Aquaponics - Houston we have a go.

Well I got the float switch pump in today and took several pics so this will probably not be a long post but more visual. I clamped the float switch to a piece of PVC, then zip tied it to the sumptank barrel by drilling two small holes in the side of the sumptank and threading the zip tie through them.

The float switch has a power adapter that plugs into my power strip, then the pump gets plugged into the float switch's power adapter, when the water in the tank reaches the level I want, it closes the relay and sends power to the pump until the water level lowers beneath the threshold again. I can easily move the float up and down the PVC pipe to adjust the water level.

 It's not rock solid yet but I wanted to make sure everything worked first. It has been running for about 3 hours now with no sign of any problems, at least not to do with the pump. I still have to fine tune the rate each bed gets flooded by using the ball valve but they do all flood completely within the 15 minute pump cycle. I will focus for the next few days on cleaning the filters of the pumps out a couple of times to see if I can clear up the water some, I like being able to see the bottom of the fish tank. I am not sure if I should be filtering out the solid waste or simply letting it get pumped into the grow beds but I will hit up the Aquaponics forum over at http://aquaponicscommunity.com/forum
to see what the consensus says. That forum is a plethora of good info and if you are going to try aquaponics I would highly recommend it. It is well moderated and I have always gotten responses. Ok, so some pics, some will be self explanatory.