Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi MM

The sump doesn't necessarily have to be buried. Just has to be the lowest point. Burying it just helps keep everything else at a manageable height.

You need some fall from the tank to the growbeds, however if you don't use syphons you can get away with minimal fall from the grow beds back to the sump.

Alternatively if you have limited space it might be simpler to just do away with a sump altogether and pump straight to the grow beds from a bigger fish tank and drain them straight back to the fish tank, limiting the flow to the grow beds by using the T piece if need be.

Ok so I've now got my GB and am awaiting my stand to get built. This is taking so long

My pump has a cone shaped outlet on it to take different sized pipes 19, 25, 32 and 40mm. should I just go as big as I can to try and keep the flow rate up?

Also can the GB drain run down to and along the ground then up the side and over the top of the FT, using gravity to push the water up and over? (if you know what I mean)

Cheers

Hi MM
Take pics of your progress it is encouraging when you look back and see what you have achieved. A bit like children you don't notice their growth when you see them every day
I would always recommend that you use the biggest possible outlet, for better water flow and helps when/if you decide to expand the system.
As for the syphon it can be buried and will still work providing that the outlet is higher than the inlet
Send pics would be good

Depends how much flow you need, 40mm might be a bit too much if you have limited grow beds. Maybe do a few experiments and see what results you get. My pump takes multiple pipe sizes so I fiddled around with the pipe size (and length) a bit to get just enough flow to kick all three of my syphons over. Didn't take that much fiddling really.

Or yeah just go maximum and use the tap off the side trick to regulate the flow.

Are you doing syphons or standpipes? If you are doing syphons then too much rise over the top of the fish tank (rise of greater than the pipes diametre) will most likely not work.

If you are doing standpipes and periodic pumping then the pipes rising up over a fish tank or sump lip won't matter that much. As long as the highest point of the rise is still lower than the grow bed outlet the water will still flow out the other end. You will just have a bit of water left in the pipe all the time. That water will get mixed with the next lot so no issue really.

I have lots of situations where pipes go down to the ground (or even buried) the up and over the lip of the sump tank or whatever it is flowing to. This works fine but there are a couple things I like to do.
1- make sure where the water flows into the pipe is the highest point.
2- I often make stand pipe breathers to avoid air locks or make sure air can get into the pipes at the high points. (this is a bit like putting the T on the SLO drain to keep it from being a siphon.)

Gone with 32mm poly pipe due to cost of fittings ect for the 40mm.

Going to flood and drain using a stand pipe.

Stand should be ready by the end of the weekend, then I can finaly put it all together.

My S.P's are around 50mm now with one around 100mm, I have 45 of them in my 6ft FT inside and they are dirtying up the water in quick time so water changes are a regular occurrence .

Are you sure about the costs on 32mm there MM? We have found 32mm fittings and pipe is becoming VERY expensive because they aren't used much any more. The other week we bought 1 length of 32mm pipe and it cost about 6 times as much as 40mm pipe.. We couldn't believe it...

The only pipe I could find that fit the pumps 40mm nozzle was some green stripe stuff and the fittings were rediculously large and expencive!

I'm making my filter that goes in my ST today and I'm just waiting on the GB stand to be finished.

I also still need to sort out my overflow from FT to ST.

I think I have also come up with an original and ingeniously (is that a word?) simple way of increasing my growing area, without the need for extra piping! It's all so exciting, my wife just wants me to get it finished so I can do some other work that needs doing around the house .