ever need to remove the lower section.



The upper section is secured to part of the wooden frame work.

The horizontal section is going to the new filter. If you look close, you can see the gray filter behind the upright of the strawberry tower.

Above the towers, is one of our shallow water raft beds, which works great for smaller plants like lettuce. It's a great way to utilize limited space.



From the angle in this picture, you can see the filter. The pipe goes all the way to the bottom of the filter. The water exits the pipe and the water must flow up through the material, which acts as a filter and as a bio surface.



You can see the air bubbles on the water's surface. We installed a good size air stone in the bottom of the filter. This way, the water is being oxygenated before going to the plants.

The pipe exiting the filter (on the left) is going to the shallow water raft bed.