Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I agree.... have grown a certain fondness for this tsunami Kidding. But I would rather build in the displacement for the sudden water rise than fiddle with getting all GBs to work optimally on differing flouts. One triple flout to do the work for the whole joined bed.... and a splash plate to handle the thrust fo the exiting water before if splashes down into the Pond.....increasing DO just as you say TCL.

If river driven it would be perfect and I would go with the rope pump on the slope.... just cos can't quite see how to get enough torque up there from the river yet doesn't mean not possible. Needs "ripening"
Huh? Don't understand the part about about waterwheel on top of GH .

Can buy 50mm on a roll here Frank.


Double goal. Rope pump can well-serve the poor. More interested in getting it to work effectively for me and being able to help under-priviledged do the same. Diaphragm pumps need too much more. I think your field of expertise gives you advantage here Frank, but I want something that is easily transferrable under multiple conditions. Prefer the KISS solution here again. Definitely within my technical comfort zone too!

very interesting document on human powered pumps:
http://practicalaction.org/practicalans ... cts_id=198
you have to register to download, but it gives a very thorough explanation of the possibilities
with very clear drawings a.o of a diaphragm pump and many others.

another interesting pump, worldwide used:
http://www.vergnet.fr/index.php?option= ... 49&lang=en

frank

from the same site:
windpumping
http://practicalaction.org/practicalans ... cts_id=177
hydraulic ram pumps:
http://practicalaction.org/practicalans ... cts_id=141
On-farm fish culture:
http://www.anancy.net/uploads/file_en/2 ... screen.pdf

and many other interesting subjects:
http://practicalaction.org/practicalans ... gories.php

frank

there are many ways to make your own growbeds cheaply, Chelle
one of them, and particularly suited for you, is ferrocement

see this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1404&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=ferrocement

frank

As for the tower, if you will be needing a tower for wind power anyway, just place it down at the sump and the rope pump lifts the water up as high as it needs to go where it can then flow into a larger pipe that is either supported horizontally over to the header tank (this could be tricky.) Or you can use even bigger pipe and have it drop down then follow the grade of the hill back up then up and into the header tank. So long as the top of the pump side of the pipe is enough higher than the header tank, gravity will do the rest for you.

This might not be the most elegant method but it is pretty simple and thus relatively easy.

Wonderful doc SC! I have copied to file to read more closely. I know that personally I am completely sold on the coil pump in whatever form.

Today I have learned that my static head from river to tank.... at the top of my proposed AP site........ is 42 meters. The actual slope of the site is 10 degrees.31'. I was surprised. I thought it was steeper. Now to see how to get this info transferred into Sketchup!

I would definitely use the spiral wheel from river to first stage.... build as big as possible to gain as much head as possible. This is easy ... ish!... to build and so makes maintenance great... no need to always be calling in some expensive repair man. I would definitely need to be able to hoist it out of the river should flooding threaten... this can happen very quickly with river rising up to 10 meters. This will put the limitations on diameter of spiral wheel for me. But until now it is the first way I have seen to get the water out of the river and up to some sort of reasonable head.... so absolutely thrilled with it.....



Your doc has got me re-thinking spiral pump from sump to top tank.... It is very compact and that attracts me.... no extra tank needs to be built.... also possible to build the whole unit on the farm. The challenge is getting enough power to turn it. Your doc speaks of the tremendous pressure built within the wheel to effect delivery. My static head from base of AP site to top of the site is 8.826m or less.... depending on how many AP units I put in series up the hill. If the width of my sump is 2m.... plenty... and I make sure the depth is enough too.... I need to work out what diameter the coils need to be to effect delivery. Then find something with enough power to push it...

There were 4 GBs of 4 by 1 by .5 = 2 cubic meters per GB.... 8 cubic meters with all 4 together.... and 60% is grow media. Your initial figures are correct TCL.

I did add an extra GB of the same size to the triple flout design, but doubled the pond size too to 18,000 litres. So lots of water to dump the tsunami into...

I think I want to increase GB size more proportional to the 18,000 litres of the Fish Pond now though. I will make sure there is enough displacement above the SLO.... to accomodate a lift for the wave when it hits...... ......and maybe put in more than one SLO.... to get the water moving down as it floods in. I do not think it a negetive.... when thrown against a splash wall it will slow speed and increase DO. Make fish pond life more interesting!

Both very interesting sites... worth registering on the first one.

Really nice links Frank. Thank you. Finding that on farm fish culture a good read.

It would be one way of doing it. Join windpower and tower in one. But the pipework above does bother me. Vulnerable to storms. We can have some mighty fierce weather at times. Am looking again at the spiral wheel.... lots of pondering on the whole matter of pumping sump to top tank.

