Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello,
I've got a problem that i can't solve with my siphon system.
It does'nt initiate well.


All the pipes are in 50mm. The adaptater on the top is 50 to 80 and 80 to 110 together. The big pipe for the bell is 160mm of larger.
The fist part of the siphon look work, water pass throught but not so fast. The second part, the 10m of pipe doesn't work, the flow don't initate this part and i think air is still in the pipe.

I also tryied U-siphon but same matter.
I really don't know what to try now. Maybe a smaller pipe (like 40mm) for the 10m pipe but not sure it's a good idea. Any idea ?

Sorry for my bad english, i am doing my best.

Thanks,

Quentin

Hi Quentin welcome to the forum . I'm not certain what the problem is but I suspect the drop directly under the standpipe might be too short. Have you considered going with Constant Flood instead of using a siphon?

You most likely don't have enough water flow to initiate the siphon. 50mm is a very large diameter for a siphon, it will require a lot of water flow to get it working. 50mm would only be used for a very large grow bed, what are the dimensions of your grow bed (length, width, gravel depth)?

Also, as Scotty suggested, the drop may be insufficient. If possible, it would be better to have the standpipe exiting through the floor of the grow bed, then fit the 90 deg' elbow and a short piece of horizontal pipe of the same diameter, for 50mm pipe probably about 400-500mm long, which then dumps into a larger dia pipe (ie: 90mm SWV) for the 10m run back to your FT/ST.

I got a 50mm outlet to siphon fairly well by restricting the internal diameter of the standpipe with a smaller diameter piece of pipe. Just wrapped a heap of layers of rape tape around a 25mm pipe and wedged it into the 50mm pipe.
Crude, but worked.

Not sure how you will incorporate that into your system though with that design.