Autosiphons, and a new bucket method...

I'll be sharing some of my research and some links on autosiphons and bell siphons. The advantage to these fittings is they can periodically drain a bed, create a suction, or surge water; all without timers...

I want to caution those that get frusterated easily or just want something simple that works everytime like a pump and timer... My experience is that tuning these fittings to work properly is time consuming and has exact tolerances. The diagrams look easy, but getting the siphon to start and stop properly with the water flow your working with is another story.

Also surging water creates imbalances in a small hydroponic system, ie your res can be emptied 50% only to be flooded again to 100% 20 seconds later. This can be problematic if your flooding different tables simultaneously.

I've been using these in my Aquaponics laboratory, and constructed many different styles depending on the application. There are L siphons, Bell siphons, loop siphons, tube siphons, and many variations of these. I ran into a lot of problems building them, and overcame all of them. The water flow, pipe length, hole sizes, and volume moved all have to balance for this to work. Again this is an advanced technique so this is purely for informational purposes and for those, like me, who like to experiment with new technology.

I'll be building 1 tonight, and will document it with pictures and drawings. I will be incorporating bell siphon technology as well as venturi technology in a new type of hydro prototype that has'nt been created according to my copious queries on various search engines and forums...

Stay tuned...

will sucking air through lavarock with roots in it damage the roots or airate them? given they are flooded several times a day. im talking sucking, like a vacuum connected from the bottom of a 5 gallon pot pulling air through the whole root system and aggregate. anyone?

I'm working on some concepts and a prototype. I just dont want the roots to get too much air...

its designed. ill give you some specs

Ok. The way this thing works:

The bucket has a pot inside of it with 5/8inch perforations on the bottom only; it fits a perfect seal inside the bucket. See first picture....

Super oxygenated venturi-driven water trickles in from the top through 1/2" tube when my timer kicks in. A venturi is better than an airstone for many reasons, we can get to that later. Also the oxygenated water has to feed in from the top in order for the process to work properly. This creates pressurization inside the fittings starting a countdown...

The waterline fills all the way to the top of bucket, fully soaking the entire lavarock filled pot to the rim with superoxygenated nutrient solution. It fills 1 inch from top of bucket, submerging all of the grow medium, actually the whole plant up to the stem is in the nutrient solution. Then the magic happens.

Right when it gets to an inch from the top of the bucket and looks like its going to overflow, a powerful snap and rumble can be heard from inside the bucket.

Through fittings and the physics of fluid, a siphon forms in the bottom of the bucket, and through a extremely powerful vacuum the water is rapidly sucked out through the bottom of the bucket, with approximately 40 lbs of pulling force.
The water level will quickly recede back into the depths of the bucket.

This creates of a surge of air being drawn in from the surface of the medium all the way through root system, the medium, down through the 5/8inch holes, into the the root chamber below the pot in the bottom of the bucket, and finally out through the bell-fitting in the very bottom of the bucket.

Basically it works like connecting a vacuum to the bottom of a plant container, and sucking air through it via a 1 inch hole in the center-bottom.

Everyone is familiar with flood and drain. One of the reasons this works so well is as the water leaves the pots and the beds drain, new air gets pulled into the pots like a piston. Now imagine this concept x10 and much more often, each time after a drain so there is always a fresh coat of nutrient solution on the roots to protect them as air blows over them through the entire medium.

When the timer is on, every 3 minutes the bucket fills and empties drawing enormous amounts oxygen directly through the entire root system.

i'm wondering how the suckit bucket is working out for you.

i have a couple of questions:

1. i want to keep things simple and just mix rockwool croutons with hydroton. have you tried just mixing the stuff rather than layering it? about what would you say your ratio is of rockwool to lavarock?

2. it seems that the trick would be to alter the "drippiness" of the medium so that upper bucket fills at about the same time that the level in the lower bucket rises to the point of actuating the autosiphon. this seems tricky. the rate of drainage from the top bucket to the bottom bucket could change as roots grow and fill the holes. is this where the layering comes in? any trick to getting the timing right everytime (fool-proof)?

thanks in advance