DIY Flower Box Trickle Tower

Take four oblong flower boxes

Drill 100 - 1/4" holes in THREE of them (they stack so you only have to drill them once)
Cut 6- lengths of 3" pvc pipe about 4" long. This may vary depending on how deep your window boxes are. What they are used for is that a pair of them are placed on end in one tray and the tray above sits on them. This puts all the weight in the bottom and not on each tray. Less tippy. Partially fill the bottom three with 1 cu. ft. lava rock or feather rock and put Matala or similar pads (we have quilt batting at the moment to filter out green water algae) in the top tray. Feed water at the top and let it trickle down and exit the bottom tray.

There are lots of ways to mod this to make it usable in your situation; for example on one we did the return using the shower drain because it was going to sit over the pond. Other ways would be to have drains running out the side of the bottom tray or maybe a waterfall type weir. You just want to make sure your return will handle the volume your trying to run thru it. We are running about 16-1800gph thru it but it will handle the full 2400gph capability of the pump and its working extremely well.

Video of the two we have so far in operation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXF4orXAvmo

I haven't heard much talk about TTs in the last few years.

I had one a while back made out of a large strawberry pot filled with lava rock sitting on a plant stand in the middle of the pond. The pump was suspended under the pot and the water was pushed up through PVC pipe in the center and through a fountain head to trickle back down and out through the various openings in the jar. I don't know why I took it out. I guess I decided it was overkill with the 100 gallon Skippy and one more thing to take care of and pay the electric bill to run the pump.

This was my first pond. It was tiny. When we built the bigger pond, I used the same TT for a while.

Esther, I really like that strawberry pot idea. did you ever bare root some plants in the holes?
I might have to try that on something sometime.
Thanks!

Warning, warning----about bare roots in areas of filter media or lava rock!!!!
Get the idea?? I did that in the top of my Skippy a few years ago and WHAT A MESS!!! The plants loved it and sent roots all over through, around and inside the media there. I tried to clean it out in the fall and finally gave up and pitched the media and started with new. The next year I put the plants in plastic buckets to contain the roots and sat them in the Skippy.

Another negative about bare rooting flowering plants----when the blossoms drop off, they end up in the water.

I saw where someone had stacked just round plant pots and lava rock in the center of the pond with the water going up through PVC like mine too for a TT.

Did I get my point across?