How to Make a Bell Siphon & How Bell Siphons Work

how's it going folks it's Rob here I get asked a lot of the same questions in regards to different parts of the build for our aquaponic system and also how we run it so I thought I might start to post a couple of videos just answering some of the more frequently asked questions and inquiries now today I'm doing Bell siphons for some reason a lot of Bell siphons are being built at the moment I think it's because you folks in the Northern Hemisphere and coming into spring so I thought yeah we'll have a crack at Bell siphons today before we start though a huge thanks needs to go out to Afghan from Afghans aquaponics in Malaysia this bell siphon and also a lot that you'll see on YouTube on different blogs and websites and forums is based on Afghans design so thank you very much mate I've actually posted a link in the description that covers Afghans schematics and also Bernoulli's principle so check that out if you're interested now the little Bell I've been making up is great for smaller backyard beds and is pretty much more comprised of three different components you have a shroud with some holes in it that keeps the media from fouling up the bell siphon you have a bell that helps initiate the siphon and stands over the standpipe and then you have a stand pipe which regulates the height of the water in the grow bed and also helps deliver water out of the grow bed into a reservoir tank or whatever below I haven't been that articulate explaining how a bell siphon works and the flooding drain grow bed previously actually confused a few folks so I thought what I do is make up a bit of animation that will hopefully help you folks out I'm not covering Bernoulli's principle and all that sort of thing um you'll find that in F now Afghans our blog page link in the description below so to begin with the bed is slowly filled with water that enters via the hosel the pipe water passes through the slips in the media shroud under the gaps that are cutting to the base of the bell and the bell chamber fills with water and the air that's in there is forced out via the stand pipe once the water level reaches the top of the stand pipe it cascades over and forms a water lock and to siphons initiated the siphon moves all the water from the bail out the working the base of the grow bed into a tank of the load now the water keeps running through the siphon until the water level of the grow bed reaches the top of the gaps cut in the base of the bells air is drawn into the bell chamber breaking the siphon and allowing the bed to fill with water again and the cycle just repeats itself over and over so I had that little explanation helped you folks out what we'll do now is we'll go over to a little system that I've been working on we'll take a couple of measurements and I'll walk you through the process of making up the components so we just didn't grow bed here the couple of measurements we need to take is pretty much well the depth of the bed so in this case it's 300 mil all around about a foot deep now we need to allow a little bit of space up the top here to stop the media rolling out I'm going to give it one inch or 25 mil and then also too I like to allow another 25 mil or another wrench between the top of the standpipe where the high tide mark so to speak will be in the bed and the top of the media the reason behind that is if you have nutrient-rich water coming to the top of your grow bed I can encourage algal growth so it's just a good idea to have it a little bit lower so I know this bed being 300 ml deep 225 mil for the little lip and 25 mil for the dry zone I need to make the standpipe 250 ml or roughly nine point eight five inches I think so we'll start off with the shroud it's the shrouds job to pretty much will stop any of the media getting into the bell siphon and gumming up the works while still letting water come through these holes here now this one here I've decided to go with 100 mil or the 4 inch storm water pipe mainly because I can get my big mitt down there and adjust any fittings that need to be you know fiddled with this one here also has a modified end cap to stop any debris falling into the top of it and another one on the base here that's held on by the bulkhead fitting so the hole in the end cap is 32 millimetres or an inch and a quarter the same size as the hole that goes through the grow bed to take the bulkhead fitting this here pretty much will just keeps the shroud in place I've had in a previous barrel ponic build someone grabbed the shroud and pull it out media got in and just made a whole big mess so I like to include these little caps to keep it in position from now on so this one here has slits cut into the side I have used the drill option before and drilled a series of holes through the side so to cut out the slits in the shroud was very easy I just popped three little dots on the bottom rim of the pipe then laid it on its side came up 30 mils to make allowance for this little end cap here and then every 10 mils or about 0.4 of an inch I just popped another little dot and that became the mark where I dropped the saw on it to cut out the little slits now with the drops or I put on eye protection and also wear protection this plastic can be very brittle so the last thing you want to do is just