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Comment by Alan Barnett on April 16, 2015 at 10:41am

Good morning,  I went to Olomana Gardens last year.  I am not an expert but I did pick up on some of the key points that Glen mentiioned multiple times. 

1. Lift vs flow.  The higher you are lifting the water, the lower the flow will be.  In the picture it look like your sump is less than 2 ft high.  I am guessing that you are lifting the water about 3 ft.  As I understand it, this numbers should be the other way around.  Your system looks pretty nice but maybe raising the growbeds and sump will increase the flow.

2. RT ANGLES reduce flow.  Maybe using a sweeping elbow instead of a rt angle will help.  Ideally, I think you should have the pump in-line with the bulkhead fittings.

3.  Lowering the fishtank.  Is another way to reduce the lift.  Again working off of the idea more lift = less flow.

4. I can't see inside the outflow tee.  Where is the lift pipe in relation to the Tee out?  Did you "butterfly the end of the pipe to reduce the amount of water going back down of the pipe? Lastly, Have you tried turning the TEE upside down?  It looks like a sweeping Tee.  What does that do for you?

5. Maybe choosing a different airlift method will work better for you.  i.e. take a posthole digger and pick a spot near the fishtank.  dig down about 4-5 ft.  cap a 3-4" pipe and stick it in the hole.  cut the pipe near grade and stick a tee fitting on it.  Reduce the tee fitting to the same size as the sump bulkhead fitting.  This essentially just created a deeper sump tank and will allow you to lift more water higher than your current setup.  There are videos on how to hook the air up to a straight pipe to lift water. 

Good luck, please let me know if you found this useful.

Comment by Charles Kiplinger on April 1, 2015 at 7:29pm

I'm getting between 95 and a hundred gallons an hour.

Comment by Stuart Polkinghorne on March 31, 2015 at 6:08pm

how many gallons and hour are you getting?

Comment by Charles Kiplinger on March 30, 2015 at 9:39pm

I ended up putting in a sunken sump style airlift pump that works great.

Comment by Jim Vanderveen on March 28, 2015 at 10:09pm

I have no experience with these, but I'm commenting just so I can subscribe to this thread and learn along with you.