Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i have made a simple siphon, suitable for my small growbed and it works well...
it flood for about 1hour and the water flow into the grow bed will cut for about 1 hour

Good work.

Do you have "Target" fish like I had...

no.. but i see a perfect bend on the body!! broken vertebrae..i guess..

place a stiff mesh housing around the siphon mouth - that way it cant form a strong localised suction which would hold your fish in place/ kill your fish and will keep leaves and the like from blocking your siphon as well

Shouldn't the siphon be attached to the growbed rather than the reservoir? It looks to me as if this system would certainly interupt the flow of water to the growbed, but it doesn't necessarily create a flooding of the growbed because it can simply flow straight out.

what is the best time interval for the timer used in AP?

my latest photo on my AP..

another.... with the photo of the timer that i use..

If the pump can flood your beds in 15 minutes, 15 minutes on and 45 minutes off is a common interval.

I've had one system that runs 15 minutes on and 15 minutes off which worked fine.

30 minutes on and 30 minutes off could also work.

Or 30 minutes on and 1 hour off would work if the timer doesn't do 15 minute increments.

The things to keep in mind when setting flood and drain times include.
1- making sure the water is circulated enough to keep the aeration and filtration up enough for the fish.
2- Flooding long enough to fill the bed to the appropriate height is the "minimum" flood time but so long as the overflow on the bed keeps up so it doesn't overflow or fill too high, it is ok for the pump to run longer than needed to flood the bed.
3- Leave the pump off for long enough to let the bed drain but not so long that the media dries out below the flood height. (If you let the media dry out too much the bacteria dies.)