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Hanging plant wall

Just to throw it out there, but have you considered not tying the two together at all. If you goal is just to have a planted wall behind, you could have pots hung on the wall, with plants in and just water them once a week when you do your water change and probably achieve the same thing without any of the complications of circulating systems and water retention. There are a big range on wall planters e.g.: Amazon product ASIN B07DD7G4TN
It part depends on what plants you hand in mind too - there is quite a big range that don't need a constant boggy situation and could have a simple (cheap or DIY) hanger.

Either way, I'd be wary about the amount of evaporation you get out of felt and would tend to lean towards the plastic options e.g. Amazon product ASIN B06XY6LM12 Whether if you did want auto watering you could connect those up with airline (or similar tubing) to direct the waterflow more accurate rather than rely on dripping and then use a small pump to circulate it up.
 
I like this idea. And it is definitely feasible. As you mentioned before, using an inorganic soil is a must, I would personally use lava split (gravel but from lava rock). It doesn't hold much water but that's fine since you can turn the pump on as many times as you need in a day. With this type of soil drenching it with loads of water every time will work better than a sort of drip method.

In regards to salt accumulation, dosing less ferts is obviously better. In this scenario, the less water the soil retains the better, since then you can flush it many times a day. Another option is to fill your tank when doing a water change (with RO or soft water ideally) through the top of the plant pots contraption.

Are your pots going to be removable?
Do you get natural light above your tank?
 
shangman said:
Aha, found that link I was looking for!

DOOA Terra DIY by Rfck

Hi guys I would like to show you my New layout. This is DIY construction inspired by ADA DOOA TERRA. Work in progress, i wait for more plants. and I need to work with details yet. I'll be happy for any comments.
www.ukaps.org www.ukaps.org

I wouldn't worry too much about damp, as long as you did it correctly the water should stay in it's wall-box. I personally wouldn't attach it flat to the wall, rather to have a cm - inch gap just in case though.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this. I've not seen this before and it's pretty much the same construction I had in mind.
As @mort says, my main concern is evaporation/transpiration causing damp in the room. I also have crested geckos so with them and the fish tank, the humidity is already quite high.
zozo said:
Something you definitively need to consider is the water-retaining property of the growing media you are going to use. Since such a wall with pots has quite a media volume that needs to be saturated with water, this requires a certain amount of water volume. There will be certain water saturation and retention followed by a drain. Pumping the water in will obviously empty the tank, the media slowly saturates and then starts to drain back into the tank. Then you need to top off the tank again to its desired water level. Thus there will be an amount of water in the tank and in the wall.

Then calculate the needed volume the wall retains and the volume it drains again when the pump stops and make sure that the tank will not flood with water coming from the drainage. Some growing media retain more water than others and also drain slower and longer.

For example, fill a sponge with water, stop the water flow into the sponge then gravity takes over and see how long it takes before the sponge stops releasing water. Then multiply this x 49 sponges as the number of pots the wall in the picture holds.

Also if you would do the suggested watering in intervals with a timer. You still drain the tank to fill the pots that slowly runs back again. In this cycle, you will have a constantly changing water level in the tank.

Could be a very natural looking feature draining flooding again with water raining back. But you would need quite a large tank for a large planted wall to make this change in water level less drastic. Thus for small volume setups, I don't think this would be very practical.

Another issue could be when the water is constantly fertilized you will get quite some salts (crystals) to build up in the planted media... At some point, it gets too much and will burn the plants. Thus for an aesthetical showpiece, it won't be a very long term success if the media isn't flushed and cleaned from salts buildup regularly. Then you would need to flush it now and then with non fertilized water, and this actually will flush out rather mineral richer water again draining to the tank. Thus quite some parameter differences and EC/PH swings in water contents. No idea how feasible this will be if sensitive livestock is in play?

In aquaponic setups that are used for growing herbs and other edibles, they will be harvested at one point and start fresh with new materials. They don't have to think about it if old growing media isn't reused.

I guess considering maintenance issues a much better approach would be to separate it. Build a sump behind the aquarium with a planted wall. 🙂
Then also the water level issues will reside in the sump and not in the aquarium.

