Pond Pumps

DafyddElvy

DafyddElvy

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I have a pond with a planted filter bed which works fine, however my wife recently pointed out the amount of electricity the pump uses, which I hadn't previously appreciated.

I am now looking at alternatives, the obvious of which is solar. Most of the solar powered kits are sold as pond fountain kits, only a few include details regarding the maximum water head suggestion they can be used as a conventional pond pump, the maximum battery power seems to be rated at 4 hours, and anyone living in the northern hemisphere knows our nights are a bit more than 4 hours.

Not being able to find sensible, useful advice elsewhere I thought ah I know some knowledgeable helpful folk that might be able to help, so here I am asking if folk can advise on ways to have a solar powered fish pond pump with a head no more than 1m (my mind is also wondering what twisted comments certain members are going to come out with ), thanks.
 
DafyddElvy said:
I have a pond with a planted filter bed which works fine, however my wife recently pointed out the amount of electricity the pump uses, which I hadn't previously appreciated.

I am now looking at alternatives, the obvious of which is solar. Most of the solar powered kits are sold as pond fountain kits, only a few include details regarding the maximum water head suggestion they can be used as a conventional pond pump, the maximum battery power seems to be rated at 4 hours, and anyone living in the northern hemisphere knows our nights are a bit more than 4 hours.

Not being able to find sensible, useful advice elsewhere I thought ah I know some knowledgeable helpful folk that might be able to help, so here I am asking if folk can advise on ways to have a solar powered fish pond pump with a head no more than 1m (my mind is also wondering what twisted comments certain members are going to come out with ), thanks.
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Have you thought about using a battery backup that is charged by the solar panel, similar to our PV system at home? Obviously you would a larger solar panel, but itmay be worth looking into. Also does the pump actually need to be going all the time?
 
DafyddElvy said:
I have a pond with a planted filter bed which works fine, however my wife recently pointed out the amount of electricity the pump uses, which I hadn't previously appreciated.

I am now looking at alternatives, the obvious of which is solar. Most of the solar powered kits are sold as pond fountain kits, only a few include details regarding the maximum water head suggestion they can be used as a conventional pond pump, the maximum battery power seems to be rated at 4 hours, and anyone living in the northern hemisphere knows our nights are a bit more than 4 hours.

Not being able to find sensible, useful advice elsewhere I thought ah I know some knowledgeable helpful folk that might be able to help, so here I am asking if folk can advise on ways to have a solar powered fish pond pump with a head no more than 1m (my mind is also wondering what twisted comments certain members are going to come out with ), thanks.
Click to expand...
I have a couple of solar powered pond pumps, whilst they do not have the throughput of a mains one both of mine lift water just 2-3 feet with a downward flow back to retention tanks.

Perhaps the flow could be routed through a ‘flow through’ a biological type filter maintaining still a drop of around a foot for a modest water course. Will never be the grand canyon but with stones etc could give a nice effect.

Both my pumps cost around £100 about 6-7 years ago.
 
My question is what is the size of the pond? I have a 10,000 liter pond with a good stock of koi which I try to turn over once every two hours. When researching these showed that the vari-pumps are generally very energy efficient compared to most and the flow rate can be adjusted.

Do you know the specs on your current pump?
 
Solar only pumps just dont have the battery storage capacity and often only "sprinkle" a light fountain of water when the sun is actually shinning.....

You will need a system that is Solar in the summer and mains in the winter ideally, we are not the costa del sol or southern California :sunglasses::sunglasses: but a LUSH green country with lots of water (aka rain) :sweat::sweat: with water companies who dont care about leaks but do care about profits and paying there pension fund owners !

Looking at a fairly substantial pump with a good head height (around 50w (240V)) you would need 1200wh to operate it for 24 hours. (this incidentally costs you probably about £0.40p a day, my guess there are more electrical minded people on here)

If your thinking of solar then the rule should be....Think BIG ! or go home.. You need a lot of solar panel to power very little and good sun angle and exposure. unfortunately most housing solar schemes in the UK are just a big tax and incentive scam/schemes run and installed by a lot of rogues and only people with large houses and large surface area actually feed the system.

I have a "closed" off grid system onto top of my work cabin (for business "environmental" aka showing my customers that i am doing "something" rather than nothing "reasons and back up !) and can power a sewing machine, lights, computers and printer from May to September only. I use a Bluetti power pack that stores 4000Wh, It is very very random on its charging and its angle on the flat roof is the ideal using some solar troughs but is was NOT CHEAP ! .

This product would probably be ok BLUETTI AC180T Solar Portable Power Station | 1,800W 1,433Wh (£1200) for you needs plus a decent sized solar panel or two (£400) to feed it. costing you £1500, but in reality it will only work well for 6 to 8 months of the year (and would take you 10 years to pay back before its making you money over what you would be paying the Lecky board. and after 3000 cycles the batteries are dead ! like Electric cars, great if your "wealthy" enough to buy new but worthless and crap after a few years use.
 
DickyC said:
Solar only pumps just dont have the battery storage capacity and often only "sprinkle" a light fountain of water when the sun is actually shinning.....

You will need a system that is Solar in the summer and mains in the winter ideally, we are not the costa del sol or southern California :sunglasses::sunglasses: but a LUSH green country with lots of water (aka rain) :sweat::sweat: with water companies who dont care about leaks but do care about profits and paying there pension fund owners !

Looking at a fairly substantial pump with a good head height (around 50w (240V)) you would need 1200wh to operate it for 24 hours. (this incidentally costs you probably about £0.40p a day, my guess there are more electrical minded people on here)

If your thinking of solar then the rule should be....Think BIG ! or go home.. You need a lot of solar panel to power very little and good sun angle and exposure. unfortunately most housing solar schemes in the UK are just a big tax and incentive scam/schemes run and installed by a lot of rogues and only people with large houses and large surface area actually feed the system.

I have a "closed" off grid system onto top of my work cabin (for business "environmental" aka showing my customers that i am doing "something" rather than nothing "reasons and back up !) and can power a sewing machine, lights, computers and printer from May to September only. I use a Bluetti power pack that stores 4000Wh, It is very very random on its charging and its angle on the flat roof is the ideal using some solar troughs but is was NOT CHEAP ! .

This product would probably be ok BLUETTI AC180T Solar Portable Power Station | 1,800W 1,433Wh (£1200) for you needs plus a decent sized solar panel or two (£400) to feed it. costing you £1500, but in reality it will only work well for 6 to 8 months of the year (and would take you 10 years to pay back before its making you money over what you would be paying the Lecky board. and after 3000 cycles the batteries are dead ! like Electric cars, great if your "wealthy" enough to buy new but worthless and crap after a few years use.
Click to expand...
We have solar panels with some battery storage on our medium sized 3 bed house. We had them out in with the realisation that we wouldn't see any return on or expenditure for about 15 years. We've had to reassess that and now it seems to be 10 years! Depending on how you use them obviously!
But if we're talking about a pond pump, there must be a way of utilising solar power for at least half the year
 
The problem with a pond pump (if being used for filtration) is you really want to run it 24 hours a day.

PhilP
 
My pumps do not have battery just good quality solar that runs so long as there is daylight, though much better in full sun.
 
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