The great 2024 wicking bucket/pot experiments

[gtaus]

Speaking of tall fill tubes, I recently salvaged some metal pipes that I think might make great tall fill tubes like in your pictures. Most of them are about 52 inches long, and they are 1-1/2 inch in diameter. Here is a quick picture of them...

My only concern is if it is safe to use metal (not PVC) pipes as fill tubes? Would the metal rusting over time be bad for the plants? And by bad, I mean I would be growing food in my grow buckets and eating the produce. Would using metal pipes as fill tubes be a concern?

Well, if safe, I think those metal pipes would be excellent as tall fill tubes that you could use as a support for plants.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Great score on the pipes!

Safe is definitely a good question. Rust is more of a concern about the pipes longevity since rust occurs in soil already.
The paint looks like powder coating. Many trellis get powder coated so that seems ok but research into that would be a good idea. I do know it's not recommended to use aluminium cookware. If they are aluminum (and I suspect they are) maybe a trellis that mounts to the outside of the raised boxes you make would be a good use.

 

[gtaus]

Great score on the pipes!

Safe is definitely a good question. Rust is more of a concern about the pipes longevity since rust occurs in soil already.
The paint looks like powder coating. Many trellis get powder coated so that seems ok but research into that would be a good idea. I do know it's not recommended to use aluminium cookware. If they are aluminum (and I suspect they are) maybe a trellis that mounts to the outside of the raised boxes you make would be a good use.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to look online for more info. I would prefer to use those metal pipes as fill tubes if safe. In any case, I might have some free fill tubes to go with the free buckets I get from Harbor Freight. That continues to bring down the price of a grow bucket build.

 

[Nomadicus]

Speaking of tall fill tubes, I recently salvaged some metal pipes that I think might make great tall fill tubes like in your pictures. Most of them are about 52 inches long, and they are 1-1/2 inch in diameter. Here is a quick picture of them...

View attachment 3863996

My only concern is if it is safe to use metal (not PVC) pipes as fill tubes? Would the metal rusting over time be bad for the plants? And by bad, I mean I would be growing food in my grow buckets and eating the produce. Would using metal pipes as fill tubes be a concern?

Well, if safe, I think those metal pipes would be excellent as tall fill tubes that you could use as a support for plants.

Untold billions of gallons of well water is supplied to homes annually from wells using black iron casings and galvanized casings too. And as Always I suspect CA has a Prop. 65 warning out on PVC pipe. It seems like I saw a news blurb awhile back about CA might ban the use of PVC pipe. Don't quote me on that because I could be wrong on that one. Deep well casings out of PVC pipe has not been around as long as Steel. Black iron has been the metal of choice for a lot of wells because the joints could be welded together instead of using threaded couplings that could fail a lot easier that the welded ones. That's from a commercial licensed well driller that I went to school with decades ago. I know of no wells ever that used aluminum and I know of no aluminum pipes being used ever for supplying potable water.

 

[gtaus]

I know of no wells ever that used aluminum and I know of no aluminum pipes being used ever for supplying potable water.

Thanks for the response. I understand the use of metal pipes for well water. I have well water on my property. I cannot imagine that thin aluminum pipe would ever be used to supply potable water because it would not hold up over time. However, I am just considering using the aluminum pipes as fill tubes in grow buckets.

From what I read online; small amounts of aluminum are actually used in the filtration of water supplies and are considered nontoxic. Refillable aluminum bottles are used as all the time for water and are considered safe. I suspect that using aluminum pipes as fill tubes in a 5-gallon grow bucket would be OK. Normally, I would just buy PVC pipe because it's cheaper. However, like I said, I salvaged a bunch of free aluminum pipes and would like to use them in some project instead of buying new PVC pipe.

 

[Smokerbill]

Thanks for the response. I understand the use of metal pipes for well water. I have well water on my property. I cannot imagine that thin aluminum pipe would ever be used to supply potable water because it would not hold up over time. However, I am just considering using the aluminum pipes as fill tubes in grow buckets.