twist it a little bit let have it splinter off and hit you in the eye with a piece so why protections are must when working with this stuff here now if you've got a depth gauge on your drop saw it definitely does help mine didn't come with one so I was able to dodgy up some of the clamps as a makeshift depth gauge so as you can see after I did the first nine I decided to add three lots of four more just around above them just to allow good water flow into the bell siphon the next job was to drill the drainage holes in the end cap base I secured the end cap onto the base of the shroud using three screws these screws just help hold it in place so when you push the drill through the two of them don't separate just make some match up later on for the holes I chose the drill size that wouldn't let the smallest clay ball I could find come through so that way you're not going to end up with any clay coming into the base of your shroud once the holes were drilled I remove the screws and put three marks around the shroud and on the end cap they'll just help me line up the holes when we install it into the grow bed to make the cap for the top of the shroud I basically cut two bits of the sidewall out of a hundred mil end cap just leaving 250 mil sections on either side and that just lets it sit loosely on the top here but doesn't grab on and it's enough to stop any leaf metal or anything getting in there and fouling up the bell siphon so onto the stand pipe now the stand pipe is pretty straightforward all these parts here I picked up from the local big box hardware store so at the top here we have a 25 mil - 20 mil reducer or one inch to 3/4 inch reducer into that we have a 20 mil pipe that runs down to a 20 to 25 mil adapter Bush now that's just to allow this 20 mil pipe to be pushed into a 25 millimeter valve socket which is then screwed into a 25 millimeter bulkhead fitting and it's pretty much war where the bottom of the grow bed sits there so pretty basic setup so the reason for this reducer at the top of the standpipe is that it lets in a larger volume of water than the pipe the smaller diameter pipe would so that just makes the siphon initiate more efficiently I used to play around with just straight stand pipes but I had problems with the siphon initiating and then breaking off so that's why pretty much more went with Afghans designs to work out the length of the pipe you need to give you a certain length stand pipe it's pretty basic one thing I need to take into consideration is the two millimeters of end cap that the shroud will be sitting in and will be sitting under here so the basic measurements I use is from the base of this little coupling here to the edge of this Bush which is 70 mil and then this fitting here which is roughly 60 mil again so that gives me a total of 130 millimetres of stand pipe already there with these fittings now I need to work out how long this bit needs to be so left over from 250 we have a hundred and twenty but what I need to do is work out how much pipe goes into these fittings easiest way to do that is to grab a pen just draw a couple of lines on there pull the fittings apart and then measure the leftover pipe so I know this side here is round about 15 mil on this side here about 20 mil which gives me 35 mil all up add that onto the 120 mil that I was leftover after subtracting these fittings and I know I need a stand pipe here the length of 155 millimetres to give me the overall length I want so it's all pretty basic it's pretty easy but I thought I'd just arm run you through that there the other way to do it is just put the pipe in making sure it's longer snip bits off and till you get down to the right level the ruler is just a little bit more efficient and you don't lose as much pipe work this little two piece unit here can be replaced by this little coupling now the big-box stores here the two big ones your Z's know who I'm talking about they used to stock this one in their plumbing aisle they've taken it off the shelf though what it does it screws into the bulkhead fitting but this hole here will take the 20 mil directly no you know little adapter needed you can still get this a plumbing supplies I mean they still sell them it's just at the big box all have decided not to stock them anymore so that might be something you're look into getting I just thought I'd go with this just to show you what was readily available so if you're not really interested in having a base plate for your shroud you can pretty much will do away with this bulkhead fitting I like to use it with the shroud base because it's got a little bit of extra meat on the side there just like it just holds things nicely into place what you can use as still this fitting and you can get yourself a faucet adapter now that's pretty much well threaded on one side and slip fitting on the other you just need to make sure that when you drill the hole for this threaded section to go through the bed it needs to be pretty close to this thread because there's not really a lot of meat there like the bulkhead fitting then all you need to do is underneath the bed pop a washer or an o-ring just on like that screw it on and away you go you're laughing now as for touching pipe work to this bit here what I like to do is wrap a little bit of white teflon tape around the pipe