Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I just set up my first IBC Aquaponics system. No plants or fish yet but the plumbing and auto siphon was working, and I added most of my hydroton.

The auto siphon has been working consistently until I added one more bag of hydtroton. Now It is just consistently dribbling out of the drainpipe but not pulling all the water out of the growbed. To fix this I start fiddling with the bell siphon, and I must have fiddled too much because I accidentally pulled out entire stand pipe. Needless to say it was a huge mess, lots hydroton in the fish tank.

Eventually, I got the stand pipe back in but I am having trouble getting bell siphon to sit squarely on top of the stand pipe because of the Hydroton. The Hydroton pellets are getting jammed between the stand pipe and the bell siphon which is preventing the bell to sit squarely and evenly over the stand pipe. Is that preventing the siphon from starting? What do I do now? Do I have remove all the pellets just to reset the bell and stand pipe?

This has been very frustrating since I have been messing with this for the last 2 hours in 100 degree Texas heat. I hope I explained myself clearly and someone can help me

Thanks

Hiya aqua, do you have a media guard?

I do have a media guard but not sure how to keep the media out since the media is already in the garden bed. It seems to me I have to get the media guard, the bell, and standpipe secured prior to adding the media. Seems obvious to me now but what do I do now?

Personally I'd throw away the siphon and just run timed flood and drain or constant flood. If you are determined to stick with the siphon, maybe wriggle the stand pipe down until it sits properly on the base of the grow bed again, then (with the standpipe out) hose any media inside the gravel guard down the drain and scoop them back out of the fish tank...

I'm thinking your gravel guard isn't working properly. Or designed wrong, the media shouldn't be able to get to the siphon area. You just have to pick it out of that area.

With the flow, a siphon behaves differently with an without media. You need to up the flow for the siphon to start if it's only dribbling. Otherwise make sure the elbow below the bed is pointing down, even slightly up, it won't kick off.

Do you have any photos?

Photos will help.

Take Home Depot bucket and cut bottom off. Drill a bunch of holes and push it down into your media. Once in , scoop out media and clean out area. Get media guard sorted out. I used 4" pipe for mine. To hold it I took a drain grate for the pipe and cut out the middle so it would slip over the standpipe and sit on the bottom. Works great.

If your siphon will not start and stop play with the horizontal part of the drain and adjust water flow. The standpipe only needs to be adjusted for your water depth.

I'll take some pictures in the morning. Thank you for all the suggestions. Things are better now. I used some elbow grease and pushed bell siphon and the media guard down as best I could. I also increased the flow. The siphon is catching now. The timing needs to be adjusted since its filling up in 6 minutes and 2.5 minutes to empty. I should slow it down to about 15 minutes to fill up right? Should I just reduce flow to accomplish this? Last question, I have a LOT of hydroton and hydroton dust in the fish tank now. Some of it I can grab if its floating. A lot of it has sunk to the bottom along with layer of dust. Any recommendations for getting that out?