If you are just getting started with aquaponics, you are probably reading all you can about the miracle of the bell siphon.
Well, they aren't miracles they are physical science in action and while they do fall in the nifty, keen-o, fine-o category we have found several problems with them.
Add one more to that category.........root intrusion from the grow bed!
We recently stepped out of town for a little over two weeks. We had someone periodically peek in on our systems and feed the fish a few times. We were shocked when we got the panicked phone call that one of the systems was over-flowing on the grow bed and loosing water in the fish tank. While we had a good bit of rain in our absence and that might explain an over-all higher water level we do have overflows installed to take care of heavy rain. Also, rain wouldn't explain why we would loose water from the fish side of the system. What fun to troubleshoot from 1500 miles away!
Every thing was humming when we left town. The plants were uber happy and the fish appeared to be happy (hard to tell when they are smiling) so all should have been good. What happened?
Well, the plants were so uber happy that they grew like crazy and even though we had the bell siphon guarded, the roots grew into the siphon itself. The entire thing was so totally clogged with roots that the siphon could no longer drain. Now you know it is a serious root blockage if water, one of the most persistent and powerful forces on earth couldn't make it through that root ball!
So, we will develop a new guard to protect the bell siphon from roots. But, this has only reinforced our decision to stick with loop siphons on all of our other systems. The design of the loop siphon does not allow for root intrusion and all of the other systems utilizing this design had no problems with roots.
So, bell = bad
Loop = good
