Hey Bloggers,
Unfortunately, the basil in the system was wilting–who wants to eat wilted, under grown basil right? So, to fix this problem I gave our system an over-haul…
The problems were (1) the hose from the pump was getting pinched which cut off the water supply and (2) whenever the hose was not pinched and water flowed into the system freely, it would overflow. A delicate balance needed to be found. First, I drilled a hole in the bottom of the 4″ PVC to accept the hose from the pump solving problem number 1 (the pinching problem) then I drilled two more holes in the bottom to let water drain. I started small and went bigger. Here’s the cool part. I put our tank into the sink along with the pvc system however I put them in separately as shown in the picture. The pump went into the tank and pumped water into the pvc system and I was able to see it overflow, stop the system and drill a bigger hole right there in the sink (I put a cup under each hole to catch the pvc scraps) and started the system and tested again. This test system worked like a charm! I also changed the side outflow hole by adding a rubber hose and directing the water back into the tank out of fear that it would flow right out of the tank.
The last thing I did was change our timer so that it was getting fed more often (3 times a day) but for less time.
Only time will tell I guess! Here is the finished over-haul….
