Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My blower has the motor directly mounted to the blade so i guess it`ll need a max of 2850rpm on the output end.

Got a picture.

Not handy but its one of these: mines the 5MS11/080

http://www.aircontrolindustries.com/pdf ... 11-080.pdf

found a pic too

Thats going to require a large wind mill. And it will have to be geared up a bit. How big is the application.

Its probably not worth the effort to be honest but it`d be a good project just for the fun factor. At the end of the day the blower is only gathering dust so theres not much to lose

please have a little patience with a silly old fool who has some corner in his thick skull that is convinced blowers are not energy efficient at aeration

blower manufacturers don't help, because so far I have not found a chart of a blower that also features it's energy performance

I believe more in spreading as much water as possible over a big surface

so I am in favor of pumps

centrifugal pumps are very simple but not very efficient either

positive displacement pumps on the other hand are

but positive displacements are more complex and more expensive

but we are talking aeration, right? and aeration means exposing water surface to air surface

and we are talking wind

why not have a windmill with a very simple axis with a cam on it?

rotation is transformed into linear movement on a rod

have this rod connected to a floating disk in the water

the wind rotates the mill, the cam pushes the rod down, which pushes the floating disk down below water level
water flows to take in the place where the disk was
the disk, upon raising again, spreads the water collected on it's top

truly positive displacement and extremely simple
should be easy and work with little wind

this would be the basic principle

which can be optimized in many ways with the design of the disk
I can think of some, but would prefer you to first consider the workability

merry Christmas to all

frank

I like it - but you cant beat the ease of a (running cost) $40 per year airstone and airpump.

this thick headed silly old fool thinks a pump at the same running costs will beat that

frank

Frank,
I discovered once, that it doesn't matter how hard, difficult or impractical something is, if a man finds it easy, then he does, and no amount of argument will change his mind.

So your pump may be better than an airstone, it may be cheaper than an airstone, and it may be easier than an airstone (for you) but familiarity is 90% of the battle to overcome.
It would seem that most ppl when wanting to aerate, are familiar with adding air to water, and not the (more efficient) other way around.

Personally I agree with you on the efficiency, and this is why I recirc half my pump water into my FT. just to create higher surface area and break the surface tension a bit. This does lead to higher evaporation though imho, yet I think it's so 'easy' that I dismiss the evaporation as negligible.

Merry Christmas


PS, I think Stubborn or perhaps Persistent is a better descriptor than thick headed or silly :-)

We are also talking wind powered. So running costs are $0 per year. And most of the parts we already have. Eg the blower. I even said about a windmill turning a fan in the water. I've also thought of a swing arm and piston to push air through a one way valve to depth. You don't like air stones, we get it. We don't like it being brought up all the time even when we are not directly talking about there merits. Can you at least understand this.

Now its Christmas, so how about a gift. Just add me to your foe list so you don't have to see my posts and we can both have a good new year.

Many places use paddle wheels, why not just use something like a speedometer cable to drive a paddle wheel from the windmill?

Could also lift the water up a couple of meters as it turns. It would look a lot better in my system.

I think the frictional losses of paddles in water would sump a lot of the available power from the windmill. Its probably the reason diaghragm pumps mounted up the windmill with an airline down to the pond are so prevalent as it minimises those losses.

If you can cope with intermittant aeration dependant on the wind blowing regardless of paddle,pump etc, its all good. What can you expect for negliable outlay and zero running costs, looking a gift horse in the mouth comes to mind

Lifting and dropping the water might be a better solution for aerating if you're using a windmill. That's a solely mechanical function, no conversion required. The water, falling through the air and the water hitting water provides aeration.

Nori