Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks for the feedback.


The sump is a issue it holds spot on 1000l & working on Joel`s beds holding 200-225l each when flooded working on 40% water volume when filled with hydroton.
I can add a barrel or 2 as I have sketched which should give me some leeway.


Yep that worried me I will run separate drain from each bed have adjusted sketch



God knows I picked it up for $50 bucks off a customer of mine,unused chinese made Pondmate 6000-DWP.Ignore the 8000 on the box.
Cant find many links to it and none mention continuous.
http://www.creativepumps.com.au/zpumps/ ... _pumps.htm

You'd guess that to be continuous. A quick google would find out.

I googled for a hour last night and couldn't find mention of continuous but for $50 continuous it is.

Yeah suck it and see. If you don't run it right to it's pressure limit, it'll pprobably be fine for 5 years at least

Hey Lungy:
I would make sure you have enough drop under the grow beds to keep the siphons going. There needs to be some amount of drop (I use an equal height below the loop inlet as above (using loops)).

Rather than have such a long drain that is part of the siphon, maybe put a tee in each drain so that the long pipe is decoupled from the siphon(s) vacuum? I know Les has his as a long pipe that is part of the siphon and I haven't done one like this, but to me it would be better to have each siphon assembly self-contained next to each grow bed, and the drain pipes just dumb drain pipes rather than critical to the siphon function. You would probably need higher beds to do this though.

OK, the morning coffee is starting to wear off now...

DD I agree.
I REQUIRED a breather to enable my temporary siphon to start.
I have a fall of 2 metres from GB to FT.
I ran 1 length of 25mm from siphon to FT. This would not start.
I then added a 't' right after the siphon, and placed a riser 100mm higher than the bed.
The siphon starts every time now. I am planning on replacing all after the tee with 150mm PVC.
I will include pics if you want, but my camera is currently recharging.

Kuda i would like to see your siphion setup. Sounds like a good way to do stepped grow beds.

I think i understand the process, does the water level in the riser try to equlize with the grow-bed while the siphon is in operation?????

Like a mini-liquid-piston thats a nice "over engineer"

Yes please

[quote=Caribean-grower]I think i understand the process, does the water level in the riser try to equlize with the grow-bed while the siphon is in operation?????[/quote]

Actually, due to my height differential, the pipe below the siphon runs faster, so the breather ends up sucking air when the siphon starts. The airation is great!
As the gb fills, the breather allows air to leave the pipe, otherwise, air is compressed against the water at the bottom, and the pressures equalise before any water flows.
The breather would fill if the suction from the drain pipe was minimised.
Yeah I reckon it'll be good for cascaded beds. In this case, yeah the breather might equalise to the top of the siphon. Chances are though, that it would suck air still.

Also, It will guarantee that the bed will finish siphoning before the sump pumps again. (I had a bit of trouble with this) as bed 1 will drain fully, before any of its water returns to sump :-)

Please remember this is a temporary setup, There's little over-engineering here. Gotta get MUCH bigger pipes :-)

If a large free flowing (150mm) pipe was used to drain the siphoned water (not for th siphon itself, but after the breather in my diagram.)
then it's unlikely a breather would be required, as air would be free to move in the 150mm. not so in the 25mm

Have I explained this right?

Thanks for the pics It explains all.
Have modified setup so sump can hold another 800l in 4 barrels & give the auto siphons a place to dump straight down.I can then keep the beds pretty low to the ground
Would this work?

Nice addition to your sump and from your digging get a friend with a bob cat fast.
Nice design.

Unfortunately all in a raised garden bed so hand digging for me.
The upside is I`ll use hydroton so no lugging gravel up into the beds.

maybe make sure you plumb the extra 4 drums with their drains up higher, otherwise the water will just rush straight out anyway and overwhelm the 1000L sump.
We've got a 50mm connection between the ibc's that we use for sumps. There is also a looped siphon between the second and first one so that it can always drain back. (did that make sense?)

Lungy, my concern would be that the blue barrels you intend to dump to could retain stagnant water... from the drawing I'm suggesting that a certain amount of water will equalise back from the sump to the 4 barrels...

Even if you have a considerable fall, at least the first (may the second as well) barrel will retain a level of water equal to the height in the sump .... unless you're going to pump your sump below the inlet for the return water.... if not then I see possible stagnation issues and effectively a limitation of the sump capacity... some of the sump draining back to equalise in the barrels....

Edited : Does add some increase to the overall sump capacity though I guess.... and might depend on how often you turn over the water (drain cycle) and just how much you draw from the sump

Remember it is the water returning to the sump (plus oxygenation from the growbed drain) that provides a degree of oxygenation, finally added to when returned to the fish tank.... possibly another limiting factor?

Anyone see what I mean.... solutions??

Rope. As I see it, they're connected at the bottom of the barrels. Therefore when the sump is full, the barrels will be full, when the sump is half empty the barrels will drain into the sump, until they empty. Every growbed will drain into the barrels, replenishing any standing water there, which will then flow to the sump.
Therefore
If the extra sump size is required, the barrels will drain.
If it's not, then the barrels will works as large pipes.

Lungy, make sure the barrels can breath air properly, or they will not fill so well.