Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,

I'm currently making my system out of 220l blue barrels.
One as a fish tank (200l), water going down to grow beds (two half barrels filled with media, ~40l of water each), then going to a sump (third barrel) where the water and air pumps are.

As I don't really figure out how all of this water will work, I plan to make one constant flood grow bed and one flood and drain, juste to be sure my pump won't go dry and break.

I plan to use 40mm pipe out of the fishtank, then two 20mm valves to distribute equal water to both growbeds.
From growbeds to sump, a 20mm pipe for each.

Are those pipes big enough? I made it out of logic, but I never made any plumbing so I'm not very confident...

The exit of my pump is a 25mm pipe. Is it usefull to put a 40mm connection on it for water to go back in the fish tank?

I plan to do all of that with polyethylene flexible pipes. If you have any trick or tip, please share!

Thanks for reading

We're missing some information here (some of it might not matter depending on how you set this up) -

Type of pump
Head height
Distance from pumps to grow beds
Distance from grow beds back to sump

Just hearing what you've got without any other info, I'd say you've probably got a pump with a lot of excess capacity. You'll want to take some of that excess and use it to aerate the water in the sump (usually people put a T in the line with a ball valve to control the flow).

I think the pipe from the pump to the grow beds could probably be 1" if the run is short without a lot of turns but 1.25 is probably as large as I'd go. The main thing larger pipe does is reduce the friction. Your return pipe doesn't have the pump driving the water through so you'll need larger pipes returning the water to the sump since it's just flowing by gravity. How large the pipes should be for the return will depend on the flow rate you expect them to carry. There are charts for vertical and horizontal gravity flow that can help with selecting the size of pipe for the return.

Hi, thanks for your answer.

First, here is a picture of my system so far :

https://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/347855IMG20170621WA0002.jpg

Type of pump = 1000l/h - 190cm is max height
Head height = not sur of what you mean : the top of the fish tank is 160cm above ground.
Distance from pumps to grow beds / Distance from grow beds back to sump = Pump goes from sunk to fish tank. Distance should be 150cm, almost straight up.
Water goes from fishtank to grow beds by gravity, distance should be less than 100cm with a 40cm drop.
Growbeds to sump : less than 100cm, 20/30cm drop.

Thank you for the advice about the T for air pumping.

I'd also love to see the charts you speak about?

Thanks for reading.

Here is one I was looking at yesterday.

https://flexpvc.com/Reference/WaterFlow ... Size.shtml

or just google - flow rates pipe diameter - and I'm sure you'll find something that is helpful.

OK, here goes -

The head height is measured from the top of the water the pump is in to the highest height it's pumping to. Most pumps have a chart or table that tells you how much water the pump will deliver at any given head height (pump brand and model number would help locate this chart if it's on the Internet otherwise the info is usually included in the box when you buy the pump).

All your runs are pretty short and I don't think you'll be pumping much volume so you're probably oversizing your pipe so far. The chart Rsonic linked to will work for figuring your pipe sizes. You may not have a lot of excess flow because of the head height but we''ll see when you get the chart .

Hi,

I found my pump at the growshop where I bought my 200l of clay pebbels. It's a cheap one made for hydroponics :
http://www.platiniumhydroponics.com/gb/6955-new-pompe-a-eau-platinium-1000l-h.html

I can't find any chart on the manufacturer's website, and there is no chart in the box. It's only said that the maximum height is 190cm.

Are these informations mandatory to be able to know which pipe size I have to use?

EDIT:
Considering that the pump's exit diameter is 25mm, I think I'm going to calibrate the whole water circuit on that diameter.
25mm pipe from pump to FT. 25mm pipe from FT to 2*20mm exits (one for each grow bed). Then 25mm pipes from growbeds to the sump.

How about this solution? It is quite simple and avoid what may seem like overthinking a watercircuit of a small domestic system.