Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi, Guys I only joined today and am looking at what people are doing and learning hoping to set up a small unit and see how it goes.

I played with a hydroponics system years ago, my nutrient tank was a 200L plastic drum pumping to a header tank and gravitated to the beds.

I used the smallest 12volt boat bilge pump I could get (800L/hr) to pump up to the header, (19MM outlet) at the time I had it connected to a battery charger then a quality timer into a 240volt outlet in the shed.

I timed how long it took to fill the header tank and set the timer accordingly. We are talking only minutes to fill depending on the size of the header tank.

What I am leading up to is if you had a suitable size bilge pump connected it to an old truck battery that will no longer turn a truck engine over but will run a small pump, get hold of a small wind generator or solar panel to charge the battery, no ongoing power costs.

Sorry to be long winded, but I like to write books Ha.

regards Colin

How efficient are those 12V bilge pumps? Do they compare reasonably to 240V submersibles? I'm looking for a pump I can vary the speed of, and 12V is easier than 240V (especially for induction motors such as submersibles).