Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

gave up on autosiphons, working with a flood and drain (15/15)

more pics

enough aeration? hehe

Eddy, don't blame you for ditching the autosiphons. I never got them to work either.

Auto siphons can be just fine but when you are dealing with barrels cut the long way, you have that whole varying volumes at different depths thing working against you. I don't blame you for giving up on the siphons with the barrels cut the long way. Barrels cut round the middle are quite easy to balance an auto siphon in though as are most anything with basically vertical sides.

Timer flood and drain is just fine as well so all is good!

Just curious with a 15 on 15 off timer on the pump are your grow beds able to flood in that amount of time and yet get fully drained in that amount of time? If so, all is good and that schedule should be especially good for cycling up the system. Once things settle in, the plants might prefer a longer off period. If your pump manages to move the volume of your fish tank in 15 - 30 minutes then all is good.

Yeah, TC, maybe next time i'll have to consider a more flat-walled GB.
As for the fill time it takes, I'd say around 5-8mins to fill both beds, and it drains it just under 15mins.
So there is an approx 10min period where the bed is completely full..
i was under the impression that I shouldn't let the roots dry out... I guess you're saying that they don't exactly dry out that fast (in 15mins) hehe...

it takes approx 20mins total to cycle 50gallons.
i guess there's only one way to find out heh.. can't wait to get some bacteria swimming in my tank!!

finally a miniscule reading of 0.25ppm ammonia...

anyone ever used vitamin supplements in their AP systems?
I've got this nice bottle of "One Daily, men's health formula" that i'm just dying to throw in the tank.