Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Access to the valve to begin with? :poke:

I cant tell if there is a cap on the T after valve, but probably too much head pressure to pump out. (misdirection?) was it meant to be the original feed to the NOT NFT before the return did not end up in the best place and by reversing made it better?

I am going to go with: Eliminate a 90 by coming down the wall for return and actually have it fixed to be able to close?

Adam

Accessing the valve is a bit tough... I have to climb up on top of the IBC's to reach it... but that's not really a huge problem, just inconvenient (but intentional, I was trying to use the least amount of PVC to do the job because I didn't want to run to the store, so I made it work with what I had...to put the valves in easy to access locations I would have had to split the lines much lower but still have them both go to that height (or I wouldn't have got flow to the NOT-NFT)). There is no cap on the T after the valve, but water will take the path of least resistance so it will flow sideways to the NOT-NFT or the fish tank before it tries to climb that T (unless the pipes were undersized for the amount of flow I was trying to push through them, then it might still climb the extra head height...), so I have not had a problem with that. I had to raise the supply to that height to be able to feed the NOT-NFT and the fish tank using the same pump, otherwise the water all just went to the fish tank because it didn't want to fight the extra head... so that was a previous flaw that I already fixed.

There is a bigger problem than any of those issues though... I'll give a clue... it did not become a problem until my power was shut off for a few minutes yesterday for some power line maintenance near my house. It became an issue when the power came back on.

Then create a siphon from FT back to sump and the vent was meant to be before the valve for NOT NFT as a break?



Adam

You got it. I didn't really "mean" to have the vent before the valve, but I didn't think about it becoming a problem until I shut the valve off... then I thought oh crap, what happens if air gets stuck in the line? The reason I put it in to begin with was because the NOT-NFT is just slightly higher than the fish tank line so the air was getting trapped on the way to the NOT-NFT. I knew I needed to change this eventually, I just haven't taken the time to shut the system down to do it.... well they shut the system down for me to do maintenance on the power lines someplace near my house. It was only off for a couple of minutes, but I got home and found the water was barely flowing in the system and my sump was quite a bit fuller than it had been the past few days. I thought maybe when the power went out my pump came back on at low speed... nope it has a memory feature and comes back at the normal speed... I bumped it up a notch but was still having trouble getting enough water flowing to reach the gravel bed without nearly shutting off the DWC bed (this is still a design flaw I need to change... the DWC supply goes straight down under the gravel bed supply so I have to half close the valve to make some water go to the gravel bed... I need to T to the side then 90 down to the DWC bed instead so both supplies go sideways out the supply line then it should make it a little easier to control the flow to both without shutting the valve quite so far). I thought "I wonder if there is air trapped in the system is why it's not flowing..." so I climbed up and opened the valve to start the NOT-NFT and it burped and sure enough to flow started going much faster.

So I still need to do something to fix that. I will probably just put a second T and vent pipe on it towards the fish tank side. I also need to put caps on the top and just drill a small hole in them because having the vent pipe open makes it rather loud. I know from previous experience with PVC overflows in my salty tank that I can cap it and just put an 1/8" hole for the air to escape and it will act as a muffler and quiet it down a lot.

On my MBBR, I was having issues with getting good flow out put so I reversed the in/out so the input now came in at the same level and the output is like a siphon tube. Only my problem is it kept pulling water way more than I wanted.

Drilled hole 3" down (below waterline-- should have done 2") and now have break. So do the same on your return and you do not have to cut/splice/insert anything new?

Did the same on my expansion tank supply above waterline, and get a bit of venturi effect.

Adam

Brohay, what flow did you you finally get after these mods?

We're not really mods, just stumbled onto it when I was trying to get a better output to feed the DWC beds for the original expansion system.

I now have 12 GPM coming into my RFF and then feeding into my MBBR (which is actually to be my SUF) . I'll measure output this am. (hopefully it's close to 12? Input equals output?)

The original configuration had to overcome the water level and restricted output. My water level was 6" higher before the swap. Now it is about 1" below and flows unrestricted. Since I have air mixing everything, should not matter where the exit is situated?

