No pond pump Aquaponics using Siphoning?

As per your other thread

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ml#post1289072

the "problem" with what is shown in the video is if the water level falls such that the siphon is broken, as the siphon then needs to be re-established, manually. Given the placement of his butts, the fact that they all have taps, it looks like he is not using the taps (the butts are just "extra storage" and it is the main butt, to the left, that is driving his irrigation) I think he would be much better off connecting the taps, and not using a siphon.

We empty all our butts in winter, as if they freeze solid they will split, so we just open the hose (connecting everything) at a low point, and any water collected flows out at that point, we close them again in March so they fill before the irrigation season begins.

That wouldn't get him up-and-over his shed though. I can see the sense of that for tidiness, but it's a pain if the syphon needs re-establishing (best way to do that, for that one, is too hook one end of the syphon pipe up to a mains-hose and "prime" it with water from that. Where I have anything like that I have a Hozelock connector on one end of the syphon hose, so I can easily connect it to the mains hose and blast some water through it to prime it.

WRT to aquaponics you might want to look at Flood and Drain irrigation instead.