Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

At 1mt you're 2000lt pump would be doing around 800 so with 2 i would run at least 30 minutes, the 6000lt would run at about 4500 so 20 minute on 40 off, but pumping a bit more would only benefit at this stage.
You're lucky to have a B, I closed shop early yesterday to go to hardware (we have 3 in town) to get all the bits I need for the long weekend and forgot a couple now have to wait til tuesday to finish

I just took the pump apart and found out what happened to it. One of the blades on the impeller snapped off and must have jammed the pump.

It may have been stopping and starting for a couple of days without me noticing.

Opps, hit PM instead of quote

I have been running the pumps full time and using a bell siphon for flood/drain

Those were nice big fish! To big for the chickens. I would clean and fry them and taste. If they smell okey, the meat wasnt slimy I would eat them. If in doubt I would gibve fryed fish to chickens, cat or dogs.
I had a pump failure at night and found 16 dead bluegill in the morning. A few were still kicking a bit. They looked and smelled fresh killed upon cleaning. So I made fish chowder and it was good. They were to small to fry.
I was using 12 volt "Sureflo" R.V. pumps. Thinking that the grid may fail but the battery bank will keep on running the fish pumps. Well those Sureflo pumps would last less than a year on continuos service. They only drew 50 watts. I have replaced them with 115 v. AC "pondmaster 500 " magnetic pumps. these cost less and are rebuildable and only draw 45 watts but deliver as much water. I will run the two pumps off a 200 watt inverter, powered by the battery.

Thanks for the post spiritrancho, I also have a pondmaster 9.5 mag drive pump and didn't know they were rebuildable. Mag drive still good plastic/ceramic bearings failed and ate the little plastic housing and impellor up. I will order the parts for a spare. It's a much better quality pump then the little giant pumps at homedepot.

Well it's been 24 hours and no more deaths. looks like I'm over the worst. Total losses 14, just under 50%.

The remaining fish think I'm a real B'start, first I try to knock them off and now I'm trying to starve them Boy are they hungry, the tank starts to boil every time I walk up to it .

Don't worry I won't give in, they don't get a feed until the water stats are back to normal.

Actually the funny thing with this all is that it is the second pump failure resulting in near catastrophes in two weeks. The first was the indoor fish tank, came home and all the fish were gasping at the surface. Got that one in time though, only lost 2 fish. Also that tank had a separate filter that didn't create any aeration but kept the ammonia down.

jpcw, I keep an aquarium airator in the system now for added insurance cause been there and done that! Besides the extra oxygenation is good for the bacteria and plant roots also.

Bill
www.drsfostersmith.com is the site that carrys pondmaster pumps and parts....both the head and impellor. Fair price and service.