Adam

10.2 GPM

Adam

thank you.

I didn't really follow that... I'm not sure if we are calling the return the same thing... My pump line is way up high because it has to be to feed the NFT... My supply to the beds is as high as it can go on the side of the IBC so I can't raise it up any higher and my pipes are just above my beds so I can't really go any lower to put a filter in between... I'm not sure I understood what you did to your mbbr but I don't know what drilling anything any different is going to fix? Im not entirely sure that's even the problem you were trying to help with because you didn't really say anything about what problem you were trying to fix...? I don't mean to sound rude if that's how it comes out, just not following what you are talking about... I know you had tried to suggest something before a page or two back that I didn't understand what you were talking about then either and when I tried to clarify I didn't get a response, so to be clear I'm just not understanding what you are talking about.

Really the only way I can see to add a filter is to raise the IBC or lower the beds there just isn't enough room in between the two.

Take the easy route and drill a hole to act as a break instead of adding another vent tube. Do above/below the water line

You were talking how the current setup pulls a siphon when power out and what should you do?

I was trying to describe how my inlet from the RFF to my MBBR was @ reduced flow b/c it was being piped down into the bottom and the outlet was 6" from the top.

By reversing to have the RFF inlet @ the top and the outlet pull water from close to the bottom. Created a siphon (similar to J tube) and it would continue to pull water with power outage. I drilled a hole 3" below water line to break instead of almost emptying the barrell.

By doing so, my flow went from very minimal flow (3.6 GPM) to 10.2 GPM

Still clear as mud?

Adam

Got it that time thanks!

It's not siphoning, it just drained out completely due to gravity then is replaced by air, then since I don't have a vent when the pump restarts it has to clear the air out, but since it is so high up (its probably 5 feet from the top of the tank to the top of the PVC) it can't push all of the air down into the tank (or at least not in the couple of hours from the time the power was out until I got home) so it just resulted in very slow flow until I cracked the valve and let the air burp out. Of all of the problems I could have with a power outage this one is pretty minor. I have the fittings and short piece of pipe to add another vent all I need to get is the caps to make a muffler for the vents... I just have to take the time to do it which I haven't just due to having to shut the pump off for a bit to cut the line and then give the glue some time to dry.

Last night I snow blowed the driveway then cleared paths from the house to the greenhouse, greenhouse to the chicken coop, chicken coop to the house, back of house to front of house so I have about 3ft wide walkways everywhere now. We have about 10-12 inches of snow in the yard now. The temps in the greenhouse had been hovering around 40F because the sun hasn't really been shining the past few days so I took my small buddy heater which is attached to a 20lb LP tank out to the greenhouse and started it. I was able to jump the temp up to 46F in about 10 minutes. Don't want to get it too warm in there because my wife is trying to get some lavender to go dormant in there for a bit and it's already having troubles where a couple of the lavender plants are flowering -- she doesn't want them to flower until she takes them back to work for whatever research they are doing on them.

Purple and white lavender blooms in December

Very interesting reading. My first question is, does all lavender need to go dormant? There must be a lot of varieties of lavender. Is it just the red and white that needs it.
On your description of the plumbing issue, would a one way valve help?

I know nothing about lavender... all I know is that my wife is doing something with it for work. She sequences the genomes of different plants so they can study what changing certain aspects at different times of growing how it reacts etc. So for whatever she needs to do next she needs to have it be dormant for some time period that way when she takes it back to work and puts it in their warm greenhouses it will go in to bloom for whatever she is doing with it... they have quite a large greenhouse all interconnected and I guess they can't control the temps in just one part of the house to drop it down cold enough to force them into dormancy (or they just don't have space to do that while still keeping everything else where they need it because the greenhouses are shared by several departments)

this is the monstrous maze of greenhouses that she works in. The one time I went there with her we entered at the bottom right someplace and her stuff is towards the top left so she took me through some maze to get there because they only have certain hallways which connect etc.