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  1. #121
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by smartin View Post
    I have a 20k pump that runs a shower, the feeding pipe is split and also supplies flow to a pond return, the other pump supplies flow to the ASHP and onwards to another return, both pumps also produce the pull from the BD and skimmer back to the drum.....assume i would need to keep a pump to feed the shower as it sits well above pond level which is no good for air lifts and i would need to incorporate an air lift at each pond return, these would then replace the pull / flow the pumps provide?
    Airlifts can be made to lift high. A straight airlift would need more air per unit volume lifted as the height increases. So at some point a water pump may become more economic for the flow rate. A stepped lift, so each is lifting a step can be more effective than a single straight lift and therefore more efficient. What's the difference from the water level to the shower input?

    Let me try the maths for a single 20Klph airlift to lift 6ft up to see if it's worth it..

    Let me give a 6ft single straght lift example at 20,000lph water flow rate. Now the article to give the lift design doesn't mention pipe diameter. However that seems correct - a smaller pipe would need a faster flow speed through the smaller diameter to shift the volume of 20,0000 litres in an hour. I digress but let's have a look. Given most 20,000lph pumps are 2" pipework - let me do some calculations - one thing to note is that a larger pipe diameter increase is the fastest way to get a flow rate increase..

    The volume we want to move is 20,000 litres every hour.
    I will make the assumptions:
    * pipe bore diameter = 60mm (I'll ignore the bore difference imperial vs metric but let's say a 63mm pipe has a bore of 60mm).
    * pipe length = 10 meters
    * lift hight is 6ft or 1.83m rounded up.

    Let's calculate the static pressure first, 1 meter of water is 9806.38 pascals (unit of pressure), sp 1.83*9806.38 = 17,945 pa, or 17.945 kpa. This is already telling me that we're getting near 2.6psi so the flow rate on a 5.5m (~7.8psi) max head water pump will not be 20K. Back to the calculations..

    I can find the pressure (P) required to give me 20Klph, or, 20m3/hour. We divide by 360 to get litres per second. You may recognise this from my first calculation on the video, but this time we're calculating the pressure required to give you 20K:

    flow rate, cubic meters/sec = 20/360 = pi * (0.060/2)^4 * (P) / 8*(10)*(8.9x10^-4)

    Rearrange: P= (20/360) * 8*10*(8.9x10^-4) / (pI*(0.060/2)^4 = 1.5544 kpa of pressure through a ~2" pipe additional to the pressure required to lift the water up the 1.83 meters.

    This means our lift height above the water is actually the lift hieight pressure + the pressure required for the flow rate. Therefore our pressure is actually 17.945 + 1.5544 = 19.515 kpa, or we need a lift to lift to 19515 / 9806.38 = 1.9902 meters even though our lift is only 1.83m high the pressure required to give the flow rate adds more effective height.

    So now we know the height we have to lift (let's round up to 2m to make it easy).

    Next we can design that airlift. The minor complication is that this is in US units, so we have to convert to feet and cubic feet and we don't know two parameters - but we do know the relationship between them, so we know essentially Va=f(Ls), so let's pick three depths and calculate the result:

    Li (ft) = 2 meters * 3.28084 = 6.56168 ft lift height above water level
    Ls (ft) = we don't know but let's pick 3ft, 4ft 6ft below the water level in the system to make an educated guess.
    Va (cu ft/min/usgm) of airflow = we don't know
    C=245, this is a value from a table for lifts under 20ft.

    Va (cu ft / min / usgm ) = 0.8 * (Li) / C*log10( (Ls+34)/34 )

    3ft => 88.0666 *0.8 * (6.56168) / 245*log10( (3+34)/34 ) = 51.39 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1455 lpm
    4ft => 88.0666 * 0.8 * (6.56168) / 245*log10( (4+34)/34 ) = 39.07 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1106 lpm
    6ft => 88.0666 * 0.8 * (6.56168) / 245*log10( (6+34)/34 ) = 26.74 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 767 lpm

    You see an extra 88.0666* because the formula works out the flow rate per usg of flowrate (in minutes), so we do (20,000/60)*0.2642 to convert 20Kl/h into 88.066 usg/m. Then we convert cu ft / min into litres by *28.31.. to get lpm

    You see *28.3168466 which is the number of litres per cubic foot to get the lpm per US gallon of flow rate which is why you see 88.0666* usgm ((20,000/60)*0.2642 to convert 20Kl/h into 88.066 usg/m.

