# method to drain overhead aquaponic trough, safe in power outage ?



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

This is an acrylic trough, similar to a window box planter, that will sit above my tank, contain various media to root/hold marginal water plants, and it will function pretty much as a giant bio filter, and allow me to grow some plants in a space that otherwise goes to waste.

Originally wanted a fairly straightforward standpipe to drain the trough into the tank below. Figured this would be very safe if there was a power failure, since the pump would stop and the water would be unable to drain out past the height of the standpipe, thus no risk of flooding.

JT, who built the troughs, said the standpipe would be noisy. So he put in a side bulkhead, but put it down near the bottom of the trough. So far I've been unable to set the trough up, but when I look at the current drainage setup, if the power goes off, it could drain the trough almost entirely, which would overflow the tank below. So I'll have to seal up the hole that's there, I think you can get bulkhead caps, can't you ?

So does anyone have experience with a standpipe drain ? Are they very noisy ? If so, can this noise be controlled in any way ? I find I don't much care for the appearance of the necessary piping with a bulkhead on the side no matter what height it's at. I don't think I'd be too unhappy with a bit of gurgle, of course it depends just how loud it is. I'd have the drain pipe outlet below the water surface anyway, don't want a water fall effect.

I've seen a couple of ideas for standpipes online, hard to tell if any are better or worse in terms of noise. I know the size of the bulkhead is the limiting factor for flow rate as it drains, but would changing the diameter of the stand pipe make it quieter or noisier ? 

Thanks to my landlord hassles, which seem destined never to end, my main tanks are still down, which is why the trough isn't yet set up. I am taking the landlord to court, hopefully this will get some repairs completed, which have to be done before I can put the tanks back up. When I finally get them back, I really want the trough set up as part of the whole thing. 

Ideas, anybody ?


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## SoloW (May 25, 2014)

Honestly was thinking of this exact same system , I'm not a professional in plumbing or even have much experience but my concept was an elbow right below the stand pipe, followed by flex tube and an elbow or T at the end to dissipate some of the momentum of the water before it crashes down. In my design I have 1.5" standpipe and hose and would actually be quite interested in the answer to your question as well .


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

If you were running 400-500GPH there will be some noise. If it's just a trickle to 100GPH there won't be any significant noise unless you are particular to background noises. For an aquaponic trough, I don't see that you will need that high of a flow rate.

Since the hole is near the bottom, put an elbow and then a pipe that ends about ~1" below the rim.


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## J_T (Mar 25, 2011)

There was plumbing to keep the strainer up near the surface of the water. If it has go e missing let me know. I probably have some more pieces around here. 


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