Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Fruther point on that last post those 100mm screw on caps are around $5.4 each so use a hole saw.

Also the least observant among you should have noticed that the o-ring in the previous photo isn't doing any good where it is. In fact that entire setup is again something that hasn't really worked. By that I mean it leaks air.

This time however it is not my fault. The fault lies with the plumbing guy who sold me the fittings after I explained in detail (with pictures) what I was doing and what I needed the fittings to do.

On the back of that fitting is a locking nut which has it's own o-ring as well. When the nut if tightened onto the nipple if it gets too tight the o-rings bulge out from underneath and don't seal. However if you don't tighten it up enough to make them bulge a bit then they leak. In this picture the one in the inside on the siphon is basically doing its job while the one on the nipple side is as you can see being decrative. Basically I was sold the wrong stuff by someone who acted like they new what they were doing but didn't (and treated me like an incompetent for not knowing about the fittings I needed for the job).

Problem was i thought I had an airleak but couldn't be sure and suffered massive frustration trying to locate it until I had a brillant idea...



After I realised his incompetence I got referred by someone else to Enzed...



After a quick chat with them I realised that for the top of the siphon I need air fittings not water fittings. They sold me bulk head fittings with washers rather than o-rings (cause you really need to make it tight) and teflon tape so that it will be totally sealed.

In case you havn't realised today I'm catching up on documenting my fiddlings over the last week.

In trying to get the switching system working I've had a lot of problems with the siphon being broken but I thought it was because the siphon was pulling the water too far past the bend on the GB (vs sump) side of the no-holes overflow and sucking air and then breaking the siphon.

I realised after a while that no their must be an airleak and I suspected the fitting (the enzed one) because that was the most likely spot.

So I re-primed the siphon, turned everything off, pulled out the sthescope and scearched for the leak. With the sthescope it was really easy to hear and by moving it around I located the leak in one of the DWV joins. Thankfully it was really easy to fix by dribbling plumbing glue onto the top of the join and cappillary action had the glue flowing around the join in the right angle formed by the edge of the female fitting on the DWV pipe. Used a fair bit of glue but the leak is fixed.



This was one of the few successes for the week

One of the reason I'm spending today catching up on documenting what I've been upto is cause I really need some help. Explaining it all may help me come up with a solution by myself but it may not. As I've spent the last week trying to get the valves to open and close in sequence I'm not entirely hopeful.

In order for you to help I need to explain what I'm doing really well.

Schematic is here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1353&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=180

In the diagram I've got the 13mm pipe going into the top of the bucket in order to try and fix the problem I now have it going through the side.



I did this so that the water level in the GB wouldn't have to be higher than the top of the bucket. By changing the length of pipe on the inside of the bucket I can control the emptying of the GB.

Second thing that is different from the diagram is that the sump end of the no-holes drain (from GB to sump) is not straight it is flexible being ag-pipe. Because of this I've had it going around in a curve as you can sort of see in this photo.

One of the limitations of the setup is that the range of movement that I have is relatively small. By that I mean the bucket can really only go up and down about 20cm. To deal with this the the end of the no-holes drain is on apulley so that when the bucket moves 20cm it moves about 40cm. So that the counter weight dosn't have to be too massive its on a pulley as well so that it gets a mechanical advantage of 2:1 to balance the mechanical advantage of the water in the ag-pipe. This was neccesary because the counter weight was allready 4 bricks and some gravel and I was running out of room in the counter weight bucket.





It is hard to see the pulley in the 2nd pic but it is level with the scaffold (monkey bars) in the near back ground. Down below you can see the ag-pipe higher than the bucket. When the valve trips it will be lower than the bucket.

Oh the other thing that is different from the diagram that instead of a small drain hole in the buckets they now have auto siphons because the water level in the sump was so high that both buckets were getting full and the valves didn't trip because the buckets stayed level with each other no matter how long the pump ran.

There have been many minor problems and Ive posted the solutions to a few of them but this is the list of major problems:

Buckets not filling enough so that they don't empty (via auto siphon) and allow GB ho holes over flows to close.
GB no holes over flows siphon so strongly that at the end of the drain they suck air into the no holes overflow and break the siphon.
Sometimes when buckets do fill so that auto siphon in bucket kicks in the auto siphon drains the bucket before the GB can fully drain.

The biggest reason that these are major problems is because I havn't found solutions as yet and believe me I've tried.

Stuart

I am having a little (well a lot actually ) of difficulty in following the schematic. The ag pipe is your valves? This is a sort of giant flout system operated by pulleys and counterweights?

