Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I should have added:

I was having problems with one of my grow beds siphon not breaking properly, in the end it turned out that the (25mm) drain pipe was on a slight upwards angle. Once I adjusted it so it was horizontal (or slightly downwards) the siphon started working fine.

Just something to watch out for.

Although in your case you seem to have more trouble with the starts rather than the stops.

Your growbeds look like an ideal size, very nice.

Are your bell siphons traditional, or Affnan style? Traditional are notoriously fiddily. Also make sure your return line is not submerged in the sump. You need an air gap for the siphon to start.

personally Id throw the bells away and go CF.... kapow! All your problems are gone

Thank you for the thoughts about the siphons. Right now i have them working fine as long as I don't have them using a common drain at the same time. Switching to the bigger pipe will improve that situation even for CF.

To make the bigger pipe fit my set-up without raising the height of the grow beds I decided to lower the height of the first fish tank.
Here it is at the original height.


Easy peezy, only an hour or so of shoveling.


I can't wait to move this extra dirt somewhere else.

Who needs a gym when you can play in the dirt? Luckily in central Florida we live on an ancient sand dune, shoveling is easy compared to dealing with rocks. Well easy to dig but your shoulders get a workout lifting the dirt above your chest.

And I probably should have chosen a different day to do this work and not on my long run day. Did I mention I'm training for a marathon and ran 16 1/2 miles this morning?

Time for a nap.

That is pure awesomeness, training for a marathon. I once did a track meet in Florida. Most of my running was in Washington state, where it is MUCH cooler. I ran the 800 meter. In Washington I ran it as a full sprint. In Florida, I hit the wall after about 200 meters. As I was running, if you can call it that, towards the finish line, the paramedics were running towards me with ice water drenched towels. I did however have my longest long jump that day, and ranked 25th nationally for my age group. There were about 100 participants in the long jump, so I felt pretty good. Especially after doing so poorly in the 800 meter.

Yeah the summer heat means that I run in the dark whenever it is over 80* which is often.

Just be carefull that you do not get storm run off into your fish tank, otherwise looking good. We have one foot of good dirt here then clay. Digging is not an option in my view.

Well got a 4" common drain pipe installed flush to the ground. I'm relieved to have all the GBs draining without hesitation now.

Also got both tanks connected with 1 1/2" pipe and uniseals. After reading that some people had challenges installing them, I was nervous about the process, but it turned out to be pretty easy. I think I will a second pipe to increase the flow between tanks.

Overall a good day.

I have two half IBCs as GB and they drain into a 90 mm pipe reduced to 500 mm which goes into the sump tank.

Have fitted 30 mm pressure,40 mm DW and 50 mm DW into my sump through uniseals no problems.

Still can not get the 90 mm through one into my main tank, but that could just be me and my physical limitations.

That is frustrating indeed. I was thinking I should have used larger diameter pipe to connect the tanks - hearing your trouble I'm glad I'm not.

Thanks Dave! I thought about cutting them down to only 12 inches deep but that would have meant more cutting of the fiberglass (more dust=itching).

Of course if I had made shallower it would take me a third less time and ache with rinsing the river rock pebbles.
Which has to be one of the most tedious task I have ever done.

. Second most tedious task is of course "wheel-barrowing" the stuff around my yard. My neighbors will certainly be glad when I finally move all the rock from driveway.

Apparently my HOA is doing inspections this month and plan to issue warnings to people with dirty driveway surfaces. I'm expecting a notice.

Just reread my post , into 90 mm and reduced to 50 mm is a lot better, cheers

Good observation. The sandy soil doesn't hold water so not much chance of a flooding intrusion. However I do plan to install gutters on the house nearby to steer the run-off to rain collection tanks and away from the fish tanks. Since we're heading to our dry season, I probably have some time to do this later.

Progress update: Moved the big pile of dirt (from the FT dig) and distributed around the backyard. I moved the peach tree that had planted itself on the side of the house where the additional GBs will be installed. The tree is now along the fence to be espaliered .

In addition to the tree I weeded, moved scrap wood and removed the pine bark mulch from the area. I will remove a couple inches of the rich soil from this area and use it in the children's garden.
I will then put down landscape fabric. Should I have extra rock remaining it will go here.
This is a before shot:


And after (sorry it is dark):


Lesson learned today: be careful when moving around unglued pipe otherwise you'll soon find your tank emptied after you realize the tanks were draining onto the ground instead of the drain pipe. Luckily I learned this lesson before
I got fish. I need to glue the critical connections and silicone those might need to be taken apart in the future. Sad to waste rain water like that.