Backyard Aquaponics
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And put mostly back together. Pull up on porch under roof as a storm is rumbling. Now gotta wait again for the silicone to cure.

how does the water exit the bottle after it bleeds in?
I'd like to see that a little more closely, if you don't mind.
The cuttingboard btw looks good. Over a 2" hole, even that thin material will hold. You did well to make it such a large patch due to the flexibility.

I'll have to get some pics after I can put it back out on it's stand a fill it up again.

There is a hole drilled in the cap of the bottle and the whole thing needs to be positioned so that the bottle can drain into one of the grow beds.

The siphon feeding into the bottle never really kicked in for me but just the trickle was enough to fill up the bottle enough to activate the flush and hold up the flapper long enough so that it doesn't just flop back down. By the time the tank was pretty much empty the bottle was empty too and the flapper (with the addition of a few Stainless Seal washers for weight) is able to close again so the flush tank can begin filling again.

Pretty neat idea I thought so I decided to build it even though I also intend to play with siphons.

yeah, I was thinking of how a flush could work with a float. I couldn't get it to latch the way you managed to, with the weight. Nice design.
So let me get this straight. The water fillse the bottle via gravity, then the fill hose siphons the water out when the barrel empties?

nope. (this design is all from the barrel ponics manual by the way)

No float.

The bottle acts as a temporary weight (the invisible man to flush the tank whenever it gets full enough) The bottle doesn't start to fill till the water gets to wherever you set the small siphon to suck from the filling tank into the bottle. The bottom of this siphon is quite a way from the bottom of the tank so the bottle will stop filling long before the tank is done flushing so that the bottle has time to empty and allow the flapper to fall and let the tank re-fill again.

I'll get pictures once the silicone cures but that will be a few days from now. In the mean time, you can probably search and find a link to the barrel ponics manual which has good pictures of the construction process as well as being a really well done manual. (only real trouble I ran into was the issue of needing to put the whole where there was a flat spot.)

OK cool. I do like the idea...

Nice fix!

Its amazing how many time you can patch and reuse those blue barrels!

Well, I put a few gallons of water into the barrel to check the patch and the seal on the new valve location. So far so good. Hopefully still good come morning and I'll see about putting it back in place.

I'm now getting into busy season so tinkering with system will come when it can. I may soon be into a few weeks of long days with no days off. Hopefully I can get some gravel in and start cycling with humonia before things get too crazy. That way maybe I'll be in good shape to get fish when things calm down.

Hello TCLynx I am Inge and we met previously on Alabama Hydro And your set up is great Dang i am proud of you. I have also come to know travis's barrel manual and will be setting up shortly today i have a severe case of flu but had to say HI and great looking job

Well done TC, like the way it has all come together for you...certainly looks like the barrelponics manual

I do miss the sound of the barrelponic floodtank flush. It is a much deeper, longer-seried sound than the sweet siphon slurp my system has at present. Might just have to add one in...

Got out and ran the errands today. While out, I stopped by at Aquatic Eco Systems and chatted with one of the guys there for quite a while about several things of interest. Like air pumps, water depth, CFM and PSI.

Something he mentioned that I intend to keep in mind. Plants my help on the 02 front during the day but at night they use the O2 and hence the aeration can be especially important at night.

Also of note. Here in Florida he said most people have more trouble with the water being too hard and providing too much buffering. (I've seen some other threads where the High pH seemed a mystery as water from the bore tested closer to neutral) Anyway, he said that water from the well if pH tested right away will come up close to Neutral due to the CO2 but as that dissipates the pH will move up and may even be too high. He did not think I would be likely to require any extra buffering if I use well water. In fact, mixing with some rain water to keep the pH down a little might be in order. I know this is the case in a hydroponics set up here.