Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i drew these up a while back thinking the same thing you were. i've made a couple small micro hydro generators and gotten power from them.. ive got an idea of making one big turbine.. fits in a box above the bottom tank, double axle it and set up two hydro electric generators - one on each side.. power up some batteries, which will help the pump.. all you need is one pump to fill up the top tank. maybe even build an air lift water pump to help out..

my other idea was having two reservoir tanks that create your head, while one is draining, the other is filling, so you always have a constant flow of water to the hydro generator

Guys, your talking about almost perpetual motion ideas.
The only way this idea has posibilities is to have very small pump running 24/7 and releasing water at higher rate less often, ie release water for ~20 minutes per hour but this setup is used where increased flow rate is needed, in this application its not.
Your are also having to lift water higher than required, ie into top tank. Lift is what costs energy - not flow.
The most efficient would be a efficient, well selected pump running 24/7, lifting water from sump into top of fish tank........hang on thats CHIFT PIST.
Sure use solar or wind to power that pump, but youll spend plenty doing it properly.
Keys to efficiency are -
Dont have water falling further than necessary ie from GB into sump
Dont lift higher than needed.
Keep pipe sizes up and lengths short to reduce friction loss
Use efficient and correctly sized pump

The costs of on site generation can be ridiculous, and efficiencies quite low. Hydro needs LOTS of head to work.

you need to look into the "bedini motor" lots of things like this could make this a reality.

I think that looks like yet another scam though Casey. I've just spent the last hour or so trying to find some credible reference online. Found lots of people with home made machines with one car battery hooked up running it, then another car batter being charged and they hooked a voltmeter up to show what power was being produced, but no one was showing what power was being used. People saying that the answers to how it works aren't in conventional science, but buried in Tesla's work and early notes.

I found references going back at least 10 years, if this worked, if it produced more energy than what it consumed then these people would now be billionaires, they have solved the greatest problem of our time, free energy. Governments of the world would have snapped it up, the answer to global warming. But they aren't, and it doesn't....

Yep, which means you think you're going to be breaking, or getting around, some basic laws of thermodynamics - it can't happen !

If you do make it work, you'll make Bill Gates and Warren Buffet look like hobos !

And of course... given the caring, sharing nature of this forum... we all expect to be in on it...

I'm gonna reinvest my share.

or they would have been "taken out".... You say 10 years old, are they still around?

Even producing as much electrical energy as you consume is pretty damn hard.
Superconductors etc. in the lab achieve 0 ohm resistance, but at what cost for the cooling...
But the idea of trying to recover at least some of the energy required to lift the water is interesting although very expensive.

Might be fun to set up a geared water wheel from the main pump driving a generator, would even serve as an extra buffer for water increasing the overall water in a system, could even put some sort of raft system in it to increase growing area.
I saw a link to revolving Hydro growbeds on this site recently, nice to integrate the 2 systems.

So many ideas, so little time

Where ever there is enough flow and head to accommodate some form of power generation, a more practical solution might be to not lift the water so high in the first place. Lifting water costs energy. To not lift it saves some.

Given you can never recover the energy cost because of losses due to friction and pump inefficiencies, it's always better to go for efficiency in the original design.

Most pumps move only half as much water (optimistic) at half the height they claim to be able to pump to. By lowering the height they need to pump, the saving can be enormous. A smaller pump or a pump on a timer, and less height would generate more savings than you could ever generate in electricity.

Anyway... Having said all that I love the idea of running a micro hydro power plant and given that I created (moved) my first electrons only yesterday, I can see a micro hydro plant in my very near future

or a very heavy gear on my fridge door connected to a generator so that I burn more calories than there are in a beer every time I open the door.... or ...

oops .... or what jet said

Loving this thread.
Have been looking at these ideas ourselves for a while now and trying to work out the best method for us. When we set up our commercial system we are hoping to incorporate solar and wind - and had been looking into water turbines originally but they were so expensive unless you can make your own which is WAY out of our capabilities (ATM but would like to consider it again down the track).
What we have been seriously looking at for a while now was the tiered system going from a massive (or 3) FTs to gravel filter beds with watercress or something similar, to 50-60m DWC beds x 2, to a massive sump - so we are only using the one pump (and using some major landscaping to create each level).

Could you use a windmill to pump from the sump to the header/FT and if theres no wind, if theres a way to automate solar pump so that the two can switch back and forth when needed?
Perhaps two windmills - one for power, one for water, so that when there is wind, one is pumping water and the other is charging up batteries.
If you could get this working well (and you have enough wind and room) perhaps there would be no need for solar as well unless wanting to be fully gridless in which case having the two systems would be enough without worrying about water turbines?
Just my 2 cents
Cheers.

*RANT*
whats F'ed up is how suppressed this information is. I have heard people like this getting visits from MIB saying " you will continue to use oil if you and your family want to live."

if you think the puppets we vote into office actually run things, you've got another thing coming. Our economic situation as it stands is dependant upon oil usage continuing at this rate and the richest of the rich have no plans of that changing. if you dont quite understand how free energy fits into our society, and I dont just mean the US, you should be watching "endgame" on youtube. warning, it will change your world view, for the good actually. it was after watching it, i became much more interested in learning about aquaponics and "helping myself" rather than depend on the system to provide my every whim so I can daze off.


I guess all this to say it is completely possible to run aquaponics in a greenhouse off the grid, away from wind, solar etc

found this article, http://merlib.org/node/5673
now i can say I have an understanding of how it works or how we THINK it works!

the "myth busters" didnt even build it to spec, they left out parts! WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT!?!?

Sorry Casey, but it's not a conspiracy, it just doesn't work, I still can't find anywhere or anyone with any scientific background who can show that it will work.... Yes it's good for people to think outside the square, to do things for themselves, but is it good for people to live in fear of things that aren't necessarily real or true?

But did you hear that from Alan Jones and other conspiracy theorists?

This is the era of free speech, the internet has given voice to everyone, and no it can't be silenced by MIB... There is still no credible information on that link, it's just transcribed conversation from a forum, and using terminology like "The physics have been worked out to engineering level." Just doesn't cut it, in proving something works.

Much like the "What In The World Are They Spraying" supposed documentary where they discuss the fact that America is being sprayed by poisons by airplanes to kill everyone off.. Most experts concede that they are Contrails, condensation trails left by aeroplanes, Conspiracy theorists say they are Chemtrails, from chemicals being sprayed all over the U.S.

Just check out all of the plane flights over a 24 hour period, especially the US and Europe during their day light hours, that's pretty shocking. You people in the northern hemisphere need to cut back your flying a bit...

Nice
I too, wound some coils and span some magnets today.
Bit disappointed with the outcome, but fun nonetheless.
Have ordered some Neodymimum magnets, they will help I think.

Will persevere.