Plumbing Magic - Installing an Indexing Valve

[M Cosmo]

Well the super plumber came to create one of her Artistic plumbing sculptures.  Today Alis came over to my humble abode and helped me design and install an SLO siphon from my fish tank to the new gravel bed. Then the main project installing the Indexing valve.  Move the Danner pump from the fish tank to the float bed - sump tanks.  We plumbed the two float beds together so they act as one and can be the sump tank.  Then we (I mean Alis here) plumbed an Indexing valve which now feeds two of what will be 4 vertigro rows and the fish tank.  So here is a little summary to make it clearer.  

Fish tank only drains by SLO siphon to the gravel bed. 

Gravel bed only drains to the float tank below the gravel bed. 

A Danner pump in the float tank runs to a 6 way index valve.  It goes to the fish tank 3 of the 6 outlets and to the Vertigro rows of stacks the other three outlets.  

NO FLOAT switches. I left the below ground sump tank in so it can catch over flow if it happens.  

Timmer.  I stet the timer for now go on and off every 15mins from 7 am to 9 pm.

Off all night. When I get time I will have it run to the fish tank all night so it keeps flowing by siphon to the gravel bed and then back to the fish tank.

Here is a link to my Album about it. Video of Indexing Valve.

By the way Gina, Tonya and Paul came to watch,  I made them help anyway. 

I really appreciate the help from Alis today. She saved me lots of mistakes I would have made. By the way I think she gets her superpower from that magic hat. 

[Ron Thompson]

Sorry I missed out.. The doctor kept me sitting in the waiting room for nearly two hours (and then told me my blood pressure was high....)

so how screwed up is the siphon we built on my gravel bed?

[M Cosmo]

I think we did a great job on yours. I haven't installed mine yet. I have some more plumbing to do this weekend.

[TCLynx]

I must say I was really there as moral support I think.
It all went together fairly straight forward.

I will advise to protect that clear tubing from the sun or replace with solid plumbing sometime as the algae build up in it could cause issues at some point.

I'm happy to say that the Danner MD18 pump seems to be running the Aquaponics indexing valve just fine at this height and seems to be feeding the towers fine as well.

[David Hart]

I wonder if she wears the hat, when she writes her blogs too ? :-)

[Daniel E Murphy]

Sorry I missed it.

[Ron Thompson]

Daniel E Murphy said:

Sorry I missed it.

I can go by and tear everything out, then you can visit for the rebuild. I'm sure Michael won't mind.

[David Hart]

Ron, I wish we had the little faces to click on...I'd pick one laughing and slaping the ground... :-)
That's too funny. I'd love to see the look on Cosmo's face, when he looked out and spotted you sawing away on his new pipes....lol