Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So here are some pictures of my first system. Everything its cycling right now and everything is working great. I need to change a few things but overall I am happy with it.

Here is how I did my siphon. The pieces I used to plumb it were: 2" slip x 1 1/4" slip reducer, 1" threaded x 3/4" threaded reducer, 1" threaded x 3/4" threaded coupler and some 45mil pond liner for gaskets. It plumbs right through the bottom of my GB's and works like a dream.

That might be the fanciest siphon I've ever seen

The siphon stand pipe is 3/4" and the bell is 1 1/4". Right now I am using a 400gph pump and put the majority of the water it pumps back into the sump tank. Please let me know what you think of my system and if you see any way I can improve it! What is the next step from here? Let it cycle so the bacteria can grow? How do I proceed now?

Ah, yes. Go with fishless cycling until you have your ammonia and nitrite spikes. Once the system has settled down, you should have readings of 0, 0, something for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. At that point, you can introduce an appropriate load of fish and not have the HSMs you get with fish-ful cycling.

And remember, the P in AP is for patience. On average it takes about a month for your system to cycle.

Oh, one other thing. It's hard to tell from the photos how much sun your fish bath gets. If it's significant, you may want to shade or cover it to reduce algae.

Its cloudy at the moment but it doesn't get too much sun... eventually I will add a screen over the FT so the raccoons won't eat them up.

Looks good. Better looking siphon than my first try.

So how and when do I add plants? How long does my system have to be cycling before I put them in? If I don't have fish yet what can I use as a nutrient source? I've got some bean and red russian kale seedlings ready to go, can I just take them out of the soil and put their roots into the gravel in my GB? Can I simply put seeds into the gravel?

You can add plants immediately though there will be little/no nutrient for them yet (probably ok since transplanted plants and seeds don't need much nutrient right away.

Once you are fairly happy that the plumbing is working right, you can plant. You can transplant seedlings or plants into the AP system, you just want to rinse the roots off a bit in a bucket of water. You can also plant seeds directly into the gravel (easy with large seeds that won't get washed away, just put them down where they will get moist during the flood cycle, smaller seeds might want a bit of paper towel or cotton ball as a wick to bring moisture up closer to the surface so they will get moist enough to germinate.)

Fishless cycling can use many things as the ammonia source.
Cheapest and easiest if you are not grossed out by it is hummonia (urine or pee) I usually leave it bottled for a couple weeks to let the urea content convert ammonia, this saves you from overdosing because you won't see an ammonia reading right away with fresh urine or urea fertilizer.
If you don't like the idea of pee ponic cycling, you can try and find some pure ammonia. Trick here is finding ammonia with no additives like detergent or fragrance or anything else that could be bad for the fish later.
Urea fertilizer has been used by many. Important note here is a little goes a long way and you won't see an ammonia reading right away. This tricks many people into adding more, problem is urea requires enzyme action to convert it into ammonia, those enzymes are naturally occurring but they will take time (tip here, human urine comes pre-mixed with those enzymes and therefore will convert nicely when sealed in a bottle.)
Some people just use fish food or other rotting fishy stuff to cause an ammonia spike (this method works but might provide a breeding ground for negative bacteria and such in the system.)

You will want to practice with your test kit now. You want to understand pH testing and the fact that water right out of the tap may seem to have a lower pH than it really has because of dissolved CO2. Let the tap water air out a bit and test the next day and you will see a more accurate reading. System pH pre cycling is often between 7 and 8 but as the nitrogen cycle gets into full swing, you are likely to see a pH drop unless you have a lot of buffering in your system (if you have limestone gravel, you might have trouble getting many types plants to thrive since it usually buffers a system to 8 or higher.) It is also a good idea to test your source water for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate just to know what your baseline is (and to practice with the kit.) After your dose your system with your ammonia source and get your first ammonia reading, you will want to bring the ammonia in the system up to 1 or 2 ppm. Then you wait till you see that ammonia reading start to drop and see the nitrite reading start to climb. Dose occasionally but you don't want either your ammonia or nitrite readings to get very high. 2 is about as high as you need to go on anything and any readings off the charts is not helpful. You should at some point see a nitrate reading as your nitrites go down but if you are already growing greedy plants, you might miss it. Once you get to a point that you can dose your system up to 1 ppm ammonia and within 24 hours both ammonia and nitrite are back to 0, you can call the system fishlessly cycled. You can keep dosing the system with small amounts of the ammonia source (to keep the bacteria and plants happy) until a couple days before you add fish. You want the system to have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite when you add fish. Nitrate levels are usually not something to worry too much about, if they are high, you might need more plants to use them up. Some people never see any nitrates and their plants still grow fine.

Good luck and keep asking questions as you go through these early stages!!!!
Welcome

Thanks for the help! Today I set up a 2nd bed and put in some plants... which brings me to my next question. The bell siphon I built for the first bed worked perfectly without an air tube. The one for the second bed is built exactly the same way but for some reason the siphon doesn't completely break. I think its because the 2nd GB isn't directly over the sump so there is some pressure in the tube that leads from the outlet in the bottom to the sump... not completely sure though. I tried adding an air tube to the second siphon but it still doesn't break.

Where in relation to the standpipe should the air tube hole be placed? How big should it be? Right now on my test I am using 1/4" air line for an aquarium air pump... it slurps some air but then fills up with water again. I thought I had the bell siphon all figured out but this one is throwing me for a bit of a loop! Please help me get this to work!

Hopefully Kuda will show up with his handy diagrams about how to diagnose siphon problems.

Since the 2nd grow bed is not directly over where it is emptying, there is more pipe between the siphon and the drain end. That extra length makes it harder for the siphon to get the good gulp of air needed to stop it fully. If there is a way to let the siphon from that second bed drain into a larger pipe to carry the water over to the sump or the tank, that would let the bottom of the siphon drain to air and allow it to break easier. Otherwise you may need to tinker more with the position of the bottom of the breather tube. Perhaps add a pin hole in the breather tube at the top so the breather tube can't hold water as easily.

If I have it drain into a larger diameter pipe can I have it plumb directly into it? Or do I need to have it be an open drop into the larger pipe? Does that question make sense?

You could run the smaller pipe into a larger one without sealing it or you could use a reducer and seal the smaller pipe to the larger and reduce the posibility of lost water. The syphon should break either way as the output from the smaller pipe is not likely to completely fill the larger and air should be able to enter your drain.

The top of you breather tube needs to enter the bell at a position that is higher that the top of the standpipe. It should also sit above the level of the crenelation at the bottom of the bell (mine sit about 1cm above).

Cool... I think I'll probably do that then. I believe a saw a nice 3/4" x 2" L or a 2" x 3/4" x 2" T fitting at the irrigation store that would fit the bill. Then I won't even need to use an air pipe!