and then just run through a 3 1/16 the steel screw and I find it holds it in place if you want to glue it by all means glue it I just find this is easy to work with I can zap that out and pull the bits and pieces apart and use an else web or service the bed just gives me extra options now another thing you could use is is it uni seal so all you need to do is pretty much will drill the right sized hole in the base of your grow bed set the uni CL in and then just push through a small section of pipe I'd probably still go with a 25 mil even though we've got a 20 mil stand pipe just allows for and greater air and water flow through the system so on the other side what I'd do is I'd pretty much will pop on some teflon tape like I mentioned before then pop on an elbow straight away and zip through a 3:1 16 the steel screw that just makes it all nice and watertight and then from there all you need to do is if I can pull this down pipe out pop another one of those reduces on the top there then pop your stand pipe in and away you go you laughs and just to let you folks in Australia know I'm selling these uni seals for the time being so if you want to click on the little link there it'll take you to a price list page and also give you info on ordering under the bell for the syphon very easy build I've used 65 mm pipe or two-and-a-half inch pipe and to cut it to length all I've done is measured from the top of this bulkhead fitting because this pipe sits nicely on top of the bulkhead fitting there I've measured up here 30 millimeters past the end of the stand pipe and has come to 270 millimeters I just cut off a section of pipe there now this end cap it fits on very tightly in the past I have had to glue on end caps so that's a pretty basic process if you've never done it before you just get some primer wipe around the pipe itself and the inside of the fitting that just removes any grease or dust or anything that might stop the glue from bonding then give it a nice even coat of glue on both the cap and the pipe and then you just pop the cap on apply pressure 15 seconds or so and you're laughing this one here though I don't need to worry about gluing it up the cuts are made in the NT round about 15 millimeter deep the reason I've done that is I want the water level once the siphon is broken to be fairly low in the grow bed I think it's a good idea to try and get as much water cycling through and every time the bed floods then drains so if you had it up here you'd pretty much will have you know probably 2 inches of water left in the bottom of the bed so I yeah down near the bottom now to mark these little feed out I've gone and made a little template up here just gone around the pipe and mark them measured up the 15 mil drawn a line across and then just cut out these little sections that I don't need very easy any bits that haven't got quite cut through I've just finished off with my utility knife and then just cleaned off any swarf that's been left behind and that pretty much will is the bell siphon itself very basic and very easy so this is the little chop and flip Joby that the bell siphon is going into I'll post a clip on this one at a later date we've got the water inlet in the far corner and I want the bell siphon set up over in this corner that way the water gets to saturate the whole bed and be drawn over to the mo further aspyn from the inlet just something to think about when it comes time to drill the hole this one here I have to make sure that it's in far enough that it's not going to come down and hit this cage work here and also to that any supports aren't going to get in the way of their little nut that sits on the underside and holds the bulkhead fitting in place so just something to think about before you start drilling grow beds and then making a bit of a stuff up so now to install in the bell pretty easy I've already desert through a 32 mil or an inch and a quarter hole through the base of the bed so the only tool I'm going to be using of these pliers just to make sure the bulkheads nice and tight so we'll start off we have the bulkhead first of all what we want to do is pop a washer over the hole and then we'll pop the UM tray down bolt it goes through and then on the underside lock nut so I'm just going to thread on the elbow that goes on to the base of the bulkhead fitting now it's just got a little bit of pipe stuck into the end but we'll worry about that later I like to thread this on now because as you're tightening it up it actually loosens off the nut on the bulkhead fitting last thing I want to do is you know set this all up you know get meter in the bed and whatnot screw this on and then you know loosen off your bulkhead fitting yeah the bonus is that you don't need to tread tape with it so I'm just going to grab these pliers now and do it up next to go in is just the standpipe I don't worry about adding thread tape to it and then the surround it's going to line him up with these little Mark's down here I'm not worrying about putting the little screws back through here there's no reason for them to be in there the shroud will is in there nice and firmly and won't come out so I suppose we better put the bail in so it's pretty much well done we'll just fill the bed up now with a load of water just to make sure that this isn't leaking it'll also