Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Does this mean that the water level rises until it cuts off the air flow up the pipe (water trap)

i believe so.

what no

okay - so we have worked out that the height difference is irrelevent, I have changed to writing in the "auto siphons for aquaponians" to minimum height, good pick up on that one Steve.

2) the outlet pipe rises sufficiently for a trap to form and thus proves the auto siphon theory and its robustness - thank the heavens for that

3) if the pipe slanted down and the elbow thingo was put on the end, this would probably work better but you have it working so don't touch

4) how's the gravel washing going

this is the new look of my grow bed medium

from the far left there is the 165mm stand pipe, there is one bag (20kg) of scoria rock built up around the stand pipe. i found that i get superiour flow becasue i can drill 16mm holes (only got 7 in as i'd already slit the crap outta the rest of it) and the scoria doesn't block them. Further to the right there is a barrier of aquarium gravel, simply becasue i had half a bucket that i wasn't using. the rest of the right hand side has a layer of hydrotron that is water logged. i found many fat worms living in the bottom of the bed, and i figured that hydrotron would be easier on their bodies. Tomorrow morning i'm going to cover the rest of the bed with gravel screening.

Another reason that i chose scoria for around the stand pipe is that i won't have nearly as much surface area for the bac. having moved away from hydrotron. The area around the stand pipe will have the most amount of "fresh" tank water flowing through it so it was the logical choice for where to place the high surface area scoria.

I may lengthen the inner and second tube of the syuphon so that i flood a little higher. I love the simplicity and "modifiability" of the design.

PS i realised that some of my "hand full of mixed seeds" that i threw in there were RADISH! i was shocked to find bright red bulbs in the gravel

PS, i've had hard to remove grease in my hands (ground in) forthe past few days. since playing with the grow bed my hand are exfoliated and beautifully clean

oh, don't worry, i've touched it HEAPS i like push on fittings does work quicker with elbow facing down or not n at all, but i get better oxygenation with it facing up.

Let me know if you ever come down les, i've got a bunch of push on fittings and you can burn half a day "plug and playing" i have!

is that the fish tank you're standing on

you could have polished the boots 1st

See the lawn mower ain't fixed yet either

nah, thats the spare 100 lt poly drum thats now filled with the old hydro rocks!

these boot are mke for werkin'

Gravel screening has been added and grow bed re-planted. 3 pumpkin seeds are going in today, along with two tommies.

Les, don't fret too much about my "magic" syphon. It was a freak combination of pipe diameters lengths and water flows............

I cut 10mm off the crells today and the whole thing stopped working, no ammount of re-configuration worked.

I lengthed the crells again and still no joy. then i cut 10mm off the inner pipe and she's working again.

Its still stable in this config, but i'll re-work it with the air bleed pipe for fail safe syphon break and re-do the first two pipes as i want to flood slightly higher.

Thanks again for the help

Why oh why did i touch a perfectly working syphon?! Basking in its simplicity over 3 of my for days off, i am now down to half a day with an intermittent syphon.

Les, rest assured you syphon theory was not de-bunked........along with shear luck with my choice of dimension i have found that the flow rate was JUST RIGHT. if it fluctuates one way it won't initate, if it fluctuates thew other way it won't cut off.

Back to the original set in stone theory. It was fun thinking i had broken the mold LOL

Read my lips.......................


Yeh - all it needs is an air tube to break the siphon properly and if you can, slope the pipe downwards with a lovely elbow (cut down) on the end - then you will have turbo boost

ekb slope down with elbow?
pete

Pete, sorry a bit cryptic there as I was referring to something Steve and I had discussed previously, like this so the water in the "U" traps the air in the outlet pipe: