FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

SEB wrote:That is a nice sized piece of property you have there!! I wish I had land like that to work with.

The bog also looks very interesting. I can't wait to see it done and all planted up!!

I'm on ~3/4 of an acre here. For ~8 yrs I had ~3/4 acre on each side of me. Now I have ~3/4 acre empty (overgrown) on 1 side of me, and "neighbors" on the other side for a few years now. I'm ~150' off of the road...they are right up at the road...so it's kinda like not having neighbors! The back is hard to describe, but it's overgrown as you can see from the pix. I do have people around me, but it's spread out a bit.

I'm getting there on the bog. Slow and steady, slow and steady...

Steve_D wrote:This must be the most elaborate planter ever! Thank you so much naja002 for documenting the construction process and allowing us all to follow along.

Not a problem, Steve. I am genuinely Happy that you and others are enjoying it! For me: Sharing is half the fun!

As for the documentation....keep in mind that:



Pichers! Gotta hab dem Pichers!

Daniel_G wrote:Ok, i have absolutley no idea what your doing, but it looks cool!
So good luck!

Many Thanx, Daniel!



Now today's update!

Last night I started working on a wooden box. I got it assembled before it got too dark (pretty darn close though! ) :




Today I took the hardware off of it, slung some stain around and put the hardware back on. No sanding. No Babying. The only reason that I bothered to stain it was simply to help it weather the weather a bit:




After I got it stained up and reassembled...I got it mounted:





It's hard to tell in the pix above, but the box is actually centered on the back of the reservoir.


As you can see in the pix above, I started staining the underside of the tops. Will be doing the same to the long-term piece of plywood in the planter area also. I ran short of stain, so I'll need to get some more.

Next it was time to seek a permanent home for my boat motor powerhead. So, get out the powerhead, the mount for it, some zipties, an old scrub brush and a rock:




First order of business was to clean that old rock:




Then finish the job:




Put it in it's new home:




And fire that sucker up:



While I was putzing around today, I flooded the planter area. The water level in the pix above is about where it will be if I Flood the planter area....meaning fill it up completely. That won't happen very often, I don't think, but things should be ok to let this powerhead run 24/7.


I hooked up the flood pump that pumps the water into the planter area:



I could actually just run this pump for the 1 min minimum that a timer would require, but I'm not going to do that. I'll just add a simple no-cost siphon break. That will give me complete control over the flooding. And at 11w to run the pump...I think I can afford it.

Ok, so I went ahead and added the siphon break. It was something that I needed to do anyway. All that is involved is putting a simple hole in the plumbing:




Here is a video of it at work. Check your volume, but you can hear the pump start pumping and hear it shut off. Once the pump shuts off, air enters the pipe and breaks the siphon. Without a siphon break...I would have little control over the amount of water fed into the planter area. This little hole changes all of that:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZqxacE_6GQ[/youtube]


If you look at the piece of pvc pipe...you can see where the water level is in the planter area:




And the reservoir is as full as it's going to get:




I added the other ~35 gals of rain water earlier. Seems, from my calculations, that I currently have ~15-20 gals of extra rain water in the planter area. However, at that low of a level--it's not an issue. I'll have to explain why a bit later on.


Just a quick video of the reservoir full to the top and the boat motor powerhead hard at work:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1eoqvKwWDA[/youtube]


Of course, I have straightened everything up and called it a day.

still loving this thread!

Looking good!
Still no idea what your doing. (What is this planter going to be for, and how will it work?)

Keep us posted with those "Pichers"!

Quietly watching this thread. Looking awesome!

Wow, it is going great! I can't wait to see it finish!

ziko88 wrote:still loving this thread!

Glad to hear it!

Daniel_G wrote:Looking good!
Still no idea what your doing. (What is this planter going to be for, and how will it work?)

Keep us posted with those "Pichers"!

It will be for VFTs, which is what I plan on sticking with. That said, however, I may end up adding some purple pitchers and/or sundews to my collection. I've always like the purps for some reason and the sundews are just kinda cool.

It's almost time for me to spell a few things out about this project. Not quite yet, but almost. Some things should be becoming a bit obvious at this point, but others may still be head-scrathers. After I get this phase 1 completed and the setup operating at it's most basic level....then I'll probably sit down and explain somethings, open it all up for questions on what's already been done, etc. If you go through my other projects, it's easy to see that I normally don't do this guessing game. But I thought it might add a "fun" element to this, since the fundamental nature of this is all really very simple.

Shes Crofty wrote:Quietly watching this thread. Looking awesome!

and Many Thanx!

jht-union wrote:Wow, it is going great! I can't wait to see it finish!

Well, it will be a while before it's actually "finished"! Will still have a lot of tinkering around to do with it this winter, next growing season, etc. I'm assuming that phase 2 should be completed, at least minimally, within the next couple of months. Then it will be more upgrades, tinkering, etc.


Just a mini-update:

Got out one of my homemade power strips:






Got it mounted into "the Box":




The pic below is actually from another project, but the wiring is the same 14 gauge. WAAAAAAY more than I will ever need for this project:




Surprisingly to me, I found a couple available items that I need that are not being used atm. Exactly what I was wanting to use anyway, so it looks like they just found a new home.

