Hey peeps,

Both my pond pumps decided to give in on me in the same week  

I have two ponds:

Duck Pond

This pond was happily serving 10 geese and 15 ducks until a few days ago, the pump decided to go on me. It is a 2kwh pump, I always thought it was an overkill but it was what I had at hand. I am looking to replace this pump, and I will be building my own circulating filter system, the pool filter I used is a pain in the rear, and sand had to be replaced quite often. Those birds know how to make a mess.

I will be moving my greenhouse closer to the duck pond and start a aqua-phonics hybrid greenhouse as there are tilapia fish in the pond. I've been looking at a lot of pumps to run the system and boy there are a lot, its just a pity I know nothing about them. The top most part of the greenhouse is around 1.5m above ground and the pond's bottom filter is around 1.5m deep, which means I need at least 3.5m head on the pump. The pump will need to run 24/7 so I need a continues pump. Oh, and the pond is 10x10m and 1.5m deep

I would prefer to go with a dc pump and panels close to the system. 

Fish pond

This is just a small 2x2m pond, 0.5m deep, the water feature is 1m high so i will need at least 1.5m head on this pump. I have this in my courtyard with a bunch of bastard koi's and gold fish . There are two water outlets at the pond (two waterfalls)

Ideally I would like to have a DC pump for this pond as well and run it off solar panels that I will attach close to the pond.

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The above said, if there is anyone that knows anything about solar pond pumps I would really like some input. 

I see a lot of pumps out there but I am not sure how to interpret most of their specs. I also do not know any of the makes and models so I am waiting for some solid advice before I dump money into this.

My budget is around 10k for pumps, fittings and panels, but ideally I would want to spend R 1.50  

Edited May 12, 20197 yr by stoic

Interesting exercise, I have played around with aquaponics and tilapia and ducks. My system is not currently in operation, the cheap solar fountain pump I was using filled up with too much gunk and stopped working. When I have no other project to do I was going to look at some sort of reed bed filtering system, but that is far down the priority list currently.

My experience with this is only the small pump in my fish pond (20 watts... barely does the job), and the water circulation pump in my water treatment setup (350W pump, moves around 1000 liter an hour). The size pump is pretty much a function of the volume of water and how far upwards you want to move it in what amount of time, divided into the efficiency of the pump.

This page even has a calculator to help with that.

6 hours ago, DeepBass9 said:

Interesting exercise, I have played around with aquaponics and tilapia and ducks. My system is not currently in operation, the cheap solar fountain pump I was using filled up with too much gunk and stopped working. When I have no other project to do I was going to look at some sort of reed bed filtering system, but that is far down the priority list currently.

yeah, that is one of the big issues, but i am intending on creating a sediment filter with a drain valve that can be drained weekly.

Expensive ducks, I'd be looking for a solar deep-freeze in your situation.

25 minutes ago, phil.g00 said:

Expensive ducks, I'd be looking for a solar deep-freeze in your situation.

Yeah, my priorities are clearly not aligned with the rest of humanity  

Birds become pets, pets become children, children is expensive. It's an endless money pit I tell ya

Edited May 13, 20197 yr by stoic

4 hours ago, plonkster said:

My experience with this is only the small pump in my fish pond (20 watts... barely does the job), and the water circulation pump in my water treatment setup (350W pump, moves around 1000 liter an hour). The size pump is pretty much a function of the volume of water and how far upwards you want to move it in what amount of time, divided into the efficiency of the pump.

This page even has a calculator to help with that.

Which is the 300W pump you are using? 

14 minutes ago, stoic said:

Birds become pets, pets become children, children is expensive.

I know how it is with family.

Just today I spent two hours at the wife's grave.

She thinks I am digging a pond, poor thing.

1 minute ago, phil.g00 said:

I know how it is with family.

Just today I spent two hours at the wife's grave.

She thinks I am digging a pond, poor thing.

dig another ... I'm dead 😂😂😂

Pets - children = $  You know it. I'm not even allowed to harvest my aquaponics fish, and I thought that was the whole idea. Lol and they don't even have names

14 hours ago, phil.g00 said:

Expensive ducks, I'd be looking for a solar deep-freeze in your situation.

Go and see what duck costs per kg at the supermarket! I have muscovies and we do slaughter them. A male can weigh up to 4kg. We roasted two at the weekend when the family came over for mother's day. Good eating.

17 hours ago, stoic said:

Which is the 300W pump you are using? 

Oh it's a builders Warehouse special. You can see it here. My son apparently thought he was staring in some blockbuster 🙂

I Recently bought a decently strong DC pump at my local pond shop for an aquaponics system of my own - i can try to link the company here

https://www.thefishworks.com.au/fish-pond-equipment/pond-pumps/low-voltage-pond-pumps/