Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Is your system a BYAP system?
Feed lines to grow beds (GBs) mine atleast are 40mm and sit on the top of the GB media.
They sit snug but not fixed, as you might need to remove them if there is a blockage.

Your clay balls Aquaclay or hydroton shouldn't float.
If they do it would mean that the flood height is too high.
But we need some pics or more discription, rather than me assuming
what you have.

thanks creative1, the system is something which I am trying to cobble together, with existing parts, rather than parts I have bought for the purpose. the GB's are 3 small tubs and the FT is probably about 200 llitres. i have 20mm dia feed lines into the GB's which are positioned directly over the FT so they can drain directly back to the FT. No fish yet, just trying to understand how much flow I should be aiming for. sorry no pics, not that established yet. thanks to you and Jaymie for the help.
growgirl

Might be better if you get an account, you'll get a better feel, rather than second hand information no offence of course Jaymie


The fittings you ask about are varied. The three most commonly used fittings for getting a pipe into a tank are:

1) Threaded Tank Outlet
2) Uniseal
3) Tophat grommet.

They're also numbered in most expensive to cheapest.

if you search for these keywords, you should find HEAPs of info on this site.

Ahh, I see you have an account now

Welcome.

thanks, I'll do some searching on the terms you have mentioned.

Ideal flow is 100% Tank volume per hour, but I don't come anywhere near achieving this.
So 200l/h will be plenty. Any excess flow can be diverted back into the tank, thereby using your pump to the fullest.
This is quite a small system you're planning.
FYI a tank that size will support about 6kg of fish, so based on an 800g harvest size, 8 fish.
on a system that small you can use bell siphons, but it may be easier to use a loop siphon, or slow drain with a timer.
If using a timer, your pump will need to be bigger, proportionally with the timebase you select.

1 way to do it

Welcome.

Depending on the plastic the grow beds are made of, you might be able to drill a hole the correct size and simply use a blow dryer to warm the plastic a bit and then thread a pvc fitting through it and if the fit is tight enough, you might not need to use any aquarium silicone or plumbing paste. I don't like to use silicone since you have to let it cure for a couple days before adding water and fish. So I like using the uniseals, top hat grommets or bulkhead fittings (aka tank outlets) better.

If you add an extra hole some where you can put pipe up to the desired water height and call it the overflow. That way if you are using a timer to get flood and drain, then it doesn't really matter if the timer doesn't have the exact number of minutes you need to flood, the beds just stay at the over flow level until the timer shuts off then they can slowly drain. Plumbing in overflows on all grow beds is a good idea anyway just in case something blocks the normal drain, at least you won't loose water over the edge and out of the system.

If you decide to tinker with siphons, you will need to size them correctly with your pump inflow to the grow beds. With siphons you will probably pump all the time so your pump should handle a little more than the capacity of your fish tank per hour.

As Kuda said, if using a timer, (example 15 minutes) then you would need a pump that could do 4 X the capacity of your fish tank per hour.

And about the floating, soak the media for several days and that should help reduce the floating. Then you will want to set your flood height so that the media does not lift up or move. Usually about two cm below the surface of the media. If you let the media dry out completely, you will probably want to soak it (at least the lower layers of it so it won't try so hard to float) again before starting cycling or adding fish.

Welcome.

Thanks to you all for your help on this, I need to go do some reading!!
growgirl

Sad but true

Learning and getting siphons to work is the initiation process into aquaponics.

welcome growgirl
to start with i would suggest loop siphons as they are easier to setup and regulate

once you have these figured out then the bell siphons for the larger growbeds would be a better choice

i hope you find what your looking for in the reading your doing ( i spent 4 months reading every night before starting my system

have fun

thanks for all the replies folks. I managed to pick up a few essentials on the weekend and now a step closer to buying fish. I suspect my ft is a little on the small side. Does anybody know where I can pick up some IBC's in Perth (SOR) preferably. I'll check out the recycling yards, other thing needed are those blue drums.

thanks for all your ideas. photos to come shortly.
GG