Can anyone explain the Ben Glenn Aquazen?

[Hollis Armstrong]

I watched several videos but cant follow them to well. I would love to use a solar charger and air pump. Can anyone help me to better understand it. Some drawings would be great. 

I need to pump from the bottom of a 5 ft pool and go 1015 ft above ground so total would be about 20 ft. I saw one video that said the air would pump higher if the air went down first? I plan to have a 3000 gallon pond.

Any help would be appreciated

[Stuart Polkinghorne]

Anyone know where you can find the plans and the maths for this pump?

I found it but then lost it, their web footprint is all over the place making it hard to relocate.

[Richard Kowalski]

Join the Aquaculture hub. There is tons of information there .You might be interested in the Air Lift webinar on that site.

Regards

Rich K

[Frederick Henderson]

Glen explains the 2 airlifts and one geyser pump that he makes the best in the free webinar: Aquaponics: Paradigm Shift with Airlift Pumps Part 2

https://connect.extension.iastate.edu/p43gk3jhher/?launcher=false&a...

It is also available on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EDlMqrngqQ&index=2&list=PL...  The explanations start at 0:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EDlMqrngqQ&index=2&list=PL...

To answer Hollis Armstrong's question about going down. The rule of thumb with air lifts (not sure on geyser pumps, but they are more efficient) is that you can at maximum go 1 unit above 2 units of water in the tank you are pumping from. So if you have 2' of water in you tank you can pump it 1' above the surface of the water.

What Glen means by going down is you lower the bottom of your fish tank and then pump from there. He will bring a pipe out of the fish tank into a tee. Below the tee they dig a hole down. They cap a pipe insert it into the hole and then attach it to the bottom of the tee. They extend the pipe on the top of tee to be equal with the top of the fish tank. In this pipe he then puts his air lift. You will need 0.5 psi for each foot below the surface of the water you plan to release the air at.  30' of water is equal to the same pressure that the atmosphere exerts on us a sea level. So, if you go down 30' the air will be compressed to 50% of the size it was at the surface. As it rises it will expand 50% by the time it reaches the surface.

You will need a geyser pump to get the lift that you want to achieve. I believe that it is possible. However Glen does not have geyser pump that you can put in the pipe in the ground that I mention above.

In this video the man describes a geyser pump that is easy to build and will go down in a pipe like I describe. How To: Airlift & Geyser Well Pump Prototype Explorations and Test Data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYAGdrgLsX4&index=1&list=PL...

In the first few minutes of this video the man explains how to build one. The only difference that I can see that he makes compared to Masao Kondo's drawings is that his bleeder is above the syphon compare to Masao's being below it. I am not even sure that the second airline that he installed for the bleeder is necessary. I think that a tiny hole (room for an experimenter to figure out what size is best) in the inside 1" pipe near the top as the bleeder would do the same thing.

Basically this is two pipes one inside the other (1"and 2" in the video). The outside pipe is 5' long and the inside is 4' long. The area between the two pipes is the area that the air will fill up with until it pours over into the center pipe, at which point the syphon of air will start and it will empty the air chamber into the center tube sending a slug of air up it. When the air chamber is empty the syphon will break and the air chamber starts to fill again starting the cycle over.

I have been studying up on airlifts and geyser pumps for the last 2 weeks or so. This morning the light went on in my head and I understood the principle behind the geyser pump. I saw this image (http://www.pabr.org/scifactoids/geyserpump.gif) and then everything became clear for me.

When I was a child I came across an science puzzle that asked how you could pour air in to a cup. The answer was quite simple. Take two cups and in a sink or tank of water place one cup upside down and push it under the water so air is trapped in it. Take the other cup and fill it with water, then invert it in the water. Carefully pour the water from the cup that is full of air into the cup that is full of water. See how simple that was!

Take the image that I linked to above and turn it upside down. Now pretend that the blue areas are white and the white, blue or that the white areas are water and the blue areas are air. Do you see the siphon? It is siphoning air from the air chamber into the lift tube!!! This is what creates the slugs of air in a geyser pump.

