Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

the best siphon i've ever had bar nothing has been a 750ml PET beer bottle with the bottom cut out, and a valve to restrict the out flow.
this is on my current system and it works with no fall under my stand pipe. the outlet is actually drilled through the side of my bed not under the bottom, with the standpipe connected to it via an elbow and the bottle just sitting loose on top.

it didn't work well until i added the valve and pinched the out flow just a tiny bit.

We have had our siphons here at the shop working without a problem for a few months now.. Had to break the rules of course, ran the outlet down below water level in the fish tank and they have been working a treat...

Holy cow I was having mondo problems with my bell siphons for the last month or so, right when I got one working perfectly, the other one would have problems with either starting or stopping, was driving me insane. I tried all the tricks I could find, and either one table or the other (i have 2) would not start or stop consistently. Finally I put a bigger diameter output hose on my pump and it increased the throughput significantly, now everything has been running perfectly for 2 days. Apparently most problems are caused by too low of a flow rate, at least in my case. Just thought I would put that out there, even though I am a total noob.

Hi Dirty Newt,
What type of siphon are you using? The breather hose or Affnan type if bell?

That's great. But why the heck did you restart an old thread.

Possibly because bell siphon's do suck.

Hi Dirty Newt,
The reason for my question above was to seeing if you are doing it the hard way or the easy way?

I too started with the breather hose siphons and had nothing but trouble. Took nearly a week of mucking around to get one to work.
Then had nothing but trouble with trying to get the enough flow for it to start, but not too much so it could stop.

Then I discovered Affnan siphons and haven't looked back. I had one running in my mini system for over a year without a miss before it was de-commissioned.

Now I have added in the radial flow filter I have gone back to using an auto siphon and again it doesn't miss a beat.

They work best with a low flow pump and are much more forgiving with the flow rates going through.

Check out the link below to see my thread on Affnan siphons. I haven't up dated it for awhile but the info is still relevant.

Good luck and let us know how you go?

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, I didn't notice the date, I just found it with a search. Yeah I use affnan style bell siphons, just built with stuff I had around the garage, but I didn't do any calculations or go by any proven formula, just eyeballed it. Funny thing is they worked perfectly for the first few weeks, but I think the pump started slowing down once there was a significant amount of algae buildup in the pump and the transparent output hose. I replaced it with a regular garden hose of larger diameter.

Looks as if you have found to culprit, with the blocked up hose.

Affnan siphons are very reliable. I make mine from soft drink bottles, doesn't get much rougher than that.

I have found putting a tight angle on the outlet helps with the siphon starting.

Plus try to make sure the funnel is as level as it can be, if the water rolls over on one edge only that can make it hard to get it started.