Yes, the next step will be to run electric to this setup and tinker around with it to get the flood/drain automated.

this project is cool and im looking forward to whats next! Good luck

Oooh, electric, water, and fue... wood. Perfect!
Looking good! But please, don't blow yourself up!

Naja002 wrote:It will be for VFTs, which is what I plan on sticking with. That said, however, I may end up adding some purple pitchers and/or sundews to my collection. Image I've always like the purps for some reason and the sundews are just kinda cool.

I'm sorry but why do you need all this for growing VFT? I can understand the Sarracenia maybe, but not the VFT.

I am super curious as to how this will work when it's up and running with plants.

Well, regardless, it still looks awesome!

Dubstep13 wrote:this project is cool and im looking forward to whats next! Good luck

Update below!

Daniel_G wrote:Oooh, electric, water, and fue... wood. Perfect!
Looking good! But please, don't blow yourself up!

Here, grab a hold of my arm while I wire this up real quick...!

SEB wrote:

Naja002 wrote:It will be for VFTs, which is what I plan on sticking with. That said, however, I may end up adding some purple pitchers and/or sundews to my collection. Image I've always like the purps for some reason and the sundews are just kinda cool.

I'm sorry but why do you need all this for growing VFT? I can understand the Sarracenia maybe, but not the VFT.

I am super curious as to how this will work when it's up and running with plants.

Well, regardless, it still looks awesome!

Thanx! I don't need this for VFTs, Sarrs, or anything else. It's just something that I have chosen to do. I could have accomplished the same goals with much less. I don't really think that there is much here that hasn't already been done before in one form or fashion. It's just something that I've chosen to do...and this is how I've chosen to do it.


Update time:


Today I mainly worked on the power supply. I started figuring out the conduit, digging a trench and running the wire and conduit:




I drilled a 1" hole into the bottom of the box and inserted an elbow:




And then started running the wire and conduit:



Once I got the wire and conduit to a crawl space....I covered everything back up:




I finished running the wire and conduit through the crawl space to an out-building were it connects for power.

Next I drilled another 1" hole into the top side of the box and inserted an adapter:




I've known that the placement of the drain in the planter area was not well thought out. I could have put it anywhere in the planter area, but without really thinking it through...I put it where it is. Yes, other places would have offered other issues, but it is what it is. So, I've known for a while now that plugging the drain pump into a power supply was going to be a bit of a challenge. So, this is what I have done. In order to help camouflage the conduit a bit....I got out some spray paint:




I let that dry while I was working on the other wiring. Once that was done it was time to deal with this. So, I started the assembly process. The end is glued into the adapter for a weather tight seal:




Then I ran the wiring/conduit down and around:






I was going to just cut the plug off of the pump and hard wire it, but decided at the last minute to just wire nut the plugin back on and leave the plug on the pump:

I had to "modify" the plug housing a bit in order to get it through the hole:




Once that was done, it was just a matter of plugging it in and nesting everything inside the electrical box:




Seal it up tight, secure the pump wire and create a drip-loop:




The hard part is now done:




Houston, we have:

POWA!

Just another quick mini-update:

The rocks in the drain will act as a good mechanical filter to prevent the bulk of any debris accumulation from entering the reservoir. I suspect, expect and hope that the majority of water for this planter bog will come from rain accumulation. So, I'm expecting most of the water to be initially filtered via the rocks in the drain.

However, as particles collect, including leaves, grass clippings, dust, dirt, pollen, etc over time, things will decompose. Fine particles will work their way into the reservoir. I already have quite a bit of accumulation from the building process and just having the lids off all day while I am putzing around working on it. Additionally, the boat motor powerhead just does not quite provide enough overall circulation. So, last week I dug out a Quiteone 1200 pump (296gph), put together a quick sponge filter and have been letting it run. I stopped by Lowes to get some stuff and picked up a few items need to make a more appropriate long-term mechanical filter for the reservoir.

The stuff:




I just took a piece of 3" pvc, cut to length, cut slots into it, filled it with polyester fiber/pillow stuffing/filter floss:




Put the end caps on:






Attached it to the pump connection assembly:




Connected the pump and put it in it's new home:




I have a 4" version of one of these in the reservoir of my chilled PC water cooling setup...works great.


While I had the stuff out, I went ahead and cut another piece of pvc, then cut it in half:




Sprayed some paint on it for camouflage:



It's purpose will be revealed in a future update. Literally, as soon as I sprayed the first burst of paint...it started raining. That ended the fun for the day, except for scrambling around unplugging stuff, putting it away, closing stuff up...


I checked the water of the reservoir yesterday: it's up to 22 ppm from 18 ppm. A lot of that though is as stated earlier--from the construction process and having the lids off all day while working on it. With this current rain, I am guessing that I will be pumping out ~30 gal of water from the reservoir, and then pumping in the same from the planter area. I suspect that will lower the TDS a bit.