    You'll be pleased to know you can use a GCSE calculator to work that out - I have a cheapie <£20 fx-991ex which you can simply go back and update the parameters you put in for each making it faster to work out I got that because it can convert between electrical units for tube amp design.

    So get 20,000lph up 2 meters is a lot of air in a straight vertical airlift.

    Instead it may be easier to make a step arrangement - say three lifts, each lifting 2meters/3 = 0.66m, or 2.166 ft??

    3ft => 3* 88.0666 *0.8 * (2.166) / 245*log10( (3+34)/34 ) = 51.39 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1440 lpm total
    4ft => 3* 88.0666 * 0.8 * (2.166) / 245*log10( (4+34)/34 ) = 39.07 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1095 lpm
    6ft => 3* 88.0666 * 0.8 * (2.166) / 245*log10( (6+34)/34 ) = 26.74 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 749 lpm

    Well no it appears you still need alot of air BUT I was wondering if you could use 1/3 of the air but then recycle it for the next stage. However even using 1/3rd of the air, pushing 2 meters is going to take 250lpm. which looking at the £500+ 250lpm air pumps isn't going to be economical as they use 225W+ of power.

    Although you will not be getting 20Klph (probably far lower) pushing 2m of head with a 5.5m max head water pump for 190W, it may be that you don't need 20Klph and in reality if we linearly estimate (7.8-2.7)/7.8 * 20,000 = 13,000lph is the flow rate you're using on the shower (assuming a 6ft lift) however pumps aren't linear so it's likely to be less. It may be 10K at which point you'd 1/2 the airflow above for 20Klph.

    This is where the low force of an airlift becomes difficult. Lifting up height needs some different designs. However you have me thinking.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

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  3. #122
    Senior Member Rank = Mature Champion smartin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NickK-UK View Post
    Airlifts can be made to lift high. A straight airlift would need more air per unit volume lifted as the height increases. So at some point a water pump may become more economic for the flow rate. A stepped lift, so each is lifting a step can be more effective than a single straight lift and therefore more efficient. What's the difference from the water level to the shower input?

    Let me try the maths for a single 20Klph airlift to lift 6ft up to see if it's worth it..

    Let me give a 6ft single straght lift example at 20,000lph water flow rate. Now the article to give the lift design doesn't mention pipe diameter. However that seems correct - a smaller pipe would need a faster flow speed through the smaller diameter to shift the volume of 20,0000 litres in an hour. I digress but let's have a look. Given most 20,000lph pumps are 2" pipework - let me do some calculations - one thing to note is that a larger pipe diameter increase is the fastest way to get a flow rate increase..

    The volume we want to move is 20,000 litres every hour.
    I will make the assumptions:
    * pipe bore diameter = 60mm (I'll ignore the bore difference imperial vs metric but let's say a 63mm pipe has a bore of 60mm).
    * pipe length = 10 meters
    * lift hight is 6ft or 1.83m rounded up.

    Let's calculate the static pressure first, 1 meter of water is 9806.38 pascals (unit of pressure), sp 1.83*9806.38 = 17,945 pa, or 17.945 kpa. This is already telling me that we're getting near 2.6psi so the flow rate on a 5.5m (~7.8psi) max head water pump will not be 20K. Back to the calculations..

    I can find the pressure (P) required to give me 20Klph, or, 20m3/hour. We divide by 360 to get litres per second. You may recognise this from my first calculation on the video, but this time we're calculating the pressure required to give you 20K:

    flow rate, cubic meters/sec = 20/360 = pi * (0.060/2)^4 * (P) / 8*(10)*(8.9x10^-4)

    Rearrange: P= (20/360) * 8*10*(8.9x10^-4) / (pI*(0.060/2)^4 = 1.5544 kpa of pressure through a ~2" pipe additional to the pressure required to lift the water up the 1.83 meters.

    This means our lift height above the water is actually the lift hieight pressure + the pressure required for the flow rate. Therefore our pressure is actually 17.945 + 1.5544 = 19.515 kpa, or we need a lift to lift to 19515 / 9806.38 = 1.9902 meters even though our lift is only 1.83m high the pressure required to give the flow rate adds more effective height.

