low flow bell siphon

[april Dawson]

Is there a way to get a bell siphon to work properly with little flow? I have looked everywhere and can’t find a good solution.

Thanks!

[TCLynx]

Size the bell siphon appropriately to the flow, add the affnan modification, add a cup tipper.

 

Or you could use a FLOUT instead

[Averan]

in other words, use smaller diameter pipes in your siphon.

[halemart]

I was having trouble getting my indoor aquarium to kick in with a very small pump, I had 1/2 inch pvc pipe.  and a very small pump.

 

My solution was to take about 4 small 1/4 inch flexiable vinyl pipe ( like air hose pipe ) cut to about 2 inches and stuff them inside the 1/2 pipe   This restricted the flow of the pipe, and enabled the system to cycle fine.

 

On youtube I have seen people use couplers from large to small size, to achieve the same thing.    Basically restirct the pipe to match your flow.

 

Hope this helps.   Cheers!

[RW]

I recently got one going with 1/2 inch pipe sized up to 1 inch funnel at the top using 1/2 x 3/4 and 3/4 x 1 inch bushings and capped it with a 2 inch bell. 

[Rick Stillwagon]

Check out the tipper cup vid on my page. I have been using it and it works like clock work.

[Ryan Chatterson]

Ive got a few bell siphons that use a 1/2" stand pipe and they only require around 1-2gpm to trigger the flood. Extremely slow trickle running through them. 

[Jonathan Farrand]

While on the subject. Two questions: 1. How crucial is the funnel or coned stand pipe? I have reducers as this, but they lack the smooth downward conical shape. 2. The top of the bell, the distance from the standpipe to the top of the bell, how crucial is this gap? I think my bell's have fallen on larger difference in space than a smaller difference.

 

I love the four hoses in the stand pipe and I want to get some tipper cup going on. Thanks

[Jonathan Farrand]

I just youtubed some tipper videos. WOW!

[april Dawson]

Thanks so much for the advice everyone.I’m already using very small outlets that are already installed so changing that is not an option right now. FLOUTS look fairly expensive considering how many i would need, i’ve already spent the money on my bell siphons anyways. I will try the hoses in the pipe right now.

Everything is working pretty well now but it would definatly be much more dependable with a tipper. Sometimes it goes right away and other times it takes a cup of water or about a half hour of equilibrium (is this detrimental to the plants?). Do you know any sites that explain how to build one? i have looked and all i can find so far are videos.

[TCLynx]

Most plants do fine with constant flood so as long as the flow is enough to keep the water aerated and the top of the media stays mostly dry, having the bed flooded for an extended period of time shouldn't hurt anything.

[MyKisa]

I plan to use flount, wish I knew more about how much pressure it takes
from flount to activate the sequencing valve by gravity feed
TCLynx said:

Size the bell siphon appropriately to the flow, add the affnan modification, add a cup tipper.

 

Or you could use a FLOUT instead

[TCLynx]

If you install a 2" Flout in a tank up high, you could probably operate a 1 1/4" gravity modified indexing valve if you make sure the FLOUT tank is at least 28 inches above the valve, and the valve is at the height of the top of the grow beds or higher.  And make sure you are not dealing with super long pipe runs (had one person ask about running a gravity modified set up and running the water like 200 feet horizontally and I doubt that will work very well, the FLOUT tank would need to be up much higher to battle the friction loss.)