Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

have you tried a siphon set up like mine?

The breather pipe kills the siphon after only 2 inches or so, but it still pulls water fast when it triggers, and it pulls it from the bottom rather than the top in a constant flood situation. I have a feeling that pulling water from the bottom is important. I guess the BYAP system trials will show that in a year or two if it's an issue.

The problem is, there's no way for me to know if it makes any difference because aquaponics is so forgiving no matter what you do

no, never tried a siphon quite like that.

I expect one could do a drain kinda like a through the bottom SLO to draw water from the bottom of a grow bed even in constant flood, basically just the bell without a cap.
It wouldn't provide the fast water movement that the siphon action does though.

Yeah I ran my system like that ages ago when my pump was too frail to trigger the siphon

It's still frail, but I added a new front bearing made of wire and it got me an extra few LPH



It's been running like that for months and months

Ah so that's how you use the paperclip. LOL

I thought I'd post this in here as a personal record.

It's a landscape I found in my blue barrel system.

Here's the same scene zoomed out a bit.

CooL!

The blue barrel landscape is worthy of hanging in the national art museum...love it !!

And I can see from the pump repair your trade must mechanical engineer, well executed Bullwinkle......

and this...

Here is the promised $15 sequencer build instructions. I cant post it in here because there are too many photos.

Bullwinkle sequencer build

I just looked at my blog to see when that pump front bearing was made, and it's been running like that for 14 months! Its been running fine since then. When I first did it it put out 100LPH but a week ago was only managing 70.

The original problem was this...



Then this morning it started screeching.

And then stopped, less than 24 hours after being proud of it to TC

It's possible there had been some slight wear on the shaft, possible even due to my wire rebuild



I've had this pump for years and years and dont like the idea of binning it, so I thought Id do another rebuild.

I made a new improved fron bearing using my new wire bending Fu I gained from making fishing lures as one of my 120 things in 20 years.

And stuck it in place....

Now it looks like this...



And I now get 135 LPH.



As compared to the 70 from last night....

Well, you did need a new problem to solve. But looks like you solved that one too quick, so what's next?

+1

Actually someone else asked for an ultra slow flow siphon so I'll have a look at that, then have a look at a way of stopping gravity fed flow.

I just read a PM from thorn, and it looks like the low flow might have been solved

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... 15#p284914

That doesnt mean there shouldnt be another version

I like siphon type things that are externalised and sit outside the growbeds in a bucket. I'm a big fan of modular stuff