I am surprised having worked with siphons and bell syphons that I did not see it sooner. In Masao Kondo drawings (https://www.google.com/patents/US20070166171) you can see the siphon too. He adds an additional air connection to keep the water column moving between surges. Lets call this a bleeder. This is similar to people in aquaponics that put a hole in the siphon stand pipe so that even if the siphon does not empty the bed and the pump goes off the water will still empty.

In the drawings by George E. Johnson and Richard G. Dupree (https://www.google.com/patents/US8371826) the siphon is outside the air chamber, in Masao's drawings it is inside. I believe it does not matter where it is.

There is also a 3rd drawing (http://www.google.com/patents/US6234761) that uses two one-way valves by Ferenc Kocsis and Maxwell Bruce McKay. One of Glen's design only uses one of these two one-way valves.

Having said all this the simplest design of for a geyser pump would be a bell siphon. Like the one in the video above.

Frederick

[Brian Rasco]

Thanks for sharing your research. I am a wannabe aquapon. I have done rudimentary research on the geyser pumps and believe it to be the most efficient way because you aereate your water the same time as pumping it in slugs. Since pumping water in slugs and cycling a system are the same thing, has anyone got their geyser pump slugs to match up to an acceptable cycling rate? Seems to me that if you can match up the slug volume and rate then all you need to run the system is a constant supply of air at a set volume and pressure.

Frederick Henderson said:

Glen explains the 2 airlifts and one geyser pump that he makes the best in the free webinar: Aquaponics: Paradigm Shift with Airlift Pumps Part 2

https://connect.extension.iastate.edu/p43gk3jhher/?launcher=false&a...

It is also available on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EDlMqrngqQ&index=2&list=PL...  The explanations start at 0:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EDlMqrngqQ&index=2&list=PL...

To answer Hollis Armstrong's question about going down. The rule of thumb with air lifts (not sure on geyser pumps, but they are more efficient) is that you can at maximum go 1 unit above 2 units of water in the tank you are pumping from. So if you have 2' of water in you tank you can pump it 1' above the surface of the water.

What Glen means by going down is you lower the bottom of your fish tank and then pump from there. He will bring a pipe out of the fish tank into a tee. Below the tee they dig a hole down. They cap a pipe insert it into the hole and then attach it to the bottom of the tee. They extend the pipe on the top of tee to be equal with the top of the fish tank. In this pipe he then puts his air lift. You will need 0.5 psi for each foot below the surface of the water you plan to release the air at.  30' of water is equal to the same pressure that the atmosphere exerts on us a sea level. So, if you go down 30' the air will be compressed to 50% of the size it was at the surface. As it rises it will expand 50% by the time it reaches the surface.

You will need a geyser pump to get the lift that you want to achieve. I believe that it is possible. However Glen does not have geyser pump that you can put in the pipe in the ground that I mention above.

In this video the man describes a geyser pump that is easy to build and will go down in a pipe like I describe. How To: Airlift & Geyser Well Pump Prototype Explorations and Test Data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYAGdrgLsX4&index=1&list=PL...

In the first few minutes of this video the man explains how to build one. The only difference that I can see that he makes compared to Masao Kondo's drawings is that his bleeder is above the syphon compare to Masao's being below it. I am not even sure that the second airline that he installed for the bleeder is necessary. I think that a tiny hole (room for an experimenter to figure out what size is best) in the inside 1" pipe near the top as the bleeder would do the same thing.

Basically this is two pipes one inside the other (1"and 2" in the video). The outside pipe is 5' long and the inside is 4' long. The area between the two pipes is the area that the air will fill up with until it pours over into the center pipe, at which point the syphon of air will start and it will empty the air chamber into the center tube sending a slug of air up it. When the air chamber is empty the syphon will break and the air chamber starts to fill again starting the cycle over.

I have been studying up on airlifts and geyser pumps for the last 2 weeks or so. This morning the light went on in my head and I understood the principle behind the geyser pump. I saw this image (http://www.pabr.org/scifactoids/geyserpump.gif) and then everything became clear for me.

