Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all, hope someone can help me. Im having problem with calculating air blower size for my aquaponics system.

I have 5000 gallon fish pond about 4 feet deep and 4,000 square feet of DWC floating rafts about 1 feet deep in 3 small greenhouses. I was thinking that single air source would be a good idea, but i was wrong, right now i have 1.5 kw air blower for the system which is using too much power. I read on web that someone have a similar size of system like me but he is using only 375 watt total for air supply?

Please correct me if im wrong, i figure out that most efficient way to reduce the electricity bill would be to have separate blowers for fish and plants, for fish about 100 watt blower with 2 air stones, and for the plants maybe 400 watt blower with air stones every 4 feet, total of 330 feet of air tubing and 330 airstones.

Im not sure how to calculate air supply power, psi, etc so any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

I forgot to mention im from Europe and fish of choice is local bass and plants are lettuce and basil for now.

Im not sure would these pumps help if i use 4 pumps of 100w or 120w http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-AAPA110 ... s=air+120w.

This would be way less electricity then what im using now. This is what im using right now http://www.ecvv.com/product/3893239.html

Nobody???

Like you find out, Blower use a lot of energy plus if that fail the whole system is without air, and unless you are an electronic engineer the bill to have blower serviced on a week end with parts that will take weeks to arrive it's not the best solution.
I use 16x 35w silent air pumps (60l x min), if one goes down I just plug a new one in (30 sec maintenance) they cost £50 and deliver a great amount of air anywhere in the system.
To give you an idea, each FT I have is 8000lt and there are 370 trout in each tank, one air pump (60l x min) @35w is more than enough.

Thank you very much for the replay, this is kind of answer i was looking for, i will go by your example and buy a bunch of small pumps and use them as needed. I appreciate your time.

Bobby