A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Bell Siphon parts list anyone?

Greetings from Port St Lucie everyone!

Could someone please post a parts list with the common nomenclature? I'm new to AP and have watched numerous vids about building a bell siphon. I understand the principle, but trying to explain that to the local Home Depot guy has me frustrated after an hour trying to get the parts. I even pulled up several of the youtube vids but it was not to be for me.

A simple list with the common names would be helpful, short of that, I did see one guy in Hawaii selling bell siphons for $20 a piece plus shipping. After my experience with the guys in orange vests, I'd gladly pay the price for these.

Thanks for any feedback, and thank you for a wonderful site!

Bill Shaw

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 5, 2011 at 7:16pm

Well, some of this is going to depend on situation. What are you plumbing the siphon into? Are you going out the bottom of the bed or the side of the bed. Those fittings to get from the stand pipe out of the bed are the harder ones to sort out and they are the ones that are situation specific.

The bell siphon itself is really just two pieces of pipe and a cap for the larger pipe. The inner stand pipe is generally smaller like usually about half the size of the larger pipe. Pipe sizes are dependent on flow rates. The affnan blog site probably has some ratios that could help you and his siphon design modificaiton will usually use some additional parts to get it's better flow rate compatibility.

My advice is to go spend some time pawing through the plumbing sections of Lowes and Home Depot learning what parts they have since by the time you are done with aquaponics, you will be telling the guys in the vests where their stuff is. You will also learn which stores are the better ones for the odd adapters and which ones got the better prices on the pipe.

Permalink Reply by halemart on March 5, 2011 at 7:20pm

Hi,

That is how I started, I bought the one from HI, then went from there. $20.00 is cheap for a good working siphon in my opinion.

These two docs are great.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&am...

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 5, 2011 at 7:23pm

FYI The snorkel or breather tube is not mandatory. That is something that tends to get added if the siphon isn't breaking properly. If you use the affnan version, you may not need to mess with breathers or traps.

Permalink Reply by William on March 5, 2011 at 7:26pm

Man that was quick! Thanks for your help.

I have 6 grow beds planned, each about 20 gal capacity draining out the bottom of the bed feeding into a 135 gallon fish tank. I did have the 1 inch and 2 inch pvc ready, 90 degree elbows, the part missing is the "tank fitting", the Home Depot guy tried his best, I even showed him the affnan vid, but he still looked blank. Will take your advice, and keep searching.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Bill

Permalink Reply by Cooking Cajun on May 11, 2011 at 7:13am

Thanks for sharing the info links regarding bell siphons. I used to live on the BI (Big Island) and would love to have done aquaponics there. But I'll have to settle for Florida. ;-)

halemart said:

Hi,

That is how I started, I bought the one from HI, then went from there. $20.00 is cheap for a good working siphon in my opinion.

These two docs are great.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&am...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&am...