Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A way to raise water from a lower place to a higher place -

wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_screw

yes a few posts ago, nice diagram though.
Thanks D79

It's an efficient way to pump up water, here in Holland we (used to) use them with a small windmill attached, to pump up water out of polders for instance.

Benefits I see for AP are the fact that it can pump up big solids (but if you don't put a big enough mesh in front of it you'll pump up your fish too), it's effective at a large head and you can hook up a windmill to it.

Too bad you can't use it entirely vertically, so it takes up quite some space. Also, I don't think you can readily buy them; so for AP you'd have to construct one yourself, and you'd have to find a suitable motor as well if you don't use wind power.

They use one at the fish farm at ballarat to pump fish and junk from there ponds

is it a manual one F&F, only used when there is a requirement or does it run 24/7

Welcome d79, are you going to install one in your AP system

I found a link to a mob in QLD that do these types of pumps on a very large scale, for moving huge volumes of water..

Welcome, love the animated pic =)

I did a project on these back in primary school (thought they were outdated), But never saw one this big http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_ ... erdijk.JPG
wow!!! seems like they are still useful

no its got a motor on it they use it to empty there breeding ponds there as big as 2 home swimming pools the fish farm is on google earth 37 33 deg 02'62s
143 49 deg 14'29 e

I've seen that one, it used to be the biggest archimedes screw pumping station.. Many pumping stations use the archimedes screw, because of it's ability to pump up big solids, it's reliability and durability. Back in the days they were made out of wood, attached to a windmill (a small "tjasker", a slightly bigger "weidemolen", "spinnekopmolen", "wipmolen", "poldermolen" etc.) and they were used to pump big lakes dry. Our biggest airport, for instance, lies in an area pumped dry by windmills.

Anyways, I think for AP a small pump would be easier and cheaper..

It's been theorized that they were used to water the hanging gardens of Babylon. The gardens were tiered, and would have required large quantities of water raised up to the top I watched a show where they made a simple yet fairly large one from wood and leather. They also cast one in bronze, and proved their theory to be quite sound, that it was definately possible to pump water up a large hill using numerous screws.

There are many ways of pumping water. One is a slinger pump, a unit that is powered by the flow of water in a stream. Check this link:
http://www.riferam.com/sling/index.htm
Just an idea of what can be done.
The water moved is highly oxygenated at the same time it is pumped. Good for fish. I think the slinger is an archimedes screw that most people could build in a home workshop. And most could afford the cost, if they just have a stream availble.

Good one SC, there are so many ways of moving water economically, just need the water flow - and the inclination