Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey all,

It's been a couple years since I was active on this forum. Had a small system called the Farm. It had it's flaws but it was pretty great for my first go around. Since then I have moved across the US to Arizona. Sparing my life details, I will show you my new system. Well, it's actually my dad's, since it's in his backyard. But geez I did all the work. Anyways, here goes!!

Basic system is I believe a CHOP2, but I won't argue if you tell me different. 2100g/h pump is in a buried IBC sump. Flow splits between fish tank and growbeds. FT drains to 55 gallon swirl filter, back to FT. Grow beds consist of 6 IBC growbeds, 75 gallons or so each, in 2 rows. The plan is currently to have 2 DWC and 4 media beds. Also in the works is a row of grow towers. All drain by gravity back to the sump.


My biggest system build to date. Digging that sump was a bear. Also used all reclaimed wood.


3 standpipes, with bell siphons, or constant flood if DWC.




Combined drainage of growbeds


Split flow from from ST pump to FT and GBs. Controversial subject, but I guess you can tell where I stand on it.


Gravity drainage from FT to SF to ST. At some point we will upgrade the fish tank to a larger round tank.


Swirl filter is basic, works pretty well thus far, though no fish yet so hasn't really been tested. The outflow valve has a few openings to try and drain the bottom adequately.


Plumbing to the 2nd row of grow beds is not finished.


Floating a few sprouts just for fun

I'll post more pics as I finish. Suggestions and comments are welcome.

Major question for the moment. Does anyone have any experience with having combined drainages on their bell siphon? From initial trial running I'm having some trouble with the individual siphons firing.

What I'm finding is that when the down stream bed (closest to the sump) is DWC, in other words constantly draining, the two up stream media bed bell siphons won't fire. They'll start draining, but never start siphoning. My guess is that a kind of air lock happens between the bed attempting to siphon and the DWC constant drain.

I'm still working on solutions, but I wanted to ask the class if you had any experience with such, and what you did to overcome. I would love to keep just one drain pipe, simply because it looks clean, but if i have to have separate drains to the sump then I will. Also thinking about a larger drain pipe, to let more air in and out. I'm currently trying a constant flood on the upmost-bed, and bell siphons on the two downstream, to see if that helps.

Anybody seen something like this and can give me advice?

Most I have had connected it four. I shot all the heights of the stand pipes to be at the same elevation and adjusted the fill rate so when one completes draining the next one kicks in. I had all sorts of issues with not getting proper break until I made all the stand pipes the same height.

Goes about 4-5 times per hour.

3/4" stand pipe with 1" drain and I also have slight upturn in the discharge to make a bit of back pressure to stop flow

Adam

I have sets of 3 and 4 bell siphons draining into one 1-1/2" lateral pipe (3/4 standpipes with 2" bell, 90° at bottom T into side on 1-1/2" pipe). I have had trouble with them draining normally - when one is draining the others fill too high before they start to drain. This makes it hard to maintain a set water level in each bed. They often fill above the bell siphon (and media) before triggering. It is worst in my one run of 4 GB's that drain into a pipe feeding DWC beds - that pipe always has water in it and therefore more back-pressure or reduced flow.

I added a 3/4 vent pipe (like a sewer vent on your house) at the extreme upstream end of the laterals and it helped a little, but not much. I've been running for almost 2 years like this and it is working. I did add "overflow" drains between beds and an alternate overflow drain to the sump from the last bed in the string. That way if one GB plugs up or fills too much it will overflow to the adjacent bed and ultimately to the overflow drain on the last bed. That way nothing should ever spill out of the system.

I agree with adding vents/breather tubes, with the small diameter pipe you're using along the bottom into your sump, once 2 or more GB's drain at once there would be no air in the pipe causing a lot of back pressure.

I had the same problem on a single GB that had a long run using a small diameter pipe (50mm) that needed venting to get the bell siphon running correctly. Plus the fact that the stand pipe was connected directly to the long running pipe meant there was always going to be back pressure and would need venting. (bottom photo)

On the other run where I had 3 bell siphons running together I used a 90mm pipe for the return to the sump and just drilled large holes to allow the end elbows on the bottom of the siphon drain pipes to breath and stop any back pressure, that way all the bell siphons were the normal configuration just draining into a larger pipe with no back pressure and the pipe diameter was larger enough to carry the volume if and when all the GB's drained at once. (top photo)

As Dstjohn99 said you will need to add venting but in your situation I would think that you would need more than 1 vent and maybe even 1 for every bell siphon and all vents need too be tall enough not to allow any overflow.

