Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello i am Craig n Wendy, New member. Big fan and have just started. Very excited but i do have a problem with my flood and drain so i hope someone can help. It just doesn't work all the time. look forward to chatting

Welcome to the world of Aquaponics Graig N Wendy
Please spell out the issues you have and I am sure you will get plenty of help from the experienced folk here on the forum. Any photos you may have will also help
Once again welcome and good luck with building your system.

Welcome Craig & Wendy.... yep, gives a run down of your system, and a description of the problem... a few pics would help...

I'm sure we'll be able to sort it out for you...

trying to shrink my images and finding that difficult to

Images need to be resized to 800 x 600 pixels, and a max file size of 256kb...

Maximum of three photos per post... and unless you use the "place inline" button... they'll display in the opposite order that you attach them...

I've posted them below for you...

So... what seems to be the problem.... siphon wont break??

I'm gonna guess siphon breaking too early (because there are only holes for water to get to it around the bottom of that bucket keeping the gravel back.)

However, if it is siphon won't break, then please show us some pictures or describe the plumbing under the grow bed.

Put a brick on top of the bell pipe to stop it from rising up. It will only do it occasionally, but rising up, even a tiny bit, will stop your siphon from working properly each and every time. Or, find another way of holding it down, a wire tie to the outlet tube, cable tie to a support across the top of your media shroud or something else to hold it in place.
Or, you seem to have enough slack in your air break tubes so they can be pulled down a bit and be extended down to about within 10mm (3/8") from the top of your inlet slots at the base of the bell tube.

Cheers IanK

the siphon breaks but not for long enough it the will get going again but not for a long time

I can almost guarantee that your drain pipe (from the bottom of the bed to the tank) is too long for your siphon. It creates a suction and makes the siphon continue to soon.

Is it like it tries to break but then keeps sucking water from the bottom of the bed but at a slightly slower rate?

If so, might want an air gap below the bed like this


Either that or the flow rate into the grow bed is just too fast for the siphon.