Widemouth Deep Water Culture Grow Jar

This is a Deep Water Culture (DWC) lid adapter for a wide mouth bell jar used with a Modular hydroponic tower pod (from the linked/remixed project). This is ideal for relocating a small number of plants to or from a tower for brief or extended periods of time (wintering plants and early germination). Germinating plants using this method results in root systems that grow out the bottom of the planter so that they can be placed back into the tower after however long. Using this method allows you to get a very early start on your growing season by allowing you to move plants indoors in the event of cold weather/frost.

Each DWC Jar requires:

• 1 Printed DWC Lid Adapter
• 1 32 Ounce Widemouth Jar
• Several small cut sections of 1/4" standard tubing (standard for dwc, irrigation and drip systems)
• An Air Stone
• An air pump (strong enough for your air stone)
• A method to block out light from the jar

Assembly:

• Soak your airstone in water until it is saturated (air stones are porous and require wetting for an hour or so before they can function).
• Cut a section of 1/4" irrigation tubing 8-9 inches long; attach one end to your air stone and one end into the bottom of the printed lid, Be careful when inserting the tubing into the bottom of the lid adapter; too much force can break the barbed nozzle and you'll have to print it again.
• Secure the lid adapter onto the ball jar using the jar ring firmly.
• Fill the jar with nutrient specific to its needs
• Attach another section of 1/4" tubing to the jar lid adapter (top) and to your air source. Depending on the strength of your air source, you may need to prime the stone by blowing into it yourself.
• The plant pod (or the plant seed in your grow medium; I stick to clay pebbles and rock wool cubes)

Multiple DWC Jars can be grouped together to use a common air source, and, depending on your air source, it can be split several times to serve more plants. I've been grouping mine in batches of 6 in a wire mesh basket and powering 3 jars with a single output to my air pump.

It is important that light does not enter the jars; there are generally two ways you can prevent this, depending on your willingness to dedicate your jars to the cause.

• Wrap the jar (or the jar carrying case) in tin foil
• Use Chalkboard Spraypaint Adhesive (Black); consider leaving a small thin strip of the jar unpainted so you can get an idea about how much water+nutrient to fill.

Light can be further blocked out from the top using a light shield (TPU): https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4625620 . If you do end up getting algae in your plant's environment, you can toss the jar into the dish washer and restart the grow environment.

Here are a bunch of parts I ended up sourcing, but most of these are flexible based on where you live and how many DWC jars you need:

• Black chalkboard Spray paint
• Ball Jars
• Air Pump
• Air Stones
• Irrigation Drip Tubing and some connectors
• Wire Mesh Basket

The pump above linked is cheap (and a bit loud) but can power 12 DWC Jars (2 baskets worth). If you run this outside, you will need to protect it from the rain.