Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm considering a design with a fish tank -> slo to a dirty sump sitting next to it -> pumps pumping up to a growbed -> gravity drain back to the fish tank. I'd like to keep as many solids out of the growbed as possible as I will be heavily stocked and I'd be nice to have some fertilizer fot the soil garden. What if instead of running one 1" pvc pipe up... what if I ran say 6 or 8 or 10 (or more) with the same sized pump. The water would move much slower and if it was slow enough, the solids wouldn't rise to the top. Then I could provide a path for the solids to move horizontally and back down to the sump. Does anyone see why this wouldn't work? Also, would a large volume of water in pipes above the pump cause a lot of back pressure and damage the pump?

Perhaps have a vertical large diameter pipe sitting vertically next to the sump with some packed media (bottle caps) in it. The water enters it a third the way up and skims off the top of it into the sump. Like a first flush on the gutters. The vertical pipe outlet at the top can be your water level control for the fish tank. Pop a valve on the bottom with a hose connection for you garden... welllahhh.

No, only head or height above the
Pump matters, it wouldn't make any difference to the pump if you went into a 50" pipe.

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