Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Think the idea is not to put holes in the tank - that was my reasoning behind using a siphon F&F

Haven't we "over-engineered" this a little (like the concept tho)

KP not trying to shoot your ideas down - just throwing up some ideas to see if it can be improved

For example - a guard is needed to keep fish from entering the pipe, so a simple round perforated sleeve over each pipe reaching to the base should be sufficient (hence the suggestion of gutter guard).

Hooking a bleeder hose to the top of the "U" would suck any air that got in there - the bleeder tube only needs to be small and connected to the pump piping...connect it so that it acts like a venturi and sucks air(if any) and water...this rids us of the overflow tank - you could use a plain bicycle tyre valve as a one way valve (this would then self prime and not put an air lock into the pump).

The main pump could be hooked up as normal - what size pump and is it running continuous

Another idea, which was thrown up a while back (think it was for one of Monya's problems)

Put a clear piece of tubing with a tap on it sticking out of the "U" - if any air got into the siphon it would show in the tubing, just needed to the tap on and suck out the air (plus a gob full of water ) then seal it back up

Just emagine a pipe with 5 outlets 2 on each end going to 2 tanks 2 the other end going to the other tanks and the 5 th one going to a pump [no foot valves ] cant use sketchup otherwise would be easy[ maybe somebody can draw it]

Gee - took too long to answer, now all my brilliant ideas are all outdated :sigh:

There already is a hole in the milk tank tne hole in the gal tank is easy as for the strainer look back to the start of my thread been working for over 12 months on problems

Yeah - didn't know which tanks he was referring to and I was going off at a tangent

Plumbing wise it would def look neater that way FF.

If you need pointers could organize a visit

I think this is what you mean?

Of course, the second last tank has less water than the others because the inexperienced tank inastaller wasted that space by not digging the tank bed down low enough to maximise the water storage.

exactly[thanks]

Ah ok.... for some reason I pictured the pump sitting somewhere between the tanks

after the manifold, (before the pump) you can place a non return valve which will allow the pump to sit above the water level of the tank.

You can put the pump 20 ft above the tank if you like [after that atmosphere pressure comes in to the equation ] now thats sorted out the returning balance water on my system theres 2 banks of 4 grow beds [total 8 ] one set gets 3 min water every 1/2 hr the other 4 gets water 15 min in the hr but only gets toped up with 20 litres fish water every hr the growth in both cases is the same[steve can vouch for that]so the return line can go to ether tank[better both just 2 valves also the bypass pressure line can go to eather or both

There has been a few mentions to air locks being a killer for this type of siphon (as TT was originally after), I have not had the problem after continuous use over many months so thought to try and work out why.


My theory:

I use continuous pumping from the sump tanks and have the outflow from the GBs going directly back to the sump tank, this means that water is constantly flowing in a direction through the siphon points (apart from when the flow changes direction) - in other words, the stationary water is measured in seconds as opposed to having a pump on a timer where the water could be stationary in the siphon pipes for several minutes.

Any air bubbles pulled in to the siphon pipe would continue with the flow and escape into the other sump tank and have no stationary time in which to build up and thus cause a significant build-up of air to extinguish any siphon action action.


So - how does that theory stand up????
Does it go down as another advantage for continuous pumps over timed pumping


p.s.
in my siphon connection - if the siphon did malfunction, I would lose approximately 40-50 litres when one of the sump tanks overflowed but would not impact on the system effectiveness, so this is not an issue for me (total water volume in my system is 2,500l)

if you have a good siphon it doesn't matter whether you have continuous pumping, or cyclic.
If you have a well set up siphon it will hold its integrity. Most of the time. It's the time when it doesn't that your entire system falls over, and thousands of litres are pumped onto the ground.
Say a possum gets in and upsets it one day, or a blockage of some sort reduces flow. I will only trust a siphon or drain if I can force flush it regularly. Flush it of air and of other mankiness.

EllKayBee, you state you would lose 40-50 Litres if your tank overflowed. ok, what about the next time your pump cycles? will you lose another 40-50L? If not, i assume your system is governed by a sump float switch, in which case if your tank overflows, ultimately your system will stop cycling, which imho is even worse. Sorry EKBee, I may be wrong about your system, I'm not familiar with it.

Nope - only lose the water on the one cycle and don't have a sump float switch.

Okay - I have two 400l sump tanks connected via the siphon - I can disconnect one sump tank and run the system as is
- my GB's hold 200 litres each, but they are flooded in sequence so that there is only one lot of water out of the fish/sump tank at any one time
- the levels (with both sump tanks connected) allows for room for an extra 100 litres before there is too much water being fed back and overflows...if the siphon malfunctions then one sump tank will overflow on the next cycle but following cycles there will be sufficient room to take all the remainder of the water.

Losing 50 litres would be the maximum if I had the sump tank level set to my maximum (I leave room for about 50 litres in each tank to the top)

This link is to a pic taken in Jan 2007 - so it has been working since then..the smaller black piping were experiments with height equalisation but they were too slow
Old pic of sump tank siphon

I have 6 Gbs around 500litres each full of gravel and they are fed sequentially so that I don't need an excessively large sump tank to cater for having all the GBs flooded at the same time


Hope this answers your query KP, this is a link to my thread but it is over 50 pages long
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... .php?t=755


I set it up in this manner so that I can disconnect the siphon pipe and run 2 independent systems - one off each sump tank


Forgot to add - I use a 3,000lph pump on the main system and have a 2,000lph pump for the other sump tank system which is used for new fingerlings (quarantine/hospital system if necessary)