    So now we know the height we have to lift (let's round up to 2m to make it easy).

    Next we can design that airlift. The minor complication is that this is in US units, so we have to convert to feet and cubic feet and we don't know two parameters - but we do know the relationship between them, so we know essentially Va=f(Ls), so let's pick three depths and calculate the result:

    Li (ft) = 2 meters * 3.28084 = 6.56168 ft lift height above water level
    Ls (ft) = we don't know but let's pick 3ft, 4ft 6ft below the water level in the system to make an educated guess.
    Va (cu ft/min/usgm) of airflow = we don't know
    C=245, this is a value from a table for lifts under 20ft.

    Va (cu ft / min / usgm ) = 0.8 * (Li) / C*log10( (Ls+34)/34 )

    3ft => 88.0666 *0.8 * (6.56168) / 245*log10( (3+34)/34 ) = 51.39 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1455 lpm
    4ft => 88.0666 * 0.8 * (6.56168) / 245*log10( (4+34)/34 ) = 39.07 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1106 lpm
    6ft => 88.0666 * 0.8 * (6.56168) / 245*log10( (6+34)/34 ) = 26.74 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 767 lpm

    You see an extra 88.0666* because the formula works out the flow rate per usg of flowrate (in minutes), so we do (20,000/60)*0.2642 to convert 20Kl/h into 88.066 usg/m. Then we convert cu ft / min into litres by *28.31.. to get lpm

    You see *28.3168466 which is the number of litres per cubic foot to get the lpm per US gallon of flow rate which is why you see 88.0666* usgm ((20,000/60)*0.2642 to convert 20Kl/h into 88.066 usg/m.

    You'll be pleased to know you can use a GCSE calculator to work that out - I have a cheapie <£20 fx-991ex which you can simply go back and update the parameters you put in for each making it faster to work out I got that because it can convert between electrical units for tube amp design.

    So get 20,000lph up 2 meters is a lot of air in a straight vertical airlift.

    Instead it may be easier to make a step arrangement - say three lifts, each lifting 2meters/3 = 0.66m, or 2.166 ft??

    3ft => 3* 88.0666 *0.8 * (2.166) / 245*log10( (3+34)/34 ) = 51.39 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1440 lpm total
    4ft => 3* 88.0666 * 0.8 * (2.166) / 245*log10( (4+34)/34 ) = 39.07 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 1095 lpm
    6ft => 3* 88.0666 * 0.8 * (2.166) / 245*log10( (6+34)/34 ) = 26.74 cf/min, *28.3168466 = 749 lpm

    Well no it appears you still need alot of air BUT I was wondering if you could use 1/3 of the air but then recycle it for the next stage. However even using 1/3rd of the air, pushing 2 meters is going to take 250lpm. which looking at the £500+ 250lpm air pumps isn't going to be economical as they use 225W+ of power.

    Although you will not be getting 20Klph (probably far lower) pushing 2m of head with a 5.5m max head water pump for 190W, it may be that you don't need 20Klph and in reality if we linearly estimate (7.8-2.7)/7.8 * 20,000 = 13,000lph is the flow rate you're using on the shower (assuming a 6ft lift) however pumps aren't linear so it's likely to be less. It may be 10K at which point you'd 1/2 the airflow above for 20Klph.

    This is where the low force of an airlift becomes difficult. Lifting up height needs some different designs. However you have me thinking.
    Hi Nick,

    Well what can i say but thanks very much indeed for your time spent on this matter, your later assumptions of around 13k lph is about right, the supply pipe to the shower is 80cm/90cm above the pond water level, the pond is 155cm deep, currently the pump is around 3m away from the shower itself, this is the length of the pipe running along from the pump then 90 degree's upto the top of the shower.
    2200 gallons,infinity window,
    Evolve 4k combi,spindrifter,
    2x20k pumps, BD,Skimmer,
    Shower, ASHP

  4. #123
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Tomorrow i can plug in values - 13Klph and 0.9m should take less.

