Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice... I hadn't considered the repercussions of a minor failure...

As for smaller beds, each bed is fitted with a ball valve. I would plan on filling the first GB, and after it starts draining, continue to fill it. This way, more than 1 GB's worth of water is cascading. so if any GB further down the line has extra space, it should be taken up by the extra water. If they don't the float valve will ensure the extra water only flows when the siphon has started.

KP. I reckon it will work. Because you are "overfilling" (but not "overflowing") the first bed, you should be able to guarantee that the final bed gets more than it needs to kick in the siphon. It may take a bit of fiddling to get the right amount into the first bed, but I'm of the opinion that it's a goer!

Another idea could be to have different sized siphons. So the first one empties really quickly, meaning you can keep pumping into it for longer, thus increasing the amount of water in your cascade and then the last one has the smallest siphon, so the water builds up there. So long as you can gaurantee that it won't overflow of course.

when you say size of the siphon, you mean diameter of the pipe yes?

It will take some fiddling it is true... like if the top bed fills slowly for some reason, the timer will cutout (I hate timers, they are not based in the real world) but I don't know how to do this otherwise...
Guess I just have to check it every day or so...

How bad do plants get wet feet if water is allowed to stand in the GB?
- we're talking max 30 min here, but that could be 30 min every second cycle, so 30 min in the hour...

My concern would be timing...if the drainrate slows a little over time due to biofilm and solids buildup, it could slow your sequential chain. Anyway, try it and see, not all things can be predicted accurately. Build your system so it can be altered on the fly. You are on the bleeding edge...where have you been all my life KP?

Not in Toowoomba that's for sure... not even sure where that is... and of course I wasn't alive for half your life

Oh yeah...unconceived!!

Toowoomba is positioned relative to Brisbane similar to Katoomba/Blue Mountains to Sydney. On the Great Divide about 100klm west of Brizvegas.

Had a good storm last night, all crackly and noisy, just the way I like it. About 48ml rain, all safely stored in big green tanks waiting for ap system to be commissioned...not long now.

Keep at it KP, you could be a pioneer in 'Cascadingponics'!

Yes



Are you feeling OK? I thought you'd be all for setting up some automatic system where if the probe stays wet for more than 30 mins it sends you an sms

In all seriousness though, there are a couple things you could try if that does happen. You could just have a tiny hole in each bed which drains into the next bed (or back to the sump). Not really enough to affect in-flow, but if it's left sitting in there for 30 mins it will all drain out. Of course this doesn't solve the source of the problem, but it may stop your plants drowning. The again, maybe the plants don't mind 30 mins? I dunno, someone with more exp can tell us.

Oh!...I thought psyche nurses were in to full moons and things like that

When we have a good electrical storm, I tell the clients to stand outside and hold their knives and forks in the air...divine electroconvulsive therapy!!!

There is a bit of Dr Frankenstein in me...somewhere, but I've forgotten which bit!!! Muahahaha!

Yup feeling fine... I could and would do that but for the extortion by telstra for anything to do with mobiles.
As I already have an astrerisk PABX here at home, it would be much simpler just to ring me on my mobile and play a recorded message :-)

However, I would have a timeout, if the outlet from the bottom of the cascade doesn't get wet within a time period (based on the standard deviation of previous cycles) then ring me... much simpler, and then I only need 1 sensor per cascade

And if that didn't make sense, just remember: You asked

Kuda

If cascading multiple beds I think you may have problems equalising/dumping the beds. I had it initially in the cheap and nasty system I put together and thats only one tier. Works now but doing it on a multiple level will be tricky.
This thread got slightly off track (don't they all) so if someone mentioned this before OK, you got it twice.