When I was a child I came across an science puzzle that asked how you could pour air in to a cup. The answer was quite simple. Take two cups and in a sink or tank of water place one cup upside down and push it under the water so air is trapped in it. Take the other cup and fill it with water, then invert it in the water. Carefully pour the water from the cup that is full of air into the cup that is full of water. See how simple that was!

Take the image that I linked to above and turn it upside down. Now pretend that the blue areas are white and the white, blue or that the white areas are water and the blue areas are air. Do you see the siphon? It is siphoning air from the air chamber into the lift tube!!! This is what creates the slugs of air in a geyser pump.

I am surprised having worked with siphons and bell syphons that I did not see it sooner. In Masao Kondo drawings (https://www.google.com/patents/US20070166171) you can see the siphon too. He adds an additional air connection to keep the water column moving between surges. Lets call this a bleeder. This is similar to people in aquaponics that put a hole in the siphon stand pipe so that even if the siphon does not empty the bed and the pump goes off the water will still empty.

In the drawings by George E. Johnson and Richard G. Dupree (https://www.google.com/patents/US8371826) the siphon is outside the air chamber, in Masao's drawings it is inside. I believe it does not matter where it is.

There is also a 3rd drawing (http://www.google.com/patents/US6234761) that uses two one-way valves by Ferenc Kocsis and Maxwell Bruce McKay. One of Glen's design only uses one of these two one-way valves.

Having said all this the simplest design of for a geyser pump would be a bell siphon. Like the one in the video above.

Frederick

[George]

Cycling, when referenced in aquaponics, usually has to do with the initial establishing of nitrifying bacteria.

All types of air lifts aerate water while lifting.

I see two advantages of the geyser over other air lifts, (1) requires less pumping pressure to lift because the volume of air builds up, then releases in "slugs" whereas other lifts release air continuously and (2) can lift higher with less pumping pressure for the same reason.  

Brian Rasco said:

 I have done rudimentary research on the geyser pumps and believe it to be the most efficient way because you aereate your water the same time as pumping it in slugs. Since pumping water in slugs and cycling a system are the same thing, has anyone got their geyser pump slugs to match up to an acceptable cycling rate? Seems to me that if you can match up the slug volume and rate then all you need to run the system is a constant supply of air at a set volume and pressure.

[George]

You mean the flood and drain cycle, I take it.  I definitely pump enough water and lift it high enough with a 40 watt air pump to service a couple of media beds - it's not a geyser.  Glenn runs a system of 6 large media beds with one airlift and one siphon (see his video) so the potential for air lift use in aquaponics is rather large.  I didn't hear a mention of air lift in the video but my understanding is he uses air lifts in all of his systems.  https://youtu.be/c9B9c_QLD-E
Brian Rasco said:

 Since pumping water in slugs and cycling a system are the same thing, has anyone got their geyser pump slugs to match up to an acceptable cycling rate? 

[George]

https://youtu.be/NyupgKYg7bE

[Steve R]

You are going to need an awfully big pump to pump up 1015 feet. 

[Brian Rasco]

I watched a few videos with Glenn in them showing his work. His pumps are definitely geyser pumps and they work great. I did actually mean the fill/drain cycle btw. Anyway, I see now that trying to match up the geyser pump slug to a fill/drain cycle is not going to work since you need a slow fill and a fast drain. The way Glenn does his systems is simple enough and I'll go in that direction. I am trying to design around a sustainable methodology and since the air flow is the sole power source, I can get air flow from various mechanical means without electricity if necessary. The Amish use air lifts to pump their water up from their wells so I figure it works out well in the long term.

George said:

You mean the flood and drain cycle, I take it.  I definitely pump enough water and lift it high enough with a 40 watt air pump to service a couple of media beds - it's not a geyser.  Glenn runs a system of 6 large media beds with one airlift and one siphon (see his video) so the potential for air lift use in aquaponics is rather large.  I didn't hear a mention of air lift in the video but my understanding is he uses air lifts in all of his systems.  https://youtu.be/c9B9c_QLD-E
Brian Rasco said:

 Since pumping water in slugs and cycling a system are the same thing, has anyone got their geyser pump slugs to match up to an acceptable cycling rate? 

