The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

The only requirement is to pump the water from the fish tank tothe “Flood Valve”, which works with flow rates lower than 100gallons per hour, thereby significantly reducing electric powerconsumption. Water is pumped to the “Flood Valve” which has astandard toilet valve installed with an extension on the overflowpipe. On the side of the tank there is a small adjustable siphonthat, when the water gets to the set height, starts to fill acounterweight with a small hole in the bottom. As the siphon fillsthe counterweight, it eventually gets heavy enough to pull openthe flapper on the flush valve and dumps the flood tank to thegrow beds.Successful aquaponics systems in a developing country requiresimplicity, reliability and ideally freedom from the need for gridpower, as well as the need to control the flood and drainparameters of the system. A “Flood Valve” system developed byTravis Hughey solves this problem. The “Flood Valve” utilizes anykind of pump whether it is electric, gas, hydro-­‐electric, solar orwind driven.As the water drains from the flood tank, the siphon breaks andthe counterweight starts to empty. As it becomes light enough,the flapper closes and the tank begins filling again. The floodvolume is adjusted by the height of the small siphon, and thecycle time is adjusted by the after-­‐flow. Excess water isredirected from the pump back through a spray nozzle to aeratethe fish tank. This modification to the system only requires onepump and no timers, float valves, etc. The pump runscontinuously so there is no start and stop. There are, however,limitations on how deep the flood tank can be when using arubber flapper since the water pressure can become too great forthe flapper to lift without tearing.138