Backyard Aquaponics
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Have to account for friction losses which will add to the apparent head height.

so allowing for head height and the friction losses would it be fair to assume that a 8000lph pump should be sufficient enough to handle my 3114l FT?

this a pump curve i found online. looks like the 8500lph pump will do 6000lph @ 2m head.

the 6200lph unit would probably do the job but its' mostly best to go bigger.

That flow chart is really handy thanks I'll go with the 8000l pump so, will give me all I need and also help if I expand my system later,

Pity they didn't all have the pump curve of the 3200.

If you afford the capital and running costs it gives you a bit of room for expansion.

My aquapro dirty water 3000L pump has sat all night with a locked rotor due to a clay ball being sucked up the outlet. They still just keep on trucking. Great robust pumps IMO. Have put a screen on the outlet now. . .

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The whole Aquapro range are brilliant Matt. I've been selling them since they started developing them, probably 11 or 12 years now. I sell heaps, including plenty of the AP3000DW Dirty Water pumps, and I can't recall the last time I had one of their pumps returned... it has to be at least 3 or 4 years ago. Aquapro and PondMax (same company) are the only brands I stock now.

Plus they are a local Perth company, so any warranty claims I've had in the past were resolved very quickly, just a matter of me inspecting the pump, ringing the Co and informing them of the return and they authorise me there and then over the phone to give the customer a replacement... and you're also keeping your money in the local community when you buy them... positives all round.

I had a old 10-15 year old Water Ace R6S 3400 LPH @ 1.5m Lift finally crap out on me a few weeks ago. Was more of a utility pump that has been faithful and abused. Spent several years out on the deck through heat and freezing temperatures. Used it to suck water and mud out of a hole and forgot to turn it off for a week. One of those if you needed to remove water from something it always worked.

Was using it to just keep the water moving in the partially assembled system and after a few months of constant use it was dead. If it was 10 years younger or just taken care of it would still probably be going strong.

Hi all, new to this whole Aquaponics thing, I live in South Africa and have the following

3 x 250 liter GB (4 x 2 feet)
a 1500 liter (400 gallon) in ground pond with Liner.

I calculated and bought a 3000 lph pond/water feature pump, to do the job for the GB and some for circulating a 1.2 m (4 feet) head.

I then added a irrigation pipe water heating system to my design, the pond pump was never going to make a 32 meter piping with lots of 90 degree turn up 3 meters onto my Garage and back.

So costing the much larger pond pumps I realized they are very pricey, i got a Speck Badu magic 6 (250 watt) for less than a 10 000 lph pond pump and this can pump to a 12meter head, and up to2 meters without any losses.

Since this is a small pool pump it has the basket section between inflow and outflow, will it affect my system, since i kinda like the fact it collects some leaves that i get in my pond, guess it would also trap solids.

Thank for the help and advise :-)

- Have not started my system thread but will do so soon

Hi there, without reading the whole thread:
Can people either PM me or post here some pumps that are reliable and fit for different systems.
I have my students asking which pumps to get for varying systems they are building

What options would suggest
1) for a T blue barrel system?
2) for a 1 IBC system

Cost is the issue obviously for the parents/students, but one group suggest they might expand in future.

I could only suggest what I've bought in the past
BYAP s3000
rio 6hf

Hiya Jay, from what I have gleaned from this forum the best pumps to purchase here in Oz with cost and reliability are Pond Max or Aqua Pro. Aussie company, same manufacturer I believe.
Reliability being the most important factor IMO.

I thought the Aquael Aquajet PFN3500 looked good for the job, pumping @ at 1.9m head between 2 ponds on a job my wife (landscape gardener) is doing. Its characteristic curve indicated it would pump to just over 2.5m, and more importantly, deliver ~2200lph at the required 1.9m head.
Pump specs and curve here:http://www.thetechden.com.au/Aquael_Aquajet_PFN_3500_p/111021.htm

This was to replace the 12V solar powered pump the landscaper who did all the bobcat work installed- 1.05m head@12V! It had no chance, but his supplier told him he just needed a smaller pipe for more pressure... so much ignorance out there in pump industry land. Anyway, he unfortunately had installed some poly pipe which is a bit over 20mm ID, set in concrete around the ponds, so too hard for me to replace- so we will just have to live with the extra friction head loss it will cause.

Back to the Aquajet, I hooked up the non-standard size pipe to it with some tape around the pump outlet adapter (19mm), and turned it on and waited, then waited some more, but nothing happened. I could hear the pump working, so we disconnected it and flushed the pipe out- no blockage. Then I tried connecting the long 1/2" hose and tested the head. Vast amounts of friction head loss, but I found it would almost pump enough head to reach the top pond. So back onto the already laid poly pipe with the pump and I poked a stick down the end to discover the max head was 1.88m, just 2 cm short of the top pond inlet pipe. If it had been pointing downwards instead of upwards from the right angle bend near the end, we would have seen a trickle, although it would have been pathetically small.

I rang the supplier and told them that the pump's max head was only 1.88m, not the advertised 2.5m, and the salesmen went off for a quick consultation with a pump expert in the store. He rang back in a few minutes to suggest I needed to use a smaller pipe to get more pressure! aaarrrrggghhhhhh

Anyway, I sent it back and I'm awaiting delivery on the next model up, the 5500 (characteristic output curve also on above link), which will supposedly pump to 3m, and deliver >4000lph at 1.9m head, ignoring the friction losses.
I suspect I'll be lucky see 2000lph, but that is around what we were hoping for.

I hear stories like this and think "May be I am ready to be an AP consultant?".

If you can be bothered contact ACCC https://www.accc.gov.au/ you would be doing less educated consumers a favour.

If what you are saying is true then they are breaking the law.

Dam my pump failed, I assume it was an electrical fault because it would trip the RCD took it out and checked for jammed impellers etc and it seemed ok put it back and it ran for a little while then the RCD tripped again. eventually I found the receipt and took it back to B... they didn't have the same model available so I got an ozito clean/dirty water pump. When I read the data sheet it said "possible oil pollution from the internal lubricant"! So I took it back.

the little Shott 9000 is doing the job for now. Glad I got the cam-lock couplings and new manifold in, makes swapping pumps a lot easier.

So now to find a pump that can do 8000L/hr@2m head. any ideas?

If it was the RCD that tripped, rather than due to overcurrent, then the breaker would be not be much above ambient temperature (if no other significant loads on that circuit), and it would be due to an earth fault, ie the current flowing in the active wire was not equal to that flowing in the neutral- because some was leaking to earth. If the circuit breaker was warm to hot, then it would be due to overcurrent- typically 2X current for ~1 minute will trip it, much faster for higher currents, and they do get quite warm to the touch before breaking.

Re a suitable pump, my current spare is a Universal Pumps Sump Pump, and it shifts a lot more than my PondMax 8000, so might go close to what you need. There are various models available, and cost less than the PM pumps.
The UPSP comes in plastic or stainless steel. I have the SS one, but the screws that hold the cover on are some especially crap type of plated steel that rusts out pretty quickly, so you'd have to replace them with propper SS screws like I did. The rating on the label is 0.1kW, ie 100W, but it draws significantly more than that, and does move a lot of water.