Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Why not do away to siphons all together ( I know I will cop it for that remark) but you can replace them with actuated ball valves (ball valves electronically driven) than provide high water flow, don't clog and last a lot longer than solenoids. Run them in conjunction with the automation.

Best method is to get a little circle of acrylic put two stainless nails trough it, solder wires and waterproof it with sealant on the solter side.. Then cut a plastic practice golf ball in half and glue it over the 'prongs'. This will allow it to be protected and drain quickly..... patent pending!!

Do away with siphons

Siphons have there uses for the small beds and as an inexpensive way of F&D on larger beds, but on the larger beds the amount of water required to be held in reserve is what I am trying to get away from(3 beds @ 250l = 750 of water may be needed if all beds flood in sync), hence filling beds in sequence

Yes - I am looking at that option also of elimintating siphons, using valves in inlet and outlet of growbeds - most of the stuff I have looked up pointed to solenoids, now I gotta research ball valves -cool

Tim, have you got ant further info on different valves

ps Tim - I didn't have the guts to suggest it

hey Ell,

maybe try these guys http://www.australeng.com.au/

I found a couple of ASCO "redhat" 24v solenoid valves that I used to use at my last job ( Honestly...I didnt steal them). Not sure how much they would cost though, and Im sure they would be available elsewhere.

Also http://www.asco.com.au/


even if they arent what your after you might find another type to suit your needs

Bundy - they got a place at Banyo qld, doing a visit around the traps on Wednesday so shall include them as well

keep us informed, Ive only got 2 of the redhats and will need more lol

What size you after, I was gonna price 25mm and 50mm

25mm should do the job Ell

I was leaning away from solenoids due to the main fact that they are prone to failure, plus if you look at the inside of a solenoid the water path is not direct meaning it will slow water flow and be supseptable to blockages. Another thing to be carefull of for return flow is the pressure required to open a solenoid.

The ones I am looking at... are either pnumatically or electrically controlled. Basically they are a ball valve which are opened and closed automatically. So no pressure is needed, cleaning is a breeze and they are very high flow (direct water path). I am thinking of making one my self, or my Uncle works at Danfoss which 'did' make these things. The major Koi farmers use them because debris in the water would screw with the solenoid, eg getting stuck open which would be bad.

Heres an example...
http://www.ferret.com.au/articles/ec/0c034cec.asp

Thanks Tim - my main problem has been understanding the terminology used, am going to go personally to one of the outlets and collar some knowledgable person to explain what is available for our purposes

My pump runs on a timer (to save power/$$$) but yep I can leave it on continously and the flood and drain cycle will run indefinitely.



I've tried starting the system with one bed semi-filled (say one almost full and one at half and one at a quarter full) but because I run the timer, they tend to synch themselves up after a couple of cycles anyway. Might be a different story for multi-bed auto-siphon systems that run continuously, but this has already sort-of been discussed.

The multiple beds will never be exactly the same physically (and hence have the exact same fill + drain time), even if you fill with the same amount of medium and the same number of the same crops, things such as differences in the amount of root growth (which takes up space in the bed - hence less time to fill) between the beds, algae or other blockages that slow drainage etc etc will all cause the flood/drain cycles to take a different time for each bed.

BTW Janet nice ideas, can't wait to see how they evolve.

Guys, nice ideas too, but what I like about siphons (at least the small ones I have played with) is that they are cheap/simple and easy to setup, and once they are working nicely they are virtually maintenance free.

Hi Janet, I'm with Simmo on this - I have 900lph going into 2 grow beds with a "T' to split the flow, unfortunately it doesn't split it in half - have tried balancing with a stop valve but gave up one cycles on 400 and the other on 500lph and I get them both starting discharge at the same time - this is why I am looking at flooding singularly for my larger system

Simmo agree that siphons are maint free and lovely and may incorporate a siphon and have a valve on inflow with sensor on outflow - still tossing up att

I love the large sized siphons especially when the pipe is 40mm+ the water just doesn't drain - it explodes, one problem is with gravel, roots etc water can't be supplied to the siphon-in end fast enough especially when GB get below half, this is where:
1) smaller sized pipes are good because water flow is less
2) sol/ball valves are excellent cause they stay open

So it becomes a balancing or preference thing - gotta try the valves

Wow! So many helpful comments!!

OK, so I think I will keep trying to design my beds to fill in a controlled sequence. Letting them go their own way with continuous inflow, auto-siphon outflow might be easier, but using controls would be really sweet.

I've been researching lawn irrigation timers and valves to control flow into the GBs. There is a company called Toro that has Sol valves that can handle low pressure and dirty water (so they say). Their timers also look useful, but I had to read the manual to understand how zones, programs and start times work. Interestingly, I think I could do it on a minimum of 4 start times and 2 programs if I use slow turnover.

Each bed is a zone. At least with the Toro models, you can set multiple zones to have the same start time, but it will stagger the actual start times to avoid drawing too much water. So if I use one program to set up my three beds to each run for one hour at 6:00AM, 9:00AM, 12:00noon, and 3:00PM, it should actually cycle through the beds continuously, one at a time for one hour each over 12 hours. Then I could use a second program for the evening hours. At the minimum pressure that the Sol valve can handle (30GPH), it would give me turnover once every 3-4 hours, depending on my ultimate tank size. It should also kick off the auto-siphon nicely, assuming 50% media, 50% air/water space. I would probably want to use additional programs to get faster turnover, but the concept is the same. At this point, I've become very clear on how to build and program this.

I think the valve on inflow and sensor/auto-siphon on outflow sounds really really cool, but I'm not an electrician, and wouldn't know how to build a controller for that. With the Toro timers, all I have to do is connect the wires and program it. I can program! Some of the timers have rain sensors, but that shuts down all watering rather than just kicking over to the next bed/zone.

--Janet.

Hi Janet:
If the pump you're using is not expensive ($20..$30?), what would be wrong with having a little cheap pump assigned to each bed and turning them on and off in sequence? What are the prices for these solenoids and controllers, etc. relative to prices for cheap little pumps? I wonder if having a pump give out would be worse than having a solenoid give out; if you're setting up the system to be naturally redundant then there might not be a difference and you could decide based on cost.