[George]

Yeah, no kidding; however, in theory it could be done, according to Glenn's demonstrations.  I have trouble understanding the videos but it appears that he is showing a couple of different types of air lifts, some with air injected into a vertical pipe (I use this type) and some into a horizontal (which include a check valve).  I don't know what the performance differences are between the two simple air lifts, called burpers by Glenn.  There is also a third air-powered water pump, a pneumatic ejector pump, aka geyser.  I use my air lift to keep the bottom of my tank clean of solids and as supplemental/redundant aeration.

https://youtu.be/ztHBHULkHNQ?list=PLVPmWRXPcivGZaakdJe30hAFVHaGzOaQN

https://youtu.be/OQqz8yR7sF8?list=PLFoqv_g77JaPRp6ymOHwK4dMsZUF0zl6T

I need to pump from the bottom of a 5 ft pool and go 1015 ft above ground so total would be about 20 ft.

Steve R said:

You are going to need an awfully big pump to pump up 1015 feet. 

[Frederick Henderson]

So far I have seen three basic types of devices for pumping water with air:

1. Air lifts - These are air bubbles pushing up through a column of water to lift the water. Simplest but also the least efficient. 2:1 ration is the rule of thumb. If you want to pump the water 1 foot above the surface of the tank then you need to release the air at least 2 feet under the surface.
2. Geyser pumps - Name because like a geyser they pump in spurts. This is because the air gets trapped then via a syphon (planned for or not) periodically the air exit in a slug that pushes the water up. These are more efficient than air lifts.
3. Pneumatic Ejector Pumps - These are similar to the geyser pump but add a check-valve to keep the water from going the wrong way. I believe that these devices are the most efficient. See this youtube video https://youtu.be/RccAa_qrPA8?list=PLsXi696xqv-svX_yCVbxTqdIRCh7bv5hx for more information on them and a great explanation. I also commented on that video and have posted some links to diagrams. Diagrams gallery is here: Aquaponics Pneumatic Ejector Pump Diagrams.
   

Glenn's portable setup has one pneumatic ejector pump. This is the one with the swinging check valve. He sets the horizontal pipe on a slope so that the air will syphon out in big slugs.

@Hollis Armstrong you say you need to pump about 20 feet, is that 20 above the surface of the tank? If that is true you can figure that you will need to release the air 2 times as far below the surface of the water or 40 feet in this case.  If you tank is 5 feet deep then you would need to "artificially" lower the bottom of your tank 35 feet like glen does. I am not sure that is practical. 

[Brian Rasco]

Fredrick check your facts on the pumps. The air lift style must have its lower end below the water surface the same distance as the outlet is above the surface, not twice as much.
The geyser style pumps do not need this submergence at all.

Frederick Henderson said:

So far I have seen three basic types of devices for pumping water with air:

1. Air lifts - These are air bubbles pushing up through a column of water to lift the water. Simplest but also the least efficient. 2:1 ration is the rule of thumb. If you want to pump the water 1 foot above the surface of the tank then you need to release the air at least 2 feet under the surface.
2. Geyser pumps - Name because like a geyser they pump in spurts. This is because the air gets trapped then via a syphon (planned for or not) periodically the air exit in a slug that pushes the water up. These are more efficient than air lifts.
3. Pneumatic Ejector Pumps - These are similar to the geyser pump but add a check-valve to keep the water from going the wrong way. I believe that these devices are the most efficient. See this youtube video https://youtu.be/RccAa_qrPA8?list=PLsXi696xqv-svX_yCVbxTqdIRCh7bv5hx for more information on them and a great explanation. I also commented on that video and have posted some links to diagrams. Diagrams gallery is here: Aquaponics Pneumatic Ejector Pump Diagrams.
   

Glenn's portable setup has one pneumatic ejector pump. This is the one with the swinging check valve. He sets the horizontal pipe on a slope so that the air will syphon out in big slugs.

@Hollis Armstrong you say you need to pump about 20 feet, is that 20 above the surface of the tank? If that is true you can figure that you will need to release the air 2 times as far below the surface of the water or 40 feet in this case.  If you tank is 5 feet deep then you would need to "artificially" lower the bottom of your tank 35 feet like glen does. I am not sure that is practical.