Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I like it Joel.....

I've always wondered: if a low flow pump continuously pumping from the sump to the fish tank forcing water into the grow bed controlled by an autosiphon would work? Particularly if you had two or three grow beds to spread the flow out? Make sense? All draining back to the sump of course.

Don't see why it wouldn't... Though you do have to have your flow level high enough to start the auto siphon, maybe flouts?

flouts?

Lot written about them here MF, interesting concept
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... ight=flout

Hi Joel,

I like your system.

Would I be correct in assuming that a restriction of this type of system is that your sump has to have a larger volume than your GB? (otherwise the sump might be empty during the pumping cycle)

Scott.

Very nice and simple system EB. I like the use of gravity to run the system on one pump only.

I think systems like this don't need auto-syphons or flouts. All you need is to run the pump for long enough to flood the grow bed/beds and then the water all drains back to the sump. As long as the sump holds enough water to flood all the beds at once everything should be sweet.

Nova

Yes, the problem is that you do need a rather large sump.. It doesn;t need to be a larger volume than the growbed, because the growbed is generally over half full of gravel.. But then you also want the pump in the drain to remail covered with water..

In the near future I'm going to set one up like this but using a 500L drain tank, and one of my new growbeds.

It should be easy to work out what size sump is needed though. Just need to measure how much water will fit into a 10L container full of gravel.

The other benefit is that the water level in the fish tank stays at the same level, it is the sump that fluctuates. My next system will be built this way.

Nova

Almost there Nova, I have positioned the centre standpipe in the new tank to set the water level at a constant 700mm depth and hope to have the tank on the stand ready for water this weekend

hahahahaha..... sorry, might be my sick sense of humour but I read you comment there Les as being:



Didn't make much sense, but sounded interesting...

How do you deal with the solids removal from the fish tank this way?

You go Les....


I have one question for all of you. Can we reach a consensus on what to call this type of system? I struggle every time. Is it the gravity fed system, venturi style, sump based system? Let's work this out.

Also....I want to add that my experience has led me to conclude the greatests shortcoming with this type of system is not so much having to source a large sump, but aerating the fish tank since constant flow is not required into the grow beds.

Anyone?

Damien... the venturi drain in the fish tank scavenges solids from the bottom of the tank. In a round tank, if you circulate the incoming water along the edge of the tank you get a cyclone or funnel effect that forces all solids to the center of the tank where the drain is located. Any solids nearing the center drain get sucked up into the venturi. Hoever I think Joel has his drain at the side of the tank? Joel?

dthawk - I think I'm confusing you with Damien....sorry.

Hey MF, there are other configurations that use gravity, venturi drains, and sumps. I think unique characteristic is the contant water level in the fish tank.

My current system has the same characteristics except that it is sump->grow beds->fish tank rather than sump->fish tank->grow beds. I'm also not using a venturi drain per se because the outlet is on the side of the fish tank rather than the bottom (just like EB's pictures). The reason it is this way is to use the high flow from the auto-siphoning grow beds to aerate the water, and because I couldn't or didn't want to raise the fish tank up high enough to drain into the grow beds then the sump. The downside is that the solids go through the sump before hitting the grow beds, but so far that hasn't been as big an issue as I had imagined.

I think the flow out of the fish tank to grow beds would be enough to start siphons - if the flow up to the beds is enough to start siphons in my system a rearranged version would be the same flow all around and lower beds would start just as well, I would think. If I had more vertical space I would add beds after the fish tank and before the sump in my system, or maybe try out a tidal system like J7 sketched out.