Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Flow Forms are a combination of science and art.

As water passes through the flow forms, it takes up a pulsing figure of 8 movement -very much like the swirling motion of a mountain stream. This action oxygenates and re-vitalises the water.

Polluted water (like greywater or fish tank effluent) contains high levels of nutrient which consume oxygen. We will use flow forms to provide the dissolved oxygen required by the micro-organisms which break down the nutrients in the water. The flow forms are then used to ‘polish’ and re-vitalise the water to further improve its quality.

Flow forms are also used by Bio-dynamic farmers to mix their preparations,

Sculptural in appearance, the sight and sound of water as it vortices through a flow form is also good for the soul.

As you see, our flow forms haven't operated for a while (hence the leaves) but they are part of the medium to long term picture.

I'll ensure that they are operating in time for the next Brisbane Meeting.

Can you get smaller sets? I would envisage using a set during the pump back from the sump to the fish tank.

That is a small set

oh

Saw these in Holmgren's Permaculture Principles & pathways, they do look very nice when running!

How effective are they compared to just dropping a sheet of water into a plunge pool with the same drop? What about a design like a 'trompe' which carries water air to the bottom of a tank using the weight of the falling water?

They look large and fiddly to make (and maintain?) compared to a straight plunge, so I'd want to see a comparison before embarking on getting one for mixing (as opposed to aesthetics).

A simple experiment would be to make a closed circuit with a small (20L) amount of water with an oxygen titration indicator (perhaps periodide -> iodine, add starch to make the water turn black) and time how long it takes to oxidise the tank. Try with different designs.

(I'm not knocking the idea, I'm just wary of these sorts of ideas because they are often invented by someone being convinced about something without actually proving it)

Hi njh,

Here's a link to some more information about flow forms.....

http://www.anbg.gov.au/anbg/public-art/ ... index.html

I'm not a scientist so I'm not the best person to validate (or otherwise) the effectiveness of flow forms but, from my limited reading on the matter, they seem to be based on the research work of Theodore Schwenk and John Wilkes.

I do have a background in wastewater treatment (a long time ago) so cleaning water by oxygenating it strikes a chord.

I've watched some of your posts with interest.......what's your background?

Regards......Gary

My background is pure mathematics, but I'm currently doing a phd in a computer science (U3A . I've done lots of random other things too, like terrestrial orchid tissue culture propagation, chemistry and landscape design My life long passion, however, is distributed society. Vernor Vinge had a beautiful society in 'The Peace War'. All high power technology (cars, electricity grids etc) were banned so a civislation flourished under the wing of hyper efficiency.

So my quest is to build a high tech civilisation with low energy use. Aquaponics obviously fits with this, along with things like my algae fertilizer plant in WA, my distributed PV array project and things like Linux and 1-wire.

I spent some time thinking about flowforms this morning. I think an interesting, and simple way to test the mixing performance is to just set up various mixing designs and see how long until say oil or food colouring mixes.

I would like to know more about the algae ferteliser

I'd be interested in learning more about the use of algae for fertiliser.

I've also read that, in places like Malaysia, they cultivate spirulina algae for pig and poultry fodder.

It's grown in a pond and then pumped through a centrifuge to expell the water before feeding it out.

The basic idea is to burn algal oil (or whole algae, we've been trying both) to produce electricity, and feeding the exhaust gas back through the growing ponds to increase CO2 levels. The key insight is that when an ICE is run lean (below stoichiometric) it will produce lots of nitrogen oxides (such as NO2), which dissolve readily in water to produce NO2- and NO3-. If we are pressing oil most of the absorbed nitrogen will be in the husks which can then be spread as fertilizer. If we are using whole alga as a fuel we will have to produce more algae than we use.

The water we're using already has high levels of P and K.

The background and proposal are outlined here:
http://njhurst.com/publications/merredi ... dwater.pdf

Our trials are currently using wild alga, extracted in batches using centrifuge and burnt in a listoid 'diesel'. If anyone here is interested in building their own system I'm happy to work with them. The nice thing is that you can stockpile the algal oil in summer for winter use - storable renewables.

Our pilot pond is 3ha, but I think the idea should scale down fairly easily. The hardest part is making the algae separation and pressing economical (both capital and running).

I got my flow form system working this weekend.

First time I've seen these GD... where did you get it or where can they be got??

Hi Rupert,

I bought mine from Byron Bay...... http://www.flowforms.com.au/variousflowforms.htm

From what I can recall, they were about $1250 complete with pump, fittings and hardwood support frame. We bought them about 3 years ago.

Gary

I spot another big toe!


AP and big toes there must be a connection, hmmm...but what...


For further evidence see

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... 19&start=0

AND

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... &start=270

A conspiracy theory emerges, there all in on it!!! (EKB, F&F, and now GD! when will it end)

LOL, you're going to go though every picture ever posted now, aren't you!