Another option to help time your draining would be drilling each media guard with different size holes, large holes in one, smaller holes in the next and smaller again the one after, that way they would have different drain times.

I too have vent pipes and a valve @ each grow bed to fine tune fill so that they kind of drain in order without overflowing. I also kept the drain set 2" below gravel so if one does not trigger initially, I have 4" of space and the next most filled kicks in when whatever one is finished draining.

I also sloped my drain pipe 1/4" / foot.

Adam

Hey all!

Thanks for the replies. Good thoughts and remarks all around.

The vent idea is a good one but I decided to table that until I was sure I couldn't get things working.

I went ahead and changed to 3 U-siphons instead of bells, which was hard at first because I do love bell siphons. However I noticed that any time air was sucked down from an upstream standpipe, it would exit the downstream standpipes, which would float the bell siphons, and cause issues. No moving parts in a u-siphon, and mine seem to work.

I also made sure to level all three u-siphons (a little harder since they don't have standpipes per say). From what I'm seeing now, they are all firing separately, although not concurrently. But they all seem to work!! I even have 3 DWCs draining into the same drainage pipe downstream of the 3 flood and drains, and everything seems to be working! Here's the pics.


Finished the DWC containers, fit the rafts in. Also, bought another 10 bags of hydroton to fill the last media bed. By my math, it takes 7 50L bags to fill each media bed. I immediately wished I hadn't done that math. Better to live in ignorance.








And here's a pic of the U-siphon.


And a shot of an Arizona sunset, with a herd of rabbits.



Of note, the water I'm using is well water, untreated. The first set of readings I did showed a ph of 7.6, ammonia 0.25, nitrites 0, nitrates 20. This was a huge revelation for me since my first system I battled chloramine for like 2 months before I got any nitrates.

I put in a bit of fish emulsion to keep the ammonia level up for cycling, and my pH jumped to 8.4, ammonia was 0.5, nitrates 0, and nitrates were 40.

Gonna give it a couple weeks, and then add tilapia from a friend's AP system. I'll add some insulation to the fish tank too. In the mean time, I've got seeds germinating, gonna finish the raft cups, and and plant out the beds! Gotta love southern Arizona winter time.

Question. Does anyone use grow grips? What is your process for using them? Different sizes? Germinate in the 1 inch, transfer to the two inch?

I'm very interested in your U-siphons, but the photos in your latest post do not show up for me. I remember using U-siphons for a short time but I don;t recall why I switched back to the bell siphons. I had the same issues with air lifting the bells.

Dstjohn99

Here's a better photo


A short standpipe to a 45 degree, to a 90, to a 90, and one more 45, then the intake pipe cut to within a half inch or so of the bottom of your grow bed. The u-siphons won't fire at the same time, and they also won't recycle until another bed is ready to fire, but this hasn't proven to be a problem yet for me.



Just finished insulating the fish tank. Painting the growbeds a nice forest green next. Throwing some plants in since I've got some good nitrates, though my pH is still 8.4. I'm doing a foliar spray with some diluted organic plant food stuff, and will be adding a handful of worm castings to each media bed once I have some ready. (side note: This is an awesome product)

Also dosing with a bit of fish emulsion to bring the ammonia level up to stimulate some nitrification, as I'm getting some fish next Tuesday.

Not sure why but here's how your photos are showing for me...

The photos in your earlier posts show up fine, but the last two are like this.

Well that's frustrating. Didn't think I changed my method. But here it is as an attachment.

That works, thanks!!! I like your design, a couple extra fittings but it might work in my situation. I have 4" media guards and I was using two street elbows to make the U. It seemed that triggering the drain was inconsistent but that is likely due to the multiple beds draining into one lateral.

Funny you should say that, since I based my grow beds design on yours. Every once in a while I have to check out the photos you posted of your backyard. I'm a big fan of your "oasis" approach. Especially the lighting. Gardens should be lived in, imho!

Here are a few pics of my progress so far.



Emptying U-siphon, with the media guard doing a poor job of guarding media

Almost full, about to fire

Looks really good! Do you have good success with the foam plugs for starting / growing stuff or too early to tell? I recently added 1" holes between my 3" holes for rockwool starters but success is limited. I think my seeds are old. I also converted a media bed to DWC and made rafts for 2" pots. The clear film has peeled of the rafts but I don't know where to get any plain Styrofoam sheets, so I still use the insulation panels. They are working well.