Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm new to AP and have spent the last 2 months building my first system which I will post pictures of in the next few days.

Anyway, just wanted to explore the use of hydropower on the backflow from pump and the returning flow from the growbeds. If you could build paddle wheels on the two points of returning flow and make them spin surely you could accumulate and store this energy.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm positive I'm not the only one who has thought of this.

-- Mick

I have thought about it but never bothered looking into it too much, would be a possility for runing an air stone or something perhaps

Cheers
pete

This has come up a few times and I think the general consensus is that it's not really worth it. No such thing as a free lunch, you would get some power back but for what it would cost to set up the generating system you're probably better off concentrating on methods of reducing power consumption in the first place.

Spend more money on a more efficient pump in the first place, and design the system with less of a pumping head. This is probably a more efficient way of doing things overall.

Yea I thought the power might be insignificant if not using a really large commercial system. Thanks for the answers.

-- Mick