Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

chris, see what was being mentioned about efficiency?

150W for 5GPM.

But i'm not saying don't do it, if you can power it with the PV then go for it!

I'm big on modifying the system to suit its surroundings.

What you loose in watts you'll gain in oxygenation and hence stocking density.

Go for it

Hi Steve,

The pump I have is designed for low flow/high lift, and is very efficient at that. I think Lorentz makes a pump that will pump more volume for less head with the same wattage... I need to more research on that, but if I can build it without batteries, I am saving a huge cost in avoided stuff... which has been the limiting factor for us so far.

I may even find a 12 volt pump that has higher volume for low lift and run the pump off of one panel... which would also be a savings....

C

cool.

All i was saying is than i can get 60L per minute from a 35W pump at <1m head

Hahahahaha, well, thats the pump I need! Do they make it in a DC version?

yeh, but u want it to pump to a height don't ya? i'm dizzy

No, the pond will be less than 4 metres from the top grow bed, and from there will gravity feed to the pond....

mines no good then, its max head (zero flow) is 3.2m

Well, perhaps the maximum height will be 3 metres, then....

nope! cause at 3 m the flow will be nothing more than a trickle.

Well, back to the drawing board...

I'm surprised you have 3m head. That's the height of a whole house storey. 3m horizontal doesn't require a big pump, only 3m vertical.

njh, the place I would like to put the pond is well below the location where the new kitchen will go, and the grow beds would be close to the kitchen.

Pretty much every square centimetre of our land is on a slope, except for the flood plain, or is taken up by a Maya ruin or plaza, which we have to build around (our house sits in the middle of a small mid slope hill top plaza on an east west valley with the slope facing the equator, with an ancint house mound next to it... this took some careful planning to avoid disturbing it).

We have made new house sites by either making piers and building on the piers in a modified post and beam style, or by digging into the hill and creating a terace, which is partly what we will be doing when Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer teach there class on earth bag building here in March.

We want a distance of 30 fet or so between the grow beds and the pond so we can put in an oxygenation flow form between the outlet of the grow beds and the pond. Moving a short distace back up the hill requires a significant change in elevation.

We have a piston pump here that can pump 2 gallons per minute 80 metres high, and a submersible that caan pump easily 4 -5 gallons per minute 30 metres in elevation change. To me, 3 metres is really no kind of lift, the grow bed could be a bit higher, too, or, perhaps, a bit lower. I want flexibility in siting the grow beds as the other factors involved, especially tree locations now and in the future in relation to the suns path need to be considered. So I need to site it well, and I need the right puump.

A lot of the eartgh for the earth for the house will come from the area below the new kitchen site, which will be excavated for the earth bag walls, and a pond will be created there....

Holy dreamy!
I have friends that just got married in Belize and bought a home there! I'm sure I'm not alone in saying POST SOME PICS of the site!!! I've checked-out your website and it looks amazing; but for the love of everything good in the world, PICS man PICS!!


I swear I'm not usually this bossy

Hi Chris

On your series of beds.

Scientists had 30 metre long water culture AP troughs with water in one end and out the other, no signs of deficiencies. Few of the guys here attended the lectures.

With heavier cropping plants in the first beds leading down to leafy veg I see no reason why this won't work for you.

Your place is amazing. I learned to build here in NZ and it's all modern materials and long lists of codes and practices to make the sub-standard crap dwellable. And very boring.

Good work you do there, tip of the hat to ye.

its all about the "delivery" ,what flow rate you want at the max"head" height, even something at a 2m "head" might require a 4m delivery