Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone,
I've been contracted to turn the outlaws fish pond into an AP set up.
The pond is a half buried, brick rectangle with a 1.8m obelisk type water feature in the middle. I make it to be about 300L. I thought I'd put 2 tubs from B across the back totalling 2.4m*.6m and have a pump run the water feature and T some of the flow into the beds. I would like to keep the level constant in the pond so it's been suggested I should just run the beds as constant flow. I could run 2 pumps, 1 for the water feature and 1 on a timer for the beds, stand pipe F&D.
I'd post some pics if I knew where anything was in this house or how to work it.

You could always have a T off the fountain pump and two small siphons in the beds, leave the pump going and add a tap to the gb line so they fill slowly then siphon when full.
The two beds (once full of media) won't take that much water so the level in the pond should not fluctuate much
This should save you an extra pump and timer

I had wanted to use syphons but the GB's add up to 400L or so and they would have to line up occasionally and halve the fish pond. Also, the BYAP shop uses stand pipes now and don't sell syphons and I don't have time to work out how to work them ( I use stand pipes).
Is there any problems with constant flow? It would solve a few minor issues if it worked fine.

Can't see a problem with it, but are you sure both beds take 400L when full of media, they must be big beds

The tubs are 400L themselves so might use 200L of water once the media goes in. I'm off to get some stuff to give this a bash. Might be running tonight.
Massive 'might'

Good luck

If the tubs from Bunnings are the 200L ones... then two of them, by the time you put the media in... will only take about 200L max.. in total...

Why not just use loop siphons with a continuously running pump???

Well the level is really a problem, then get one of the indexing valves and fill only one bed at a time.

The indexing valve is a bit hardcore for a 3-400L knock up. I haven't tried mine at home yet so I don't know that much about them yet. A question to city types out there. What do you use for a water supply? I've only got irrigation or rain water at home. What's in city water?
And where do you find random chunks of timber or bricks or fibro to prop up one end of a grow bed? All you 1/8th acre people out there really do it tough.
I'm a bit scared of syphons. I've never tried one and I'm hoping to set and forget this system. If there are any problems, I've taken her to the BYAP shop so she knows where to ask for help....

Grandma should be pulling into the BYAP shop about now for 4 more bags of Hydroton and we're done.

Very neat

I have used all the siphon types.... loop, bell and affnan.....

the loop and bell siphon are good ones... the affnan is on the top of my list.... I make mine adjustable and they start the first time and every time since....

my newest GB AP setup has been running on three affnan siphons since the first of june... without a problem...

jT

i had so much trouble with my bell siphons, until i worked out a few tricks.

i use varied sizes 20mm 25mm drains, my longest distance is about 3mt and shortest is about 400mm.

a few main things iv found.

- Make sure you have an Elbow on the end of your Drain pipe.
- make sure the horizontal pipe has Fall on it so when the siphon is trying to stop it can suck that last bit of air and break the siphon.
- for ease of triggering iv just put Couplings on the top of my standpipes gives it that little bit of extra diam, one of my tricker ones that has slower flow than the others has a 25mm coupling with a 20-25 Sleeve inside of it. triggers every time.
-Constant flow rate!!!!!!!! there can be a small gap between too much water flow and not enough. too much makes the siphon not want to turn off where not enough wont trigger.
-sometimes you need to just walk away, and come back later to see if its turned off, they can bubble for a while before they want to switch off, once you get used of the time it wont seem as long....

after finding all this, iv had no trouble with any of them, but iv thrown many pipes over the fence, kicked many stones, and retired for many a beer trying to get mine going when i first started......

Photos