Something like this.
View attachment 173368
Click to expand...
Thanks for this zozo. Unfortunately I don't have room for a sump behind the tank. I could create a partition in the back of the tank. I'd like to try and keep it as one system if I can though. I don't mind the water level in the tank fluctuating but thanks for raising it as I'll plant the tank with it in mind.
mort said:
This is another tank I was thinking of. You might find more details about it if you do some digging but essentially it looks like he ran the aerial plants on just one minutes water a day though an airline into some hidden guttering.

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

Your tanks: Steven Baker

Your tanks: Steven Baker
www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

Video: Steven Baker’s amazing ‘wall of life’ aquarium

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk
Click to expand...
It was this tank that made me want to extend things vertically.
Eventually I'd like to do something like this but will have to settle for something on a smaller scale for now.
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

"Fill and drain" (or "Ebb and flood"), it is very effective because it keeps the root zone oxygenated (for relatively little effort).

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...
Thanks Darrell that's it.
tam said:
Just to throw it out there, but have you considered not tying the two together at all. If you goal is just to have a planted wall behind, you could have pots hung on the wall, with plants in and just water them once a week when you do your water change and probably achieve the same thing without any of the complications of circulating systems and water retention. There are a big range on wall planters e.g.: Amazon product ASIN B07DD7G4TN
It part depends on what plants you hand in mind too - there is quite a big range that don't need a constant boggy situation and could have a simple (cheap or DIY) hanger.

Either way, I'd be wary about the amount of evaporation you get out of felt and would tend to lean towards the plastic options e.g. Amazon product ASIN B06XY6LM12 Whether if you did want auto watering you could connect those up with airline (or similar tubing) to direct the waterflow more accurate rather than rely on dripping and then use a small pump to circulate it up.
Click to expand...
This is what I'm leaning towards. Although the fleece planter might retain some moisture and allow the plants to root into it, I think it'll also cause a lot of evaporation.
Also using individual pots I can position them where I want.
Drip irrigation kits seem to have dropped in price significantly since the last time I looked. So I'm thinking of hanging pots in a box that will channel water back into the tank. In the pots I'm thinking of using cat litter as it's light weight. Then irrigate the pots using the drip irrigation system based on an ebb and flood cycle.
Diogo Sousa said:
I like this idea. And it is definitely feasible. As you mentioned before, using an inorganic soil is a must, I would personally use lava split (gravel but from lava rock). It doesn't hold much water but that's fine since you can turn the pump on as many times as you need in a day. With this type of soil drenching it with loads of water every time will work better than a sort of drip method.

In regards to salt accumulation, dosing less ferts is obviously better. In this scenario, the less water the soil retains the better, since then you can flush it many times a day. Another option is to fill your tank when doing a water change (with RO or soft water ideally) through the top of the plant pots contraption.

Are your pots going to be removable?
Do you get natural light above your tank?
Click to expand...
I'm not planning on making the pots removable but I am going to add a light above the wall.
 
I think I've talked myself out of this for now. It will definitely happen in the future but as I want to move, my house is quite small, having a huge planted wall might be a bit imposing not to mention the hassle it would add to moving.

I've done more thinking on the subject and I think I'll go the vertical hydroponic setup when I do go for it. I'm imagining multiple vertical pipes next to each other, with openings for plants recessed in. There are loads of examples of this working for food production online. My thinking is this will limit evaporation, salt build up and maintain aeration over the roots. Also I can use the tank as the reservoir. The only downside I can think of is noise. It'll create quite a lot of splashing, so might need to go for a stepped approach rather than vertical. This would result in some water storage so would need to factor that in if using the tank as the reservoir but it shouldn't be huge.

Anyway, it will happen one day and I'll report back when it does.
 
DeepMetropolis said:
Maybe you could fill up the pipes with crushed lavarock it would brake the splashing and is not to heavy
Click to expand...
Good idea, would work like a trickle tower then. Filter sponge might also work. I guess there is a risk of it clogging over time, so would need some sort of prefilter.
 
I think I have seen something like this on @ikeacabinetgreenhouse on insta, there might be some of the frog etc keepers builds that have done something along these lines, personally id have it contained to avoid the damp issues that could arises
 
heliophyte said:
How's it going with this idea? I found this product the other day that is basically what you drew VERSA GARDEN - Aquael
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing, that looks like a brilliant solution. I really like the light mount, very clean.

I didn't get off the ground with it in the end. I was worried about evaporation as it's already quite bad. When I have room for a larger tank I will go for something that I can partially enclose the above aquarium section, so I can maintain higher humidity for the plants but also contain some of the humidity.
 
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