Regulating Water Flow in an Aquaponics System

Two days ago I had the opportunity to fix the problems with the Aquaponics system I am currently building. There was one main problem: the water was entering the grow pipes faster than it could drain.

The solution: I attached a ball valve to the pipe at the point where the water enters. This way, I can truly control the water flow. In terms of the valve, what I expected to happen turned out true. As I made the hole the water pass through smaller, the water would shoot out faster. This remained true until a certain threshold, where the water began to trickle into the pipe.

Water passing through the valve

In the video above, you can see the water entering the pipes as I adjust the ball valve. Towards the end of the video, you see that I reached the point where it is only a small "trickle" of water entering the pipe. That is the level at which I would like it to remain. As long as the water is not draining as a significantly faster rate than the water entering, then I am glad. 

Another change I made was the height at which the water leaves the pipes. I set the drain tubes to the lowest height possible, which I think is an ideal height- just enough for most of the roots to get wet. 

As well as changing the drain height, I adjusted the level of the pipes. The support structures were purposefully made so that one end of the pipe was 1 inch lower than the other. This way, the water would be continuously flowing down the pipe. The only problem I encountered was that all the water would pool together on the lower end of the pipe. This left little water for plants on the higher end. 

This is a side by side comparison of the water on the high end(left), and water on the low end(right). The difference is quite obvious, one end is a small creek, while the other is like a river. 

By raising the height of the lower end, I achieved a greater balance in the water level throughout the pipe. 

I took these photos as water was running through the system, the second time so far. I ran the water through for two hours to make sure there were no leaks or flooding. 

Another "problem," if you may, was that the water was not draining out of the bottom pipe into the fish tank very fast. I quickly realized the problem: the hose clamp used to secure the end cap was raising the pipe. As soon as I returned the pipe to its proper position, the water instantly started flowing faster. 

In addition to the water flowing through the system, another great advancement was made: new fish were added to the system. 45 tilapia were purchased and will take about 9 months to mature. Since these are new fish, I will have to monitor the ammonia levels and such to make sure they do not die. 

To bring this post to an end, here is a photo of the fish tank. You can barely make out the fish, but that's alright.