mikio's build! almost there!

[mikiomcculloch]

Just finished my version of an aquazen airlift, now I can aerate the water and pump about 300 gallons of water an hour using a 40 watt air pump.
As far as my system goes, I followed a similar plan as wolfracer, with an ibc fish tank, gravity fed grow beds, loop siphons, and eventually horizontal grow tubes.

More to follow hopefully- have to get an electric line run out from the house so I can stop linking extension cords!

I've made many mistakes, but it's been a great learning process which I hope will be productive soon!

[Prometheus7504]

Very nice keep us updated on the progress

[JCO]

Looking good, however it would help if you would find a graphics program that can turn your photos upright so I don't get a crick in my neck looking at them

[mikiomcculloch]

sorry! I have no idea how that happened!

[topz]

Nice set up. How much water are you moving for the 40 watts.

[Aloha Don]

very nice looking set-up there
If/When you get a chance could you explain the system and the mistakes you made/corrected so others can learn from them
thank you for posting
Keep it up

[mikiomcculloch]

topz- the pump I am uses moves approx. 300 gallons an hour (i.e. filled a 5 gallon bucket in just under a minute)

[mikiomcculloch]

aloha don- here a description of the system and some of the issues I had. Here's one new pic, and the others, which I turned right-side up (hopefully)

The system is gravity fed, as water from the fish tank runs down the main pipe and across to the grow beds on the left. Those grow beds flood and drain using a loop siphon, which then drain into the half barrel (the blue one) which attaches to the main sump tank (the red barrel). The little pipe above the sump tank is an overflow pipe. On the right, a 3/4 inch pipe drains from the fish tank into the grow tubes, which are angled to flow the water through all pipes and will be diverted at the end into the red barrel. The grow pipes have not been attached or capped yet.

Problems-
1) learning to get sufficient lift and aeration with only using an air pump- after a few different attempts at the sump tank (the red barrel) and the piping, I finally had success by attaching a three inch pipe to the bottom of the barrel, and digging a two foot deep trench to increase the water pressure and the depth of where I inject the air into the piping to cause the "geyser" effect to bring water AND air up the pipe and into my fish tank (the ibc). two ruined barrels and some ruined piping probably lost me about 150 dollars.

2) getting water tight seals. after much trial and error, I was finally able to find items called "uniseals" (online only) which allow for relatively easy installation and water tight seals. They are expensive for a piece of rubber (with shipping), but using other sealing methods and trying to make my own version just resulted in more money loss (at least 50 bucks). It has been so much easier using the uniseals. The only issue was that a had to buy multiple good quality hole saw blades for the various sizing (cost about 60 dollars).

It's been a lot of hassle, but also a good learning experience. My thought process in using only an air pump is that it is made to run 24/7, is out of the water, less moving parts/breakdown, etc. I also use less electricity than having an air pump AND sump pump. Ideally, I will set up a solar battery back up which will be cheaper since I'll need less electricity. oh yeah, I will also be building a trellis over the grow beds to try and increase my vertical grow space.

[Aloha Don]

Very nice looking system.
Thanks for the info