I can't remember if I heard of the flout before or after I had the idea of counter weights either way they entered my head very close to one another.



Yep. The idea is that the counter weight is heavy enough to keep the valve closed as water level increases in the ag pipe (gets heavy). When water enters the bucket the combined weight of the water in the agpipe and the bucket out weighs the counter weight in the fish tank by a large enough margin to over come the friction in the pulleys (bigger than you think).

Had long think over my plumbing.

The figure on the bottom is how the plumbing is done currently.



Main point to note is the extra pulley on the end of the over flow. As the bucket fills and falls the over flow pipe lowers twice as much.

THe first Idea that I had was to take the cable that was attache to the bucket and attach it to the ag pipe about 75cm from it end. Then take the end that was around the agpipe and move that to the very end of the agpipe (just above the hook) as shown in this quick sketch. In the bottom of the hook and one just above the hook would be small holes.



This does away with the emptying and filling of the bucket problems +1. The cable directly connected to the ag pipe controls the level at which water will start leaving the GB. As the water begins to travel the last length of the ag pipe its weight will increase quickly to the point that it will outweigh the counter weight and over come the resistance of the pulleys. As the ag pipe lowers water will rush out and start a siphon action emptying the GB. When the GB is empty The siphon will stop but not break because of the hook on the GB end of the no holes overflow. The small hole above the hook will allow air into the agpipe breaking the siphon in the agpipe but preserving the siphon in the no holes overflow.

Make sense?

2nd idea was that rather than have two of these running in sequence I would set the other bed up as a normal auto siphon but with the over flow from the FT set several inches above the over flow leading to the GB with counter weight control. When the GB with the counter weight setup (Black GB or GB 1) was emptying the pump would return water to the FT but the over flow into the Black GB would be closed (held up out of the water). The level in the FT would rise until it reached the over flow in to the GB with the autosiphon (Blue GB or GB 2).

Makes sense?

No idea if it will work but it would mean getting rid of a hole set of cabling and pulleys

I had a visitor this morning that said I should simplify things. This would go some way to doing that.

IF anyone has any better ideas, even other ideas would be recieved, I'd love to hear them.

Stuart 6

Stuart Stuart i see what you are trying to do but its far to comlicated[yes i was the visiter] there is shorely a better way of doing it i personley would pull all the pully stuff out and start again [ show a photo of your sump now ] one thing i noticed is the water entering the grow beds from the bottom and exiting from there as well you will get a buildup of gunk in the agg pipe [he has a 3in slotted pipe along the bottom of the grow beds ] and the water will exit from the bottom when that happens all the gunk will end up in the sump move your slotted pipe to the top of the gravel then the junk will be distrebuted right through the gravel
I think float awitches and valves [like elleakabe] spelling ] in the fish tanks would work
as far as i am aware ell so far is the only one with successful sequencing grow beds
If i was doing it i would run 2 pumps on seperate timers in the ft and a pump on a float in the sump in my book running 3 pumps for 20 min is the same as running one for 60 min stuart pm me your phone no if you like i am shore we can nut something out

I'm sure there is but I didn't now that before I started



No I don't want to


It is actually 4" agpipe 100mm and there are two of them. One runs up the outside of the GB away from the FT and then the other runs along the inside of the GB to wards the FT and the no holes overflow. Separating them is appromixately (at least there will be once the gravel is all in) 80cm of gravel.

I wanted to keep them both on the bottom of the GB to keep the level of root invasion to a minimum.

Willng to be convinced that one should be on top but I'm not yet.



If I have to I will but it is a last resort.

So.. does the over-riding design principle revolve around filling the growbeds sequentially Stuart????

I know what you are going to say but yes it is.

I've been thinking about this as the consequences of being wrong are substantial, mucky and non filtering. The thought that just occured to me is that it's probably not going to make a lot of difference. If the two lengths of agpipe are as far apart as possible that will be 1.2m* where as having them both on the bottom of the GB but on opposite sides the distance is .8**m. How much difference will the 40cm make?

*Cross section of GB 1m x 1M
Diagonal distance from bottom to opposite top corner = sqrt of (1x1 + 1x1)=sqrt(2)=1.4m
Distance between pipes equals 1.4m - diameter of pipes = 1.4-.1-.1=1.2m

** Distance accross bottom of GB 1m
Distance between pipes as they are 1m - diameter of pipes = 1-.1-.1=.8m