Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey Everyone,

Following is a description of my issue, I am feeling pretty confident that the folk using this site are experienced and competent so I'm looking forward to hearing from some of you old schoolers.

Set up my system, sump, fish tank and bed, begin cycling, add some veggies, add a couple tester fish, all good.
(275 gallon fish tank)

Buy some Tilapia, add in a radial filter and now somehow if water is pumping into fish tank, fish tank overflows.

there are NO CLOGS, so that's out and siphon is operating. I checked for clogs in fish tank, have not taken siphon apart because it looks like it's working as usual.

Things I don't know about because I am a rookie:

I need to know if topping my sump tank too high affects the water level in the fish tank or the ability of the siphon to not drain quickly enough. I might have just filled the sump too high but i have no clue.
Along with that there is the radial filter feeding into the fish tank and directly back out to itself, and I dont know if that affects the water level in the fish tank either.

I turned off radial and just tried sump pump and that didnt work, fish tank still overflowing. Using radial alone with no sump pump seemed not to raise the level of the fish tank by itself.

Im gonna go put a smaller pump in the sump and see if that helps. The problem is, the system was fine for weeks, so changing the pump shouldnt be the answer.

I'D LIKE TO FIND OUT THE ANSWER TO THIS SITUATION, WHICH I KNOW I WILL BUT WOULD BE NICE IF YALL HOOKED ME UP WITH SOME INFO!
THANK YOU EVERYONE
B

Pictures are easier to understand than words. Photgraphs and diagrams means we don't have to think too hard to work out what might be going wrong.

With the RFF ensure the top of your inlet pipe is at the height of where you want the water level in your fish tank. The RFF pipe sets the water height of your tank and you may have to just trim the pipe down a bit. Cheers

Yep, need some pics....



So everything worked fine to you added the RFF, sounds like there's your problem for whatever reason..

Yep, sounds like the pipe size into/out of the radial flow.... probably can't keep up with the flow being pumped to the tank...

Pics would be good.

Since no one has mentioned it, filling the sump more completely, will lower your pump head height and mean that more water is being pumped to the Fish Tank. Whether it should be overflowing because of this, I don't know, since there could be other issues.

How did you go with this, any answers?

Sounds to me like there must be a restriction in the overflow pipe.

As everyone else is saying: pics please.

But, in answer to your question about filling up your sump affecting your pump/flow; this will slightly reduce your head height and your pump will deliver slightly more water to your fish tank. However I don't think this will be your problem.

30cm difference in the water level in my sump only causes a dribble to come through the overflow. At all other times it is just on the edge of overflowing.

As others have said your RFF is most likely restricting your flow.