Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I had some vague notion to build a better siphon.

One that would take anything in, and dose anything out. One size fits all if you like.

Mainly this was to accommodate some future plan for a wind and solar powered aquaponics system with no battery, so it would have to cope with random flow rates. Siphons don't do so well with random flow rates.

What I thought I'd do is be very clever and make a cluster of siphons. And I thought I stick that cluster under the umbrella of a master siphon.

There is this phenomenon whereby a bell siphon triggers and the height, or head, of water can actually rise above the height of the surrounding depth.

I figured this would allow me to make a device that had a cluster of bell siphons, that would be force triggered by an über siphon.

mmm

read that bit again

I figured this would allow me to make a device that had a cluster of bell siphons, that would be "force triggered" by an über siphon.

mmm

Picture this... get a bell siphon, and fill it with smaller bell siphons.

The original standpipe would be the lowest. The bell surrounding this would also encompass all the other bells for each additional siphon in the cluster

I tried a device with 4 standpipes.

3 of the standpipes had a mini bell, the 4th had a maxi bell that covered all the bells. The 4th standpipe was also slightly lower so that it would trigger first. This 4th standpipe was the one that didnt have a private bell on it.

The plan was, the 4th standpipe would fill first. This would drain the über bell of air and actually raise the water level above the other standpipes. This would in turn, decisively trigger them. (this worked)

What this would mean is that a tiny flow (enough to trigger only one mini-siphon) would instantly trigger all 4 siphons. It would also mean that the drain would be so fast that the siphon would shut down in a very decisive manner, because it would be effectively pulling four times as much water as it might be if only one siphon were involved.

Most importantly, if there was a flow anywhere greater than enough to trigger 1 siphon, and less than the amount 4 siphons could cope with, this system would start and stop very decisively. A massive operating spread.

You with me? It might trigger anything from a trickle to a flood.

In a few trials, the system worked perfectly. I could trigger the system so that it started and stopped repeatedly with a flow rate of ...

5 seconds to fill a 1000 ml jug (my laundry tap on full)

And the same siphon also triggered at

78 seconds to fill a 1000 ml jug (my laundry tap on a trickle so that the stream was breaking up into drops before it hit the jug

So it worked. It worked over a massively variable flow rate, and I'd made some kind of revolutionary new device.

But strange stuff happened all the time when I tried to reproduce the results.

I couldn't do it consistently.

Sometimes it would work, others not. Completely randomly. I have no idea why what-so-ever.

In short, I'm left feeling that I have much less of an understanding of the dynamics existing within a bell siphon than I thought I had before I started.

And here's the kicker, and this bit's really important....

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Sometimes the different siphons would trigger in a different order.
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I hate it when that happens.

I love it when that happens.

The true value of the scientific method is that it can show you that you know less that you thought, or you are just plain wrong, just as easily as it can show you how fabulous you are. An independent judge of fabulousness!

Valuable, but never comfortable

We live and learn.

My next step, is of course, to figure out what's going on, and make this device work.

When it worked it was a pretty impressive thing to watch, and much too valuable to give up on.

Wheels within wheels.

Or at least bubbles within bubbles.

Way cool.

All tubes were hacked at with teeth and pliers and as such there is quite some way to go before I exhaust normal design refinements. (ie things like cutting level siphon tubes, and not using blutac or brown packing tape for waterproof(ish) seals.

There is still hope.

is it bed time yet?

Sheer craziness, I love it.

sounds like there was no beer in your fridge or even anything on TV?

Idle minds are not just the the normal dudes work, it seems. Be careful who you mention this to, some people might want to put you in one of those sleeveless jackets that do up at the back.

Luckily this sort of dark arts is not a hanging or burning offense these days.

Keep up the good work,

Cheers.

I have just such a jacket but cant do up the sleeves no matter how hard I try.

I've got a couple of bell siphons that also have a cap over the stone guard(100mmPVC). When the siphon starts it also drains the air from around the bell and works like a double siphon. Not sure what effect it has if any.

I love this too!!!!

Keep up the work, if you document it, take photos videos and give it a name.... i'll give you a triple j prize pack

Very interesting musings... At first I was scratching my head (or chin) , but now I think I get it.....

Is this a Winklesiphon?

I want to try and make one now to see if I am comprehending, and more to the point, to see if I can make it work too, but it's not quite as simple to make...

Did you make it out of a Dyson vacuum cleaner Bullwinkle ???

Thats right, there was no beer at all in the fridge. In fact it was a bottle of very nice scotch that eventually ran out at 5am

Im sure we have spoken about alcohol and posting Bullwinkle!

actually its not that dificult. Or wouldnt be if I used something other than brown packing tape and the little bottles from the spice rack.(sorry mrs bullwinkle) because the mini siphons are clustered within the big on, I dont think they will need a breather. I used one breather from the outside of the big bell to the top of it.

The cluster of siphons can be all short and up the top. ie if the big bell is 250mm long, the cluster siphons can be say 75mm or whatever.

So really you can just plumb a big standpipe divided into 4, and silicon 3 tubes onto the cap on the big siphon before attaching it. It should all be very forgiving.

In theory

I'd like to call it "the http://120thingsin20years.blogspot.com cluster bell siphon" Just in case it catches on. That should get some google hits

But given my sequencer ended up being called the "bullwinkle sprinkle" or "BS" for short, I'm guessing that name wont catch on

Which reminds me, I also came with a $2 sequencer last night. (that was a really productive bottle of scotch)

EB do you need a device for distributing water for the BYAP systems?

As you can see, there is room for some design refinements

I like the glass bell.

Interesting.

I needed to see what was going on.

Not so practical in the real world though with algae.

here's one I made a while back as a demo, a few people on here did it ages ago, but I wanted my own footage for my blog.

Turn your sound down.