From what I read online; small amounts of aluminum are actually used in the filtration of water supplies and are considered nontoxic. Refillable aluminum bottles are used as all the time for water and are considered safe. I suspect that using aluminum pipes as fill tubes in a 5-gallon grow bucket would be OK. Normally, I would just buy PVC pipe because it's cheaper. However, like I said, I salvaged a bunch of free aluminum pipes and would like to use them in some project instead of buying new PVC pipe.

It might be a good idea to check to finish on the tubing for lead, but I don't know if it could leach out and be absorbed by the plants.

 

[Nomadicus]

Thanks for the response. I understand the use of metal pipes for well water. I have well water on my property. I cannot imagine that thin aluminum pipe would ever be used to supply potable water because it would not hold up over time. However, I am just considering using the aluminum pipes as fill tubes in grow buckets.

From what I read online; small amounts of aluminum are actually used in the filtration of water supplies and are considered nontoxic. Refillable aluminum bottles are used as all the time for water and are considered safe. I suspect that using aluminum pipes as fill tubes in a 5-gallon grow bucket would be OK. Normally, I would just buy PVC pipe because it's cheaper. However, like I said, I salvaged a bunch of free aluminum pipes and would like to use them in some project instead of buying new PVC pipe.

I don't like the use of aluminum in cookware but after decades of use there are no known ill effects in my family. Aluminum cookware was at a very high heat often. I wouldn't be bothered by aluminum tubing used in a cold environment as in the planter boxes shown here. It normally takes heat as a catalyst to cause harmful chemical reactions with metals to the best of my knowledge. Most aluminum tubing and piping are used in structural things that don't touch human food supplies. If it were me and I got them for free I'd be using them. If the tomato acid in that old big pot that we ate hundreds of spaghetti meals cooked in (well over half a century) didn't mess with us a little cold water runing down an irrigation pipe won't now. Before Black poly pipe and PVC pipe came to be used for irrigation aluminum sprinkler pipe was used by many mega miles for irrigation in orchards and groves of all kinds of fruit and nut trees. My grandparents used it in their orange grove. I imagine in my wayward days of my youth I even drank some of the cold cool water that ran through that pipe.

 

[Nomadicus]

Once I get wicking buckets set up I think I will use the cheaper thin wall pvc. That is used for low pressure irrigation lines. Much cheaper than schedule 40.

 

[gtaus]

If it were me and I got them for free I'd be using them.

Thanks. I think they will be safe.

Once I get wicking buckets set up I think I will use the cheaper thin wall pvc. That is used for low pressure irrigation lines. Much cheaper than schedule 40.

I hope to make my grow buckets with as much free and/or salvaged materials as possible. I think I could get the cost down to almost nothing.

Having said that, if you value your time and you don't want to spend it looking around for things that might work, Amazon has a seller that provides inserts for buckets that only take a minute or two to put together a grow bucket...

At $14.00 per insert set, plus maybe another $6.00 for a 5-gallon bucket, you could have a complete grow bucket set up in a few minutes for around $20.00. I saw that system on a YouTube video where some guy was running a commercial operation and labor time was a big consideration. In that case, it made more sense for him to buy the insert kits.

Regardless if you make your own or buy the insert sets, he really liked the grow bucket system. Of course, on that scale, you would probably daisy chain all the buckets with a water delivery system to automatically keep the water level up in all the buckets.

I am more interested in maybe making my own grow buckets and that is why I enjoy this thread.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Yeesh that's expensive!

I cannot devote much time to seeking out the alternative sources and thought my bucket purchase was expensive. I almost abandoned the idea altogether. The bucket cost of mine wasn't bad but the shipping nearly doubled the cost.

I prefer the cheap/free options. I am looking into bucket sources near me for additional buckets for next year in case these work spectacularly.

While this thread is largely to document progress of this first group I like getting the input from others and looking at implementing those ideas.