Air lift pumps in Aquaponics

[Glenn Martinez]

I have been working with air lifts in Aquaponics and wondering if anyone else is trying them. 

We first tried the air lifts to deal with a problem of theft at school locations. Submersible pumps were being stolen regularly. So we put the air pump in the class room, a super quiet model, and ran the air line out the upper window to the fish tank. We had to invent our own pump because we could not find a commercial model.

If anyone is interested I will email them our manual for building several models.

Some of the advantages are....much less electricity. 

The piping does not clog, like the filters on submersible pumps or external leaf filters.

The air lift picks up the fish solids and pumps them to the cinder bed were the Indian Blue worms eat the fish waste.

There is NO electricity in the water.

Since the air pump is located inside the building or a dry location, no GFI outlet is required.

The air pump super aerates the fish water on its way to the cinder. Most of our systems have no additional air pumps or air stones. 

We have never cleaned or had to clear a air lift pump. No clogs. 

The air lift is not bothered by sand or corrosive salt water or gritty water. Since we use volcanic cinder that gets sanded, this is a big deal.

We are pumping 150 gallons of water with 24 watt air pump, 24 inches high.

with a 38 watt, I can pump 300 gallons per hour at 24 inches head, and at 36 inches head only drop down to 200 gallons per hour. 

I will post some pictures ASAP.

Aloha,

Glenn Martinez

[Yusuf Mario Germino]

hi! interesting. would this work on flood/drain growbed or only if you have NFT?

[Glenn Martinez]

I can post some pictures, but we are applying for a patent, and do not want to screw that up.

On the patent we only reserve the manufacturing rights and allow individuals to make their own, and we will be selling plans etc. to make it easy for folks. Should all happen within the next week. We have 14 patents we are going for, so it is a lot of work.

GLenn

[wes]

Wow that is great to hear Raychel, any chance of you posting some diagrams of how exactly you have it setup on your system to make it work, or pictures of the setup????

[Glenn Martinez]

Good to hear. We are quite pleased. Just designed a new version, that we can pour handfuls of rocks thru....cannot clog it. 

I have some running since last january in very didrty environments, no problems.

Glenn

[Raychel A Watkins]

Mine has been working since before the convention and keeps the bell siphon working.  I don't ever have to wash the pump.  I tested it on my solar generator without the panel.  25 hrs of 24watt air pump used 20% of the generator power.  My regular water pump used 80% of the power. Long live the air pump.I just need money to buy more,

[Glenn Martinez]

You can email [e-mail] for our manual $50 or look at our Olomana Gardens face book page for pictures, drawings and videos.
More coming, inventing every day. Hard to keep up with it.

Glenn

[Lee Ferguson]

Glenn would you send me any information you have on air lift pumps to [e-mail] Thank you

[Chris Carr]

The link I just posted works fine and yes I am aware you linked the file directly as well. I figured if we keep re posting it enough times in the comments, people will stop asking for it :)

[halemart]

Chris, double check your link, it does not work for me.   But I have a link to the file that works -.>

See my comment below

>>Comment by halemart on September 29, 2012 at 4:03am

[Chris Carr]

Reposting because DNS is not forwarded properly from aquaponicscommunity.com and links are still broken : http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/page/glenn-martinez-aquapon...