Water Settling Test, Fish Integration & Manifold Flow Division Discovered

# Fish In. System Working. A Simpler Design Emerges. The overnight settling test passed. Water clear, fish calm, zero stress response. Time to properly connect the aquaponics loop. The original plan for getting water to both the fish tank and the plant bed involved two separate pressure circuits — a low-flow line for the fish and a high-flow line for the manifold. It didn't work. The low-pressure side couldn't sustain enough flow. The fix was hiding in plain sight: just let the fish tank overflow. Route about 15% of the pump output to the fish tank. Let it trickle in quietly, keeping the fish happy and the water oxygenated. Whatever the tank can't hold naturally overflows — and that overflow cascades directly into the sand layer of the wicking bed. Meanwhile, 85% of the flow goes straight to the manifold for the rainfall effect on the pallets. No complicated splitting. No second pump. Gravity does the distribution work. The oxygen reading came back at 9 ppm again — confirming the first measurement wasn't a fluke. The fish are genuinely relaxed on the new water. The first fabric pots are sitting on the sand layer, starting the wicking test that will validate the whole design. One thing to watch: the fish tank level is dropping a little faster than expected. Possible small leak in the output line. Worth investigating.