I ordered 2 of these pumps from eBay and it took a while for them to arrive. But they finally arrived a week or two ago and I finally got the chance to test it out in the last few days. Both are 24V DC air pumps and the smaller one is rated at 60W…
All three solar powered circulation pumps are up and running
After testing the first solar panel powered pump for more than a month, we recently installed the solar panels on the second pump shed. It took a little longer to get the solar controller wired up to another hand wired prototype pump motor controller, but today was the first day that that was turned on…
Starting to plant the wetland biofilter
We have begun transplanting native water plants that are growing naturally around our land into the sand in the biofilter area of the pond: I figure we will do this as a slow process over time. The water level should rise now that the (relatively) dry season is mostly past. So as the sand becomes…
Pond circulation pump has been on nonstop for almost a month
Pond circulation pump has been on nonstop for almost a month, and it is still going strong. 🙂 After fixing the problems with the pump motor controller circuit, we left the motor on 24 hours per day and 7 days per week running off of only the 2 solar panels next to it. I am…
Solar powered circulation pump update
On December 23, I was quite happy that the new prototype pump controller circuit didn’t blow out in the 30 seconds or so that it took to burn out before I worked out a solution to the voltage spike issue. From that point, I left the pump running 24 hours a day until today, and…
Pond water level dropping
The rainy season has passed and we are now into the dry season. It rained only once that I am aware of in the last few weeks and that was a very light rain. I have been monitoring the level of the water every week or two and it went up to about 48cm below…
The pond is done: time to party!
For the past 3 months, several of our workers have been helping to wash the gravel and sand to fill up the regeneration zones of the pond. This last week it is officially finished. At this point, we are now done with the pond digging, the sand retaining walls, the pipes to run the water…
2nd prototype air pump
The first prototype air pump test I did at the beginning of the month was basically a proof of concept test. It worked well enough to adjust dimensions to a more deployable size and today the second prototype was ready for test. Here are a few pictures of it: We increased the size of the PVC…
Water level update
I last blogged about the water level in the pond in this post from October 23. Back then, the water level was about 60cm from the top of the wall. I checked the water level again today and was happy to see that the water level is now about 50.5cm from the top of the…
Pond skimmer
Pond skimmers are devices that suck water in from the surface of the pond and run it through a net or mesh of some sort to trap debris and eject the water somewhere else (possibly passing it through a more serious filter first). I asked our workers to put one together using most of the…
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