Over thinking siphons

I'm looking at siphons as a way to connect rainwater tanks.

I'm a little concerned that they might not be primed when they need to be,so I came up with a goofy idea.
Add float valves at either end.
By, setting them to close before the water level reaches the intakes I think we could keep air out of the  siphon.
Does this make any sense or am I mis-understanding siphons?

On that same note, can three or more vessels share the same siphon?
Could I cut a tee into a siphon, add a third leg, and it still work?

I don't think a siphon is the best way to do this, because over time air will likely get trapped in the hose and break the siphon.

If you want to connect multiple rain barrels that are on the same level, you should just connect the drain valves, using T connectors to add each additional barrel to the same length of flexible pipe or hose. This will allow water to equalize among all the barrels, so it doesn't matter which one you are taking water out of for your irrigation/etc.

If you want to connect barrels on different levels, just make sure the one that is the highest level is the one getting filled by a downspout, and then connect the overflow valve on that to the drain valve on the next lower barrel, and do the same from the second to third, etc.

If your barrels don't have overflow and drain valves, you should drill holes and install them. Drain valve at the lowest point, overflow is either at the highest point or can have a PVC pipe going up to wherever you want the water level to be.

If these are some other kind of tanks that are underground or something so you can't add drain valves, then you may just need to use some kind of pump to occasionally flush air out of the hoses and re-establish the siphon.

William Bronson wrote:I'm looking at siphons as a way to connect rainwater tanks.

I'm in a hilly location, and I use on-demand siphons to move rainwater without the need of an electrical pump.

But this is a hands-on operation, every time, and siphon flow is easily interrupted.

Tanks at different elevations provide head, positive pressure. This is reliable. Personally I would look at ways of leveraging this.

Thanks for the replies.
I have some sub irrigated barrels that I've tee tapped together,  but I am not satisfied with that system.
Cascading water storage, like Sean of Edible Acres uses will probably be the way to go for most of my needs.

William, what are you actually tyrying to do?
I cannot get it!
Can you do a drawing please?

As other have said, syphons are not a very resilient system - especially for low/intermittent flows. It only takes a small amount of air to cause your system to break down, and I imagine that permanently plumbed syphons would hard to manually prime.

Are you planning a series of tanks at the same horizontal level as each other, or are they going to be on a slope?

If on a slow, then all you need is the overflow from the highest tank to feed into the tank below. Each tank needs a separate drain line - or perhaps one drain line, but with a separate ball valve for each tank where it tees into it?

If a  siphon is what you want, you could adapt a method I saw in a video about draining a pond: a siphon pipe connecting the two water bodies, with ball valves at the bottom of each leg and a tee with a cap or plug at the high point of the pipe. Close the valves, fill the pipe from the top, cap it, and open the valves.

nn, on pipelines, and air valve can be fitted to the T piece you spoke of.
It allows air in to prevent the pipe collapsing if a strong vacuum is created.

So I haven't has the chance to sit down and draw, but we were oth the yarden yesterday, making charcoal and planting, so I took a photo.
In the photo I am at the lowest point, looking upslope.

My thought is to put a "header" tank way upslope, at the back of the lot.
Rather than cascading from one water holding container to the other, I think I want to run a line as level as possible along the fence line, and tee off at each container, so watering distributed evenly.
It will take more tees but no fittings for overflow, so roughly equal in resources.
The biggest advantage is being able to place the water containers at any level  without regard to sequence.

William Bronson wrote:So I haven't has the chance to sit down and draw, but we were oth the yarden yesterday, making charcoal and planting, so I took a photo.
In the photo I am at the lowest point, looking upslope.

My thought is to put a "header" tank way upslope, at the back of the lot.
Rather than cascading from one water holding container to the other, I think I want to run a line as level as possible along the fence line, and tee off at each container, so watering distributed evenly.
It will take more tees but no fittings for overflow, so roughly equal in resources.
The biggest advantage is being able to place the water containers at any level  without regard to sequence.

I don't think that will work as intended, won't they just all overflow onto the ground until the header tank drops below the level of the top of the other containers? And you'll need check valves at every container to prevent water from flowing from the higher ones to the lower ones once the header tank is empty. Otherwise your proposed system seems like it would only reach equilibrium when the tank level in all containers is below the elevation of the top of your lowest container.

William. if those black containers are your water storage, you can do better.
Can I ask a few questions?
- what volume are you wanting to store
- How much should you store
- What is the water source
- How will you remove the water from its storage

Every tank will need a float valve.
That might not be needed in a cascading system, but more care in placement of the water tanks would be.
Because the ranks are fed from overhead, rather than down below, the water from the header will distribute but water in the tanks will not.

The garbage can might be used, the other two containers,probably not.
Water heater tanks are my go to for containers.
I have a place to get them for free or cheap,they come plumbed for garden hose and ready to go, and they range from 40 to 120 gallons in size.
A single large pond might be better,but distribution of the water will still need to happen, and it would draw unwelcome attention
The urban agriculture laws in my city call for storage of water happen at the rear of the lot.
I can cheese that quite a bit, but I don't really need to,  the rear of the lot is heavily shaded and suitable for storage.
I will likely try out some microponds, on or near the growing beds.



How to use the water?
-Giant olla in each raised bed?
-Smaller ollas fed from nearby tanks?
-Drip emitters?
-Dunking watering cans into open topped tanks?
-Hose bibs on the tanks?
-Wicking via rope?

I don't have city water at my yarden,so I want to capture as much rainwater as I can during our wet season.
I have a lot of fertility on that land but not much time, so automated water might help me unlock productivity.