Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Cool thanks for the speedy replies. I am still trying to fully understand the bell syphon. Flow rate not sure. Probs have to wait until next week to get a new battery.

I will have a look at some more vids for now

how many watts is that solar panel you could try using a battery powered airpump

Get a container - ice cream container, whatever, anything will do,
stick a hose through the bottom of it so it comes up to within an inch of an upturned glass (it wont matter if the seal is poor, it can leak all it wants. It makes it easy to sit over a sink if you make the stand pipe (hose) go through a little off centre.
then get a drinking glass
Pour yourself a beer
Then get another glass (as the bell), and stick it over the top of the hose and fill the container with water.
Keep the glass off the bottom with a few sticks in the bottom of the container (I like to use a mandarin or a selection of small toy plastic chickens for things like this and just jam everything in place - I've got a lot of mandarins )

Make it rough, this should take literally only a minute of your time to make.

grab another drink, and within a half an hour you'll know everything there is to know about siphons, and everyone else within a mile will be really bored with everything you tell them for that half hour

Let us know how it went.

Hehe sounds good. I will do this in a min.

The solar panel is 10w but i have 2 if i need more juice. I also have a 72watt panel but it needs put together and framed.

the length of hose should stick out 10 cm under the container

Hey cool yeah i got it to work

I do understand it much better now thanks!

I have quite a few odds and ends of pvc drainpipe etc and 2 lengths that fit nicely inside of each other. I found a good video a couple weeks ago with a nice tutorial. That should keep me busy (along with all the other stuff i NEED to do) until i get my battery.

Ok so i have these 3 pieces of pvc pipe and the plug hole thing from the laundry sink.

Does this look about right before i go any further?

I am thinking i can glue the smallest pipe onto the grate bit. I have pvc glue but no primer. Is it important to use a primer or not?

Cheers!

Is the plug plastic or metal.

Avoid all metal.

Metal makes the fishies get all dead.

I'd aim for a little mor difference between the smallest two.

The stand pipe wont be able to run flat out if the bell doesn't supply water fast enough. It's difficult to tell with round things though. A small increase in size makes for a much greater flow. But even then, it's a pretty small gap. I'd try to find something a little smaller for the standpipe.

I empty my 100L grow bed (filled with scoria) through a 12mm poly pipe stand pipe (basically a garden hose) its amazing how much a small pipe will dump with only a little height of pressure. A 19mm pipe set through the wall, half way up a plastic bucket almost keeps up with my 12mm garden hose flat out. My garden hose took 1 hour 20 minutes to fill a 1000L IBC. (I've been playing today, working out flow rates for my system expansion.

A 50mm pipe flows at only about 1/5th full when sticking out of the side of the top of an IBC when I have my garden hose running into it flat out (roughly 1000LPH) .

I don't know if that's useful in any way, but all info is handy when you are doing this stuff.

Yeah i gotcha. But metal bad for fishies?! Thats a problem as my sink is made of stainless steel! The plug grate is plastic and the rim thingo also stainless.

I was thinking i could get the size pipe in between the largest 2 i have. So the middle one in the pics would be the standpipe.

I will see what i can find at the tipshop and salvage place tmrw.

Stainless should be ok, but perhaps you should get a second opinion on that.

Anyone?

Stainless steel is OK...

SS is Ok..

those same sink fitting are used in quiet a few Koi Pond Filter system in Australia..
I'm afraid to say that we can't get the real good ones the american's have..

I have one but that is for my main front yard pond system.. still in the planning stage.. only about 20,000lt Plus system..

That fitting is ok.. just take care when you tighten the nut up.. use plenty of Silicon..
-- They have a slight weakness in there design..

Juergen

Cool thanks guys.

Well i got a 900mm piece of tubing from the salvage shop that should do the job nicely. The piece for the stand pipe just fits in the plug hole gap. Does anyone know if pvc glue will stick to silicon? It looks like i need a bead around the bottom just to make up a couple of mm.

I found a good way to make a tube a bit thicker is to cut off a section, split it lengthways, then slip the cut section over the original pipe. There will be a small gap, but it's easy to fill, and it wont matter if it leaks if the grow bed is directly over the fish tank. You do the same to make a pipe a bit smaller, if you cut it lengthway, then make a second cut to remove some material. Then psh the gap closed and jam it into the original pipe.

I have a small hole in the bottom of my standpipe to allow the grow bed to slowly drain if the power goes out, so mine is designed to be constantly leaking.

Ok that trick to make the standpipe a bit smaller sounds the go. Except its only the bottom few cm that needs the girth reduced... i take it you mean splitting the whole pipe lengthways? Sounds do-able but probs overkill.

I tried glueing the pipe directly to the stainless rim but no good. No adhesion what so ever...

I take it using Araldite glue is a nono?

So i can either silicone the rim up a couple cm to meet the pipe and try glueing that to the pipe end or reduce the end of the pipe...

Hmmmm