Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a small aquaponics setup that I have 3 half barrel growbeds that I am using an internal U bend siphon. It has been filling and draining fine for the past couple months. This week I've noticed that my siphons haven't been working consistantly. I diconnected the external drain pipe and I found it half filled with roots. I pulled 3-4 feet of roots out of the pipe and as much as I could going back into the U bend. I have perf pipe surrounding my siphon end. I looked around the sides and there are some roots coming through the perf pipe, but not the amount or size that would account for 4 feet of health roots. It must be coming from the bottom and entering the siphon end and traveling the entire U bend and out the external drain pipes.
How can I stop this? Besides the point that its clogging and slowing down the siphon, I'm pretty impressed with the size and healthy appearance of these roots. I would have to guess it is tomato, cucumber and pole bean roots as my third bed is all lettuce and bok choi and didn't have 4' roots and a clogged siphon.
Any help? Or is this an inherant problem with internal siphons? Would I be better off going to a timed ebb and flow with a stand pipe that I can remove to clean? or even just twist the pipes to cut off any roots going through the drain hole?

Cory

Twist the perf pipe

If you can't keep the line clear, you're going to have to cut it and put in a clean out, with a water tight plug, somewhere so you can regularly run a small manual snake through to catch and tear out the roots. It will have to become part of your general maintenance and done on a consistent basis.

If you can arrange things so that you can take apart the top of the U bend siphon and pull the roots out whenever things start to slow up or whenever you think about it, that should work. I almost never glue plumbing if it is not under pressure and not in danger of being knocked out where it could cause a HSM.

I can't twist the perf pipe as I cut a hole and ran the pvc pipe through it. I did use a pipe hair cleaner that's how I got the biggest 4' root system out, but I'm sure the bottom of the syphon is still full. I guess I have to use a bigger perf pipe so it will give me room to disconnect the U and slide out the bottom to clean. Maybe I'll experiment with an simple stand pipe since I have to take one apart anyways.
Simple foolproof is what I want, its just that sucking siphon sound and the return water going from a little trickle to a rushing waterfall is so cool

Cory

If your pump can fill all the beds in under 15 minutes, then I'd say go for the standpipe/timer method as far as being pretty easy (but you do need to make sure you have extra aeration going if you do that method.)