Please HELP :)

[Brandon nardoianni]

Hello all i hope someone might be able to help me with a problem I'm having figuring out the plumbing sizes of my system.  It is going to be a CHIFT PIST system with a pump in the sump tank.  The tank size will be two IBC's that are 275 gallons that are connected by 2 - 6" pieces of PVC each that will feed the 5 grow beds (Top half of an IBC 14"x48""40)  through a Solids Overflow (SLO) and then the grow beds will drain through bell siphons into the sump tanks (Bottom halves of the IBC Tanks all tied together by a manifold type system of pipes to connect all of the sump tanks  ("34X48"X40") and will pump back to the fish tank through a pump in the sump tank closest to the fish tanks.

Here is my dilemma.  I cant figure out what sizes should be used for the different sections of my system.

 

1.   Size of the pipe for the SLO drain

2.  Size of the pipe From the SLO drain to the grow bed manifold system

3.  I am pretty sure that the bell siphons should be 2" for the sheild and "1 for the drain pipe 5/8" snorkel

4.  Size of PVC To connect sump tanks.

4.  Size of pump in sump tank to get water back to fish tanks to cause water to flow into SLO drain to feed grow beds(GPH?)

5.  Size of pvc from pump back to 275 Gallon tanks.

 

The setup is about 2 feet taller than the grow beds and the sump is directly under the grow beds.  Elevation difference from the bottom of the sump to top of Fish tanks is about 5 feet.

 

Plus how to correctly get the system on a constant schedule of flood and drain.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have everything else done setting the tanks and grow beds up, but this is really stumping me and slowing progress.  I have invested alot of money building the greenhouse that is going to house it!

 

[RupertofOZ]

You'l have to do the conversions from metric to imperial...

SLO.... 90mm minimum

SLO to grow bed manifold.... 25-32mm

From pump to fish tanks.... match the size of the pump outlet.... to achieve maximum flow...

[TCLynx]

1.   Size of the pipe for the SLO drain

I tend to use 3" pipe for most of my SLO drains on systems in the 300-700 gallon fish tank range

2.  Size of the pipe From the SLO drain to the grow bed manifold system

from the SLO, I would probably continue a 3" pipe along the backs of the grow beds and use 1" uniseals to plumb out to each individual grow bed.

3.  I am pretty sure that the bell siphons should be 2" for the sheild and "1 for the drain pipe 5/8" snorkel

I'm not a specialist in siphons but this will probably work.

4.  Size of PVC To connect sump tanks.

I would probably go with 3 inch same as the SLO.

4.  Size of pump in sump tank to get water back to fish tanks to cause water to flow into SLO drain to feed grow beds(GPH?)

Pump should be able to deliver at least 600 gallons per hour at 5' head (I'm basing this on the fish tanks each being about 300 gallons so that is a total of 600 gallons and you need to turn at least that volume over each hour.  Yes I know I over estimated your fish tank volume but it is always better to go a bit larger rather than too small.  You can always bypass some flow back to the sump tank to get things to balance right.)

here are a couple examples of pumps that might work.
I expect the Danner MD12 would deliver about 15 gpm at 5' head so should cover your needs plus a little extra and uses about 110 watts.  There is a Quiet One 4000 that probably delivers 13 gpm at 5' head and it only uses about 50 watts.

5.  Size of pvc from pump back to 275 Gallon tanks.

The size of the plumbing from the pump needs to be at least as big as the outlet of the pump but I often up size a bit.  The Danner pumps in that size range use 3/4" plumbing and the Quiet one has 1" plumbing fittings.  I often use 1 1 /4" or 1 1/2" plumbing from my pumps but I expect 1" would be ok for a short pipe run in your application.  I never use smaller pipe than 1" from the pump to the fish tank unless it is a tiny aquarium size system.

   The setup is about 2 feet taller than the grow beds and the sump is directly under the grow beds.  Elevation difference from the bottom of the sump to top of Fish tanks is about 5 feet.

Just make sure the grow beds are high enough that you can access the sump tanks for cleaning and taking care of the pump and adjusting the bypass valve.

   Plus how to correctly get the system on a constant schedule of flood and drain.

