Water Circulation Pumps?

[David Rose]

Anyone have a recommendation for a decent water circulation pump for a water storage barrel?

Thanks in advance!
David

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

How much water do you need to circulate? Any specifics on how fast you want to turn the water over inside the barrel per hour?? Im assuming the pump will be placed inside the barrel and just turned on to circulate?

Mag-Drive and Quiet One pumps are good brands to use. What model you choose depends on how much flow you need. If you need external you have several other options (the above 2 brands work externally as well).

-Ryan

[David Rose]

Hi Ryan,

I have a 100G 23"x64" or so storage barrel. I've been using a large air stone with air pump to circulate water and gas off CO2 (well water with high CO2). It usually takes a day or two for pH to stabilize. But I think a circulation pump would work much faster to gas off CO2 and bring the water to temp. Agreed?

Thanks,
David




How much water do you need to circulate? Any specifics on how fast you want to turn the water over inside the barrel per hour?? Im assuming the pump will be placed inside the barrel and just turned on to circulate?

Mag-Drive and Quiet One pumps are good brands to use. What model you choose depends on how much flow you need. If you need external you have several other options (the above 2 brands work externally as well).

-Ryan

[Jhhnn]

I think you might consider incorporating a de-gassing tower with your aging system. Lots of ways to approach that, like a 5gal bucket with the bottom mostly cut out, a layer of eggcrate lighting grid placed in the bottom. Fill it with bioballs or similar, position it over the barrel, pump water from the bottom of the barrel up to a sprayhead at the top... It would hugely promote gas exchange, and speed the process of bringing cold water up to room temp...

Pump-wise, it wouldn't take a lot because you only need a couple of feet of head...

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Hi Ryan,

I have a 100G 23"x64" or so storage barrel. I've been using a large air stone with air pump to circulate water and gas off CO2 (well water with high CO2). It usually takes a day or two for pH to stabilize. But I think a circulation pump would work much faster to gas off CO2 and bring the water to temp. Agreed?

Thanks,
David

For degassing purposes, I agree with Jhhnn, a degassing tower is ideal. When it comes to aeration, it's all about surface area. Having the water cascade down through media like bio-balls (or similar) drastically increases the water's exposed surface area. The more surface area, the more efficient the transfer of gasses (Co2 out, O2 in).

A degassing tower can be made from a variety of materials....just depends on a lot of different factors. You will still need a pump to push enough water to create an initial sheering effect over the media. Read this article from the Southern Regional Aquaculture Center (SRAC):

http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/191fs.pdf
It's specific to catfish hatcheries, but the priciples are applied to almost any situation.

If you have any questions or need help designing/putting a degassing system together, let me know

-Ryan

[underwaterforest]

For degassing purposes, I agree with Jhhnn, a degassing tower is ideal. When it comes to aeration, it's all about surface area. Having the water cascade down through media like bio-balls (or similar) drastically increases the water's exposed surface area. The more surface area, the more efficient the transfer of gasses (Co2 out, O2 in).

A degassing tower can be made from a variety of materials....just depends on a lot of different factors. You will still need a pump to push enough water to create an initial sheering effect over the media. Read this article from the Southern Regional Aquaculture Center (SRAC):

http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/191fs.pdf
It's specific to catfish hatcheries, but the priciples are applied to almost any situation.

If you have any questions or need help designing/putting a degassing system together, let me know

-Ryan

+1 on the degassing tower. I'm pretty lazy so I haven't got around to building one yet, but I probably will soon. I have been using a 1800 gph magdrive to dechlor and stabilize my water in my aging barrel and it works great, but at 150 watts to run I really should just find another way to agitate the water. It takes my pump approx 5 hours to dechlor and only about 30 minutes to remove most of the gas in my tap water.

[machine77]

I use a aquaclear 805 power head with clear flexible hose attached to the exhaust,, which then runs up a "T" i made with PVC pipe, held on by zip ties, and at the top the hose is then pointed back down into the container so it splashed water into it, causing alot of irratation. It works awesome and i made it in about 20 minutes! i use this on my 300g water storage tank! If you would like pictures i can email them to you, i have a hard time resizing them on here!

Nolan

[David Rose]

Thanks Jhhnn and Ryan...sounds very promising and just what I need. Since I already have a MagDrive 18 attached externally to my lower NPT to transfer the water to my first floor for water changes.

http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac51/dlr1961_photos/20091010001.jpg

Given the 5" mouth at the top of my barrel, sounds like my best bet would be to use the same pump on a timer to cycle the water up to the top of the barrel where I would use a 5G bucket as described or 4+" wide mouth funnel filled with bio-balls to pass the water down through and back into the barrel.

What do you think? Or something better?

[Jhhnn]

Thanks Jhhnn and Ryan...sounds very promising and just what I need. Since I already have a MagDrive 18 attached externally to my lower NPT to transfer the water to my first floor for water changes.

Given the 5" mouth at the top of my barrel, sounds like my best bet would be to use the same pump on a timer to cycle the water up to the top of the barrel where I would use a 5G bucket as described or 4+" wide mouth funnel filled with bio-balls to pass the water down through and back into the barrel.

What do you think? Or something better?

I think it'll work fine.

If you heat the house and water with gas, you might want to consider putting some 1" styrofoam under the barrel, wrapping it in a water heater blanket, filling it with warm water. I do, figuring the price delta between gas and electricity is huge... the electric heater just maintains the temp, doesn't have to raise it. Just putting the styro underneath will make a difference, insulating it from the concrete floor...

I just ordered one of these to make filling my barrels a more consistent operation-

http://cgi.ebay.com/Honeywell-Thermostatic-Mixing-Valve-AM-Series-AM100C-1-/320529274746?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa108977a

I'll post back about it when it's set up...

[ZX10R]

I have a 55 gallon barrel wrapped it with a hot water heater blanket then I used a submersible fountain pump in the bottom pushing 170 gph I got both from Lowes. I added a 300 watt heater in it also. I come up from the pump put a pvc T with a pvc ball valve on each side. One side is spraying back into the tank splashing the water and the other side I attached a 25' hose that I use to fill my tanks with during WC. I got the barrel and heater for free between the fittings, pump, and heater blanket I might have $50 in it.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Thanks Jhhnn and Ryan...sounds very promising and just what I need. Since I already have a MagDrive 18 attached externally to my lower NPT to transfer the water to my first floor for water changes.

http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac51/dlr1961_photos/20091010001.jpg

Given the 5" mouth at the top of my barrel, sounds like my best bet would be to use the same pump on a timer to cycle the water up to the top of the barrel where I would use a 5G bucket as described or 4+" wide mouth funnel filled with bio-balls to pass the water down through and back into the barrel.

What do you think? Or something better?

That would work fine. Just dont use standard bio-balls for the degassing...not enough void space. These are the "industry standard" for small degassing systems: BF44A
http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/2639/Bio-Barrels/bf44a/0

For a 5 gallon bucket you'll a little less than a full cubic foot of media (7.5 gal per cubic ft), but we only sell it by the cubic ft.

-Ryan

[David Rose]

I'll take a look and get some ordered. Thanks Ryan!