    An airlift doesn't have to be in the pond, it can be a barrel or even a U bend of pipe.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  5. #124
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Static head height pressure: 0.90*9806.38 = 8,825.742 pa

    13/360 = pi * (0.060/2)^4 * (P) / 8*(4)*(8.9x10^-4)

    Flow rate pressure, P = 0.404 kpa, so a total of 9.29 kpa

    Li (ft) = 9.29/9806.38 * 3.28084 = 3.03 ft lift height above water level
    Ls (ft) = we don't know but let's pick 3ft, 4ft 6ft below the water level in the system to make an educated guess.
    Va (cu ft/min/usgm) of airflow = we don't know
    C=245, this is a value from a table for lifts under 20ft.

    3ft => 28.3168466 * 88.0666 *0.8 * (3.03) / 245*log10( (3+34)/34 ) = 672 lpm
    4ft => 28.3168466 * 88.0666 * 0.8 * (3.03) / 245*log10( (4+34)/34 ) = 511 lpm
    6ft => 28.3168466 * 88.0666 * 0.8 * (3.04) / 245*log10( (6+34)/34 ) = 350 lpm

    So that's still alot of air flow rate and probably not viable as a simple straight airlift.

    I was thinking of a couple of possible designs:
    a) use a valve system so that water is pushed up in chunks - an extension of this was look at a Tesla valves.

    I just checked on google and someone has done a 3D printed valve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7P4Rw8DdsU there is also an option to put baffles a wider airlift tube to make a 3D Tesla valve. Say a 4" pipe but it's a 60mm bore: https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...60852420316114

    It's complex, but maybe worth looking at or modelling in FOAM for example.

    In a Tesla valve the water flow can easily flow one way but when reversed, the flow is diverted and that acts to prevent the flow back.

    I'm wondering if it would make the system more efficient.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  6. #125
    Member Rank = Nisai Paddy's Avatar
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    Will do John, lads are combing the sites for the pipework over the next few days

    Sent from my SM-G770F using Tapatalk

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  8. #126
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion john1's Avatar
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    This thread is a very informative read Paddy.
    John

  9. #127
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    Quote Originally Posted by john1 View Post
    This thread is a very informative read Paddy.
    Defo, bedtime reading 👍

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  11. #128
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    How are everyone's airlifts?

    No problems other than one of the small fish I put in the back chamber (90cmx90cmx180cm) decided todo a finding Nemo and obviously got sucked through the airlift into the main pond with the big fish. It's doing well.

    The fish have decided that swimming at the pipe outlets is fun, I suspect because of the smell of food for the smaller fish. Yet they've been fed..
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  12. #129
    Nick
    Glad to hear the airlifts are still performing how is the anoxic filter performing ?

  13. #130
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Colin Harvey View Post
    Nick
    Glad to hear the airlifts are still performing how is the anoxic filter performing ?
    I did get the usual spring algae bloom earlier in the year (the filters wake up after the algae). After putting some stuff in (which has left the water brown and blue), I did a set of tests a couple of days ago - zero ammonia, zero nitrite, zero nitrate. Now that seems to be supported by minimal algae/blanketweed growth. I'm going add some clay and calcium carb to replace the minerals as the system doesn't have a trickle feed - I hope that will help pull some tannins from the treatment out of the water.

    I will be adding a pump driven 80W amalgam UV for blasts when the blooms are bad etc so neither the pump or the UVC will be on continuously.

    All in all - it seems good, except the brown from the algae treatment has stayed this year and I made the mistake of using a blanketweed treatment that had blue crystals.. that dyed the water blue. Over time that will be replaced by rain water overflow./
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  14. #131
    That’s good the parameters sound good are you running anoxic only or do you still have a bio chamber. Also saw a video of your setup looks great noticed you have a Lilly in your airlift chamber is that planted in a bcb basket

  15. #132
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Colin Harvey View Post
    That’s good the parameters sound good are you running anoxic only or do you still have a bio chamber. Also saw a video of your setup looks great noticed you have a Lilly in your airlift chamber is that planted in a bcb basket
    At the moment the bio is also present but seems not to have a large growth as it has last year. Again I think that's down probably due to the lack of nutrients in the water. I couldn't say if that's entirely down to the anoxic baskets but I have 4 baskets IIRC down the bottom.

    I have a number of Lillies hanging from the air lifts at the rear section to block out any light and to break up any flow. They seem to like it, even though there's a large amount of water flowing through it.

    The main pond has vertical 1.85m sides so any plants have to be in baskets or floating.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

 

 
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