If you are running siphons you just run the pump constantly and the beds flood and drain on their own schedule.  You use ball valves on the feeds into the grow beds to balance the flows to make sure the siphons till trigger and stop consistently.  If the fish tank water level is rising too much because the valves to the grow beds are closed off enough to get the siphons working, you then have to open the bypass valve a bit and let the excess flow back into the sump tanks from the pump so that less flow will go up to the fish tank.  Either that or have a constant flood bed down at the end where you simply let all excess flow go.  If you decide to do that, let me know I can try to explain how that should be done to make sure that all the other beds still get enough flow.

[Brandon nardoianni]

Wow thank you so much rupert and TC that was so kind of you to take the time to answer that for me.  It means alot and has helped me more than you know.  One more thing I am confused on how to setup the slo drain do you have a drawing of the drain assembly.  I am confused on how it will be able to pull stuff up from the bottom and keep the beds fed with water with some sort of pump. 

[RupertofOZ]

There are several ways...

[TCLynx]

Good diagrams Rupert

See as water flows into the tank, the water will flow out the SLO drain and since it is coming from the bottom of the tank it is more likely to carry the solids from the bottom with it (hence Solids Lifting Overflow)

The first two versions of the SLO have sort of a built in extra overflow protection since the top of the T will act as an overflow in case the grate at the bottom of the drain gets clogged (well as long as the drain is mounted low enough that the top of the T is below the top rim of the tank which I highly recommend.  Be sure the SLO is mounted low enough that the tank has a bit of free board above the water line so to speak.)

[Brandon nardoianni]

I cant thank you two enough for the time you have saved me in research!  I am ordering everything I need today and getting all of my materials soon!  I will let you in on the progress once it gets started.  Also TC I have one last question for you :)  I read in a previous post of yours you use a bushing in the uniseal so you can maintence your system without having to tear it apart.  If I am going to be using 1" 3" and some 6" pipe what size uniseals would you recommend me to purchase for those?  Is it just a 1/4 inch larger and you use a coupling or bushing to fit into the uniseal and then put your pipe into the bushing?  I'm pretty sure thats what you were saying but I just wanted to clear it up before I ordered them :)

[TCLynx]

I was really talking about doing that bushing thing to make the stand pipes removable in the grow beds.  Since if you simply push the 1" stand pipe into a 1" uniseal for the grow bed then it gets really tricky to say, change the height of the stand pipe later once gravel is in the bed and if you can pull the stand pipe out to clean it, you might have a real tricky job getting roots out of the little holes in the bottom of the stand pipe.  I also like to be able to adjust hole size and number after I get media in the bed since I want to have as fast a drain time as reasonable from my beds but I still need them to flood in the amount of time allotted So I will start with fewer/smaller holes and increase them if the bed is able to flood in a lot less than the time allotted.  To do that I need to be able to do the testing with media in the bed and I tell you it is really difficult to drill more holes in a stand pipe if you can't take it out of the bed.

When simply plumbing two tanks together.  I will usually push shorter pieces of pipe through the tanks and then use a rubber coupler to actually attach the tanks together.  So for 3, 4, or 6 inch pipe I would use 3, 4 or 6 inch uniseals and rubber couplers to make it easier to connect the tanks together.

If plumbing through the lower side/front of a grow bed as I do with 100 gallon stock tanks, I just push some 1 1/2 inch pipe through the 1 1/2 inch uniseal and install an elbow on the inside after I fit the gravel guard, the stand pipe will just sit in the elbow so I can pull it out as needed and the bottom 4 inches of bed down drain, no big deal with a 24 inch deep grow bed.

Hope that helps.

[Brandon nardoianni]

I have one last question for ya TC i promise I will stop bothering you after this one :)  How would you connect the 1 inch spouts for the grow beds to the 3" pipe comming from the fish tank so that the flow will be constant.  It seems that If i put the uniseals up to high on the pipe water will just sit in the pipe.  Should i put them on the bottom side of it and 90 into the growbeds or do you have a diagram if possible on how you do it?  Thats the final peice to my puzzle and then I am home free to getting this going!

[TCLynx]

Hope that helps

That is an image from my old system thread over on BYAP

TCLynx Big System