Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello Guys,

I'm rookie in aquapoincs however I have 15 years experience in aquaristics.

I'd like to know your opinion about the following situation.

I prefer the continous flood and drain methodology.

Actually my pump fills up the growbed within 3:30 min and the syphon drains it 1:15 min. It means that within 1hour it has ~13 cycles.

Does it too high or too low?

My water pump is a little bit bigger due the fact that I'm going to increase the number of the growbeds.

Now I have only one which is 250 L the fistank size is 1000L.

So thats why I can super fast fill up the growbed with water.

Any Idea or suggestion?

Thanks in advance.

Roland from Hungary

Welcome to the forum Roland .

That is some pretty fast cycling. I've had system cycle every 6 minutes (10 cycles per hour) without any problems at all so I suspect it will make no difference. As long as the siphon still breaks you could reduce the flow going to the grow bed by putting a T and ball valve into the pipe from the pump (use the flow off the T to aerate the water).

You could also convert this over to Constant Flood and just remove the siphon and you don't want a hole at the base of the standpipe for this either. Your fish tank water levels will fluctuate less using Constant Flood.

Hello Scotty435!

Thanks the advice.

I have collector tank between the fishtank and the growbed. So the fast drain has no effect on the fish.

I forgot to think a little bit.

I planned that waterflow is controlled by valves in the growbeds. I have to do it in the collector tank. Less water goes directly to the fish tank >>>> cycle going to be slow down.

Next step play with the syphons diameter, because actual one will be big for the small waterflow I guess.

I dont want to let it work as relief tube.

Since when has been your system working with this cycle?

Roland

My first system started out on loop siphons and switched to bell siphons which is when the timing got faster. It probably ran for a year with the faster cycling, maybe a bit longer. I only run Constant Flood in the current system so no more cycling.

Fast or slow, or none at all = ConstantFlood

If Constant Flood is OK, then how is a fast AutoSiphon cycle an issue..

Depending on the setup, the fastest cycle could be good.. each time mine flushes,there is significant aspirated aeration which must be good, such that in the event of an air failure, there will be some from the aspiration..

PS... I like to try building aspirators into each autosiphon.. to gain value from each cycle
..
.

Rapid F&D cycles are okay... to a point. Very rapid F&D cycles will not allow solids to settle out in the GB's, so they will stay suspended in the water and you will have higher turbidity.

I size the standpipes in my siphons so there's around 4x F&D cycles per hour, which gives both sufficient retention time for good bio-filtration and settling out of solids.

With your 250L GB a 20mm standpipe would give at least 4x F&D cycles per hour when the flow is tuned to get the siphon working correctly , but more likely 5 - 6 cycles per hour, which would still be fine IMO.