Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looking great. Time for gravel, pumps and pipes and stuff eh

Lol, yes...now I'm entering the phase I know nothing about...actually getting the system to work!

Hi again. Have a couple of q's to run past you all...

Made the bell siphon during the week. Looks a little something like this



...oops, sorry. That's what I did on Friday

Bell siphon



There seems to be a lot of conjecture about sizes of bell tube, stand pipe etc, so I have taken a stab at what I think will work. I have 32mm stand, with 90mm bell and 100mm gravel guard. Thoughts on these sizes? I can easily step up or down on the stand pipe, but the gravel guard and bell should be ok, yeah?

Also, another pic of the layout...



...with drainage, is it a good idea to have each bed on individual piping, or better to run both into a common drain pipe? I intend to run any drain plumbing near to the fence, to keep the space between GBs clear. If I use a common drain, I understand its a good idea to extend one end up and above the GB height....is that correct?

Cheers in advance

That's Josephine Falls isn't ?

Yup. And freezing cold it was too!

A lot of your pipe sizing is going to depend on your pumping. Personally I'd scrap the siphons all together, but if you want to use them I'd have either individual drain pipes, or a seriously over sized common pipe...

What would you use in lieu of the siphon, eb? I am expecting to have to experiment a little with pump size, but I'm hoping to drain the beds a lot faster than they fill...I think I will have the pump on permanently, with the bell siphon kicking in intermittently and emptying the beds.

Also, what purpose would the os common drain pipe serve...?

Cheers.

I believe EB is suggesting CF, which is what Id go for too..

In my experience, syphons are a wast of time, but thats just my opinion.

But they are interesting, weren't you fascinated by the bath tub emptying when you were young?



________________________
I was young and stupid once, i'm not that young now

Heheh it's when the bath tub didn't empty or didn't stay full that makes siphons too interesting.

lol


Why?

As many have suggested, why not go Constant Flood?
So much easier and virtually maintenance free.

Yep and Yep.

One less point of failure. Works just as well for most plants.

Hmmm...seems a fair amount of experimenting will be in order soon. I am just reading through ElKayBeee's siphon thread in the Hardware section. Very interesting reading.

From what I gather, the difference between an FD bell siphon system and a constant flood with standpipe, is essentially just the bell section, so to switch between the two (for experiment purposes) should be pretty straight forward. Since I have gone to all this trouble to make the bell-siphon, I think I will pursue that avenue to begin with and see what adjustments I need to make from there...

With the CF, is two inches below the surface still about right for max water level? Or is this lowered??

The flood level remains the same... and is still set by the standpipe...

Hey Mate,

Only a noob here myself, i cant comment on the adv/disadv of different siphons. I do know this though, i wanted a siphon to drain quickly, i followed the Affnan how too on you tube and they both work perfectly first time, and jesus they suck hard. Affnan's guide is very easy to follow and they just work, im impatient so i dont want to stuff around with things, no point in wasting time when someone has already done that for you.

Cheers LInc