Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Is it possible to use a hydrolic ram pump?

A hydraulic ram works by using the force of an already running stream to push a smaller amount of water a distance. Therefore it is using energy generated by the running water. In a closed loop, the ram would do nothing.

Check the indoor system in my signature, it's about the same size you mentioned. It's completely run by a small, essentially silent, pond pump that pushes water to the growbed. The gravity flow through the standpipe pulls a decent amount of air with it, which seems adequate for the couple of fish in the tank, but makes the most noise in the system.

Or you could try this: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16675

Oceanjeff, just copy the system your Jehova God created and you'll be fine, I guess......

I'm planning on trialling a geyser pump in my 1000L FT 600L ST. See what the flows look like. Enough to trigger bell Syphon

Planning on having sump pump just in case Geyser is too low flow for my system requirements. If yours tolerates low flow geyser might be the go? Suppose to be really efficient. throws water up great (Heights)lengths of pipe and is adjustable.

i know its late in the discussion but what the hey

You could just simply put some floating rafts into your fish tank together with a sort of fish which doesn't like eating roots. First problem solved...

Bigger problem... How do you get dissolved oxygen into your water. Underwater plants like algae produces oxygen during day time but uses oxygen during the night... Catch 22...

My understanding is that a standard airlift pump has better flow at low head, while the geyser is better if you have more head to overcome (at the expense of flow). I'm going to play around with both for an experimental solar fishless system.

For a solar fishless system.. you probably don't need either... it'll thermal siphon...

If you could plumb it as a closed system, maybe. Getting silicone to stick around the plant stems might be a challenge...

Sponge gaskets may be easier.

Hum, thermosiphon hydroponics system, what grow and cook the plants all at the same time? Might be an interesting marketing tactic but I don't know if it would really be functional.

Airlift and geyser pumps are not necessarily any more energy efficient than a plain old water pump, you still have to use electricity to produce the air pumping to use an airlift or geyser pump. They may have their place/be most appropriate for certain circumstances but don't be lulled into thinking they will save you any money on electricity over a water pump.

The best arguments in favor of airlift pumping (geyser pumps are a form of air lift ok) is situations that cause undue wear on the moving parts of a water pump. For Instance, certain types of cinder are very fragile and the small bits seem to make their way to the pumps and wear the pumps out too fast and I know one farm in that situation that figured out it was better to run air pumps for air lifting than to be replacing the water pumps every 4 months. The other situation might be in a large facility doing all raft or constant flood on a level site where the lift would be minimal, they want to run lots of separate Isolated systems, and they will have a large air moving capacity anyway. Then airlifting would be relatively efficient as opposed to needing lots of separate small water pumps. A single but with redundant backups, air system could be used to supply aeration to the raft beds as well as provide airlift water circulation and movement without mixing water between separate systems.

Originally I was going to try and run mine with airlift/geyser. After doing a bit of research via this forum I am leaning towards using submersible to get enough flow to trigger the siphon.

I'm still interested in doing a proper trial with the geyser/airlift just to see what it is capable of. If its not too bad I might use it as a supplemental flow/ emergency back up. I'll probably have a spare pump on the shelf either way.

I can definitely see an air lift working in a fish tank and window sill garden. I'm assuming if I wanted to do it on my 1600L system I'd only have 2-3 fish in the system. Low flow + 1000L gb +20 fish = Death