Thanks for your thoughts TCL.

I was not careful in calculating and relied too much on Sketchup to do it for me: Sketchup calculates volume of a whole object including the walls
and I calculated the growbeds

but I am not the only one, Chelle: I count five growbeds on your drawings (if we are talking about the same one)

anyway, lets straighten things out:
growbed surface as I calculate it on your "Chiara best so far" drawing is 4x1=4 m² x 5 beds is 20 m² x 4 tiers is 80 m², total 20 beds to build
fish tank volume is 2.5 x 2 x 1.5 (avg) = 7.5 m³ x 4 = 30 m³
add your top tank at max. filling: 2 x 6.2 x 2.8 = 34.72 m³ totals 64.72 m³

my first variation gave you 5.8 x 1= 5.8 m² x 4 beds is 23.2 m² x 4 tiers is 92.6 m² (that is over half e a tier won), total only 16 beds to build
fish tank volume is 7 x 1.8 x 1 = 12.6 m³ x 4 = 50.4 m³
add top tank at max. filling: 8.1 x 3.8 x 1.55 = 47.7 m³ totals 98.1 m³, one third more room to breed fish

my last variation gives you 7.3 x 1 = 7.3 m² x 12 beds is 87.6 m² (and I could have added another two on top which would have made a total of 102.2 m²).
That is a over a whole tier won, total only 12 or 14 beds to build
fish tank volume is 7 x 1.8 x 1 = 12.6 m³ x 4 = 50.4 m³
add top tank at max. filling: 8.1 x 3.8 x 1.55 = 88.57 m³ totals 138.97 m³, over one third more room to breed fish

or if you prefer, one tier less to build = huge economies !!! (about 20 to 25 % !!!)

I increased top tank volume instead as that will increase your independence of energy
but with a pump driven by the river water that seems less important than with one driven by the wind

of course I locate the chickens, worms and rabbits underneath the growbeds
rests me to convince you that making your own elevated growbeds will not cost more than your self made deep growbeds and have better working height, less media to buy or to wash (and to transport!) , less water, faster filling if desired, faster draining, less piping of lesser diameters, smaller tsunamis, etc...

now you should put all this in an Excel spreadsheet and decide what is best for you.

The minimal requirement for your pump recirculation capacity is what you want to breed in the biggest of the tanks, as all consecutive tanks are fed by gravity and the water is filtered each time by the growbeds

counting a minimal recirculation rate of once per hour, that would mean you need a pump that can give 50 m³/hr at 10 m head

from this point on you can calculate whether a rope pump or a coil pump could do the job and how big it will have to be and if that is feasible.

have fun, Chelle

Frank

allow me to disagree with you on diaphragm pumps, Sparchaser:
diaphragm pumps are very simple pumps
the pump body is a simple cavity covered by the diaphragm
There are no moving parts in the pump, only the diaphragm moves up and down
They are used a lot in agriculture for spraying connected to the exit axle of the tractor and used to be the first high pressure cleaning pumps
up to 15-20 bar they work very well
with clean water they pose no problems
actually they will do better with small debris than centrifugal pumps
I have lots (hundreds) of high pressure (piston, not diaphragm) pumps that have been working for over 10.000 hours without more maintenance than an oil change once a year.
one condition: good water quality, and I consider AP water pumped after the growbeds as very good quality as it is filtered
If these pumps had higher ratings, I would not hesitate to use them in an AP setup as there is no pressure involved there
and high pressure piston pumps are far more tricky than diaphragm pumps: the piston moves back and forth in the cylinder, so all surfaces must be extremely smooth and manufactured with precision. The diaphragm pump doesn't require that.

if you had to "take the pump apart" to get at the check valves, the pump was badly designed

if you have had a lot of problems with check valves then probably the wrong type of valve was used for the quality of the water
here is a site of a company that specializes in check valves of every kind:
http://www.socla.com/home_uk.htm
download their brochure:
you will see they even have check valves for slurries and sewage
here is another:
http://www.watts.com/pdf/ES-WCV.pdf

nearly all coke vending machines have electrically driven diaphragm pumps. There must be millions of them.
nearly all air pumps for aquariums are diaphragm pumps. Millions there too (though used for pumping air).

I did have had lots of problems with air driven diaphragm pumps (don't remember me of them ), but 99% of these problems situated around the air drive system, nearly never on the water side.

excuse this extensive reply , but I believe that diaphragm pumps don't get the attention they deserve, especially in aquaculture

frank

here is a beautiful example of the combination of a waterwheel and a spiral pump:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4yRrOw2Ww

just don't fall into the trap that it is "perpetual motion", as that is a hoax

frank