give you a chance to look at how the siphon operates I might have a feeling there may be a bit of a leak from there but just don't pay any attention to that so we've got a little bit of leaking around this bulkhead no big issue though just tighten that up with the pliers you can probably see over at the end cap there a little water dripping out of there there's a little pressure valve just in the center section of that cap it's just to elect gas escape from the IBC when it's full so yeah that just needs to be glued up with a bit of silicon nothing to worry about any water you can see dribbling out of the pipe is probably due to the bulkhead fitting and the valve socket about having a watertight seal so it's no drama because I mean that's only going to drip into the fish tank anyway so as you can see the water is about to go over there so we might just pop the bell on so what we're going to see is a couple of drips in a trickle underneath the grow bed as water starts to go over the top of the stand pipe and then within a couple of seconds it should start off into the full flow because there's no media in this bed it's going to take quite a while for it to drain so we'll pop back once it's almost done so it's almost time for the siphon to break it might be a bit hard to hear though with all this water running underneath the bed we'll see how we go though there we go yeah a little bit of a burp there so that's pretty much all the complete cycle one of the most common questions I get is how do I stop or start my bell siphon now it all pretty much will comes down to this little thing here and the flow rate into the bed so with the Afghan I've found that I haven't really had problems with siphons not initiating I did have a few that didn't want to stop though so the easiest way to get them to stop is to slow down your flow that's why I like to have valves place before the inlets to all my grow beds I can just slow the flow down or speed it up as I need it just a little pointer there it's something that you know I can't say or to turn hall turn or anything like that you just got no muck around with it yourself and see what works best for your grow bed size of the grow bed and the size Pike to use and all that sort of thing also comes into play so we might pop up now and have a look at one of these guys in action in the aquaponic system so I just wanted to show you a comparable size bed and bell siphon in our aquaponics we've got some ginger up the back tide basil and some other bits and pieces down in here we have an inlet in this corner feeding in roughly 600 litres an hour I think that's a bit conservative around the back here we have the bell siphon itself and it's feeding down into a 25 ml pipe that runs down into the son tank now this bed here is fairly close volume of media wise to the one I've just set up it takes 10 minutes to fill and it takes roughly 3 minutes for the bell siphon to drain it so it just gives you some sort of an indication of how long the bed should take to fill and drain so as you can see these little belts lichens are very easy to knock together and install into a system I've pretty much will consider them a plug-and-play component now a little bit of initial tweaking and yeah they're right to go I haven't had any issues with them since so these Clippers helped you out some if you've just stumbled across it because you want to build a bell siphon or if you're just curious on how they work if you did find it useful hit that subscribe button up there and you'll be sent an email if you check a little box every time I upload another clip on something we've built for the aquaponics or just something around the small little backyard farm here and you can come along and check out what's going on I've also included a couple of playlists on the aquaponic see one on how the components have been made and also one that's a sort of a vlog style just an evolution of the system that you might be interested in so check it out if you want mobile pretty much we'll leave it there though I do hope everyone is well and happy and I will catch you next weekend for another clip cheers folks just wanted to give you folks who stuck around a bit of a look at the aquaponic ginger there's two plants in this section and that one over the back there is looking very impressive I've never had it grow out of the media like that before really looking forward to see what sort of a yield we get from these guys this year just over here next to me we have the third plant and it's doing rather well too so I can't complain at all yeah I just noticed that too grass off the skin little buggers cheers folks to have a great one

Channel: Rob Bob's Aquaponics & Backyard Farm

Views: 560,449

Rating: 4.9248476 out of 5

Keywords: How to bell siphon, bell siphon, bell siphon aquaponics, how to make a bell siphon, how to make a bell siphon for aquaponics, bell syphon aquaponics, aquaponics bell siphon, bell syphon, aquaponic siphon, backyard farm, backyard farming, urban farm, urban farming, Bits out the back, how to aquaponics, rob bob's backyard, siphons, aquaponic, aquaponics, rob bob aquaponics, how to build a bell siphon, نظام الأكوابونيك, الأكوابونيك, aquaponik, ਇਕਵਾਪੋਨਿਕਸ, acuaponia, アクアポニックス, 鱼菜共生

Id: Ia1BQFTaG7c

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 16 2016