Nice & fun gadget! What I really want to know is what kind of diamond saw you used to get a clean cut on what looks like a thick glass bottle :-)

A gravity option that doesn't depend on the durablity of the small pump(only you showing up) is to use twin ~one gallon reservoirs and adjust the height to girth proportion on the upper one. Set with a very slow drip tube or tape on the bottom of the source bucket. Every other morning you can inspect it and do all the pumps work by dumping the recipient into the source bucket. The larger the project the nicer to have a pump do the lifting ...

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Wed, Apr 9, 14 at 15:38

The glass bottle was cut using an old method of using a glass knife and a candle! I smoothed the edges off with some sand paper. This setup is how i originally imagined hydroponics, something that is self sufficient and does not use much energy. I may buy a solar panel which i could link up to a plug in pump with some more power.

See the link for the bottle cutting technique.

Here is a link that might be useful: glass cutting

I'll have to learn about the glass cutting from you guys! Nothing more appealing than a Heineken strawberry tree ;-)

I've seen other systems online that use solar panels to power the pump. In this is your design, the pump might not need to be on all day. An economical solution is to use a timer to come on a few times, but I guess it would take charging a battery in there to insure both timer and pump worked. Anyway a little more control IMO is needed, as inputting the variable voltage into the pump all day as your prototype does is likely to lead to an early pump retirement. No big deal, just a few details to a nice thing...

Very clever think of the possibilities, is evaporation a problem? no doubt the solution is being aerated with the exposure to air, I keep an eye out on the nutrient solution because of this factor and sunlight getting to the nutrients in an open top bucket.
Well done!