Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

With my new pump:

• I had to turn down the flood pipe tap (I have one 12mm poly pipe, with a tap, to allow flood time equalisation, to flood each of my 100L barrel-ponics GBs) to prevent the high pressure stream of water dislodging the hydrotron GB media and possibly uprooting seedlings.
• I needed also more aeration of my FT.

I have seen EB's pumped aerators at the BYAP shop and thought that I should use the excess water pressure to provide aeration to the FT.

I didn't have the required PVC fittings to make it happen, but had a few of 12mm poly risers (3 short and 1 long), a 12mm ball valve, and enough poly adaptors and bits to adapt from my pump, to over the FT wall.

I also felt that I might be able to improve on his design.

I took a short 12mm riser and heated the threaded end over the stove gas burner. Then, while it was hot and pliable, I pushed it into a small funnel, which caused a small constriction in its internal diameter, and a 45° angle to the outside. Instead of being 12mm ID, it was now about 10mm ID. I had to remove a small amount of poly, which had bulged out and would have prevented it threading into the coupler, with a sharp blade.
I chamfered the inside of one end of a long 12m riser so that the 45° outside of the short riser could seal fairly well against it.
I drilled a few 8mm holes in the centre of the 12mm coupler, around it's circumference.

I screwed the restricted end of the short riser into the coupler, about half way (seen thru drilled holes).
I screwed the chamfered end of the long riser into the other side of the coupler.

I assembled it with the water from the pump (controlled by the ball valve) feeding into the short riser.

With the pump running and the valve on full, I adjusted the separation of the risers inside the coupler, until I had a good stream of bubbles in the water flowing from the long riser.
I angled the elbow to have the long riser end at the bottom of the FT. It was still pumping heaps of aerated water at the bottom of the tank.
I varied the setting of the ball valve. It gave best performance at fully open (as you would imagine) but still worked well at 45° and even (when set to half FT depth) at 60° from fully open.

I can still fill the GBs in 10 minutes and the FT aeration is massively increased.

I repeated this on the sump pump outlet to the FT also, with similarly awesome results, but with a much slower pumping rate than the 25mm pipe had. I plan to increase the riser size to 19mm or 25mm to reduce pumping time for the sump pump.

I hope my word diagram is comprehensible,

Tony

Hi Tony
Do you have any pictures of this it sounds very interesting.

Yep, pics please Tony...

And, where you been mate... long time no hear...?

So it sounds to me like you built your own venturi
Good work!

Photos tomorrow, if I get home from work during daylight.

Been around, but been busy also. Been crook with 'flu (nothing porcine ) for a couple of weeks, too crook to do much, then outside activities took precedence. Last week Oranges & Mandarins ripening, so Marmalade has been the order of the day.
Plenty planted in the earth gardens, not enough light in the aquaponics garden for much growth, but the nutrients are low, so no impact on the fish.

I have been reading new posts every few days, also keep up with the funny pix thread too.

Tony

TC Lynx, it is a venturi or "eductor" type system, but I feel that it has the benefit of being adjustable to maximise the aeration.
By screwing the riser in and out, you can vary the aeration significantly, over a range of water flow rates.

Tony

We use a similar design out here for aerating the mud tanks on drill rigs. The thicker the mud, the bigger bubbles you add

OK,Photos from this afternoon/evening.
It was getting dim so the flash operated.
Images not the best, went back and took more.

More photos of Aerator operation.

You can see the aerated water emanating from the bottom of the riser, at about 1/2 FT depth. Even with the valve 1/2 off (45°), the aeration is still significant.

I had an HSM yesterday afternoon, I found the FT about 1/3 full and was worried how this could have happened.

I could not see signs of any pumped water leaks, but the sand around my sump was wet. Being under the roof, I felt that the Sump had overflowed, causing the sand to be wet.

How could this happen?

Perhaps the aerator on the sump pump return to the FT was not breaking the syphon, allowing flow from the FT into the sump, which then may have been at the point of starting the pump when the Flood pump was running, which then provided too much flow into the sump for the sump pump to keep up with (due to the severe restriction from 25mm to 12mm for the aerator trial).

I have opened up the gap between the risers to allow a more positive air leak into the riser.
The problem was not evident today. Perhaps this has fixed the problem.

I can increase the diameter of the aerator to 20mm, but would prefer to go to 25mm if I can get the parts.

I will think about it a little more. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What if I used a 25mm Tee, and put a 20mm restriction in the inlet side, with a 25mm outlet from the tee? The unused port of the tee would be the air source for the aerator.

I will experiment on the weekend, if time permits.
As a minimum, I will increase the aerator to 20mm.

Tony

heheh I lost 4000 litres of water on the weekend converting a standard overflow tank to a siphon tank...the siphon did not start reliably overnight...it's now a standard overflow again.

Just after 6mm of rain wich filled that tank up.

OK, got to the bottom of my water loss after coming home yesterday to 2" of water in my FT and an overflowing sump tank.

The sump pump was frequently failing to start, resulting in the sump overflowing. By the time I found it overflowing, I could not get the sump pump to do more than buzzzz.

It was nothing to do with a possible "syphon" from the aerator back to the sump. If there is enough air flow to aerate the water, then it is enough of airflow to break any syphon.


I isolated the GB flood line and used the pump, on the standard timer, to recycle to the FT via the aerator on that pump to allow us time to get a replacement pump with float switch for the sump tank. DW went to my pump & retic expert and arranged a suitable pump and some extra fittings while I was at work today.

When I got home I replaced the Sump pump and while testing it, I made a 3/4" aerator for the sump return to the FT.
It uses the same principles as above to achieve the same result.

All works well again.

Tony

sounds good tony, I went chift pist so that would not happen but I still managed to find another way to kill my trout.

God bless froggo

Froggo,
It seems we share some interests.

Fortunately, it happened without loss of aquatic life - my rainbow trout are alive and well despite their ordeal.

I got a call from my pump supplier to advise that the new pump was subject to a recall notice which could have shortened my life. It was possible for a crack to appear and allow the water to enter the pump motor, with a potential for electrocution.

He replaced the pump this morning and I installed the second new pump.

I took the opportunity to get some bits to upgrade to a 25mm Aerator on the sump pump return to the FT.
Now I have serious aeration.

Tony

What pump/model Tony??