The 220V AC air pump we bought for about $60 a while back from an aquarium supply shop was horribly inefficient. From basic physics, power is equal to force times speed. For an air pump pumping air into water, you can calculate the force as the difference between air pressure at the pump, and water…
Green algae in the pond
While I wrote recently about how clear the rainwater is in the washed gravel and sand areas and in the areas overgrown with Thai morning glory, the central part of the pond has just turned a bright green due to algae in the last few days. Based on what I have read, algae needs two…
Pond images: The “micro view”
Most of my pictures and posts are wide views of ponds, houses, construction, etc. I think of these as the “macro views”. But the things on the land that I get the most enjoyment out of are oftentimes the small things that you have to look closely or you will miss them. Today I decided…
Pond water level analysis
Here is a picture of measuring the level of the water relative to the sand retention wall. You can see that the water level is about 60cm from the top of the wall. My target water level is 10cm higher than the top of the wall. But the way we built the wall, it shouldn’t…
Pond update: pumps completed and water level rising
I thought I would post a quick update about the pond construction. The rainy season is drawing near to an end, and the water level has been rising steadily. The amount of sun hitting the stagnant rainwater is leading to a fair amount of algae blooming in the pond. But I am hopeful that the…
Circulation pump in place test: ITS ALIVE!
I’ve been busy with quite a few things recently, both at work and on the land. The land stuff has been mostly incremental steps that didn’t really warrant posting here. But I was very excited today to get the chance to test the pond circulation pump in its actual installation configuration. The rainy season has…
Washed sand
The washing of the sand is proceeding at a very slow pace. We are still washing the sand manually, one load at a time in 2 cement mixers. It is a slow and laborious process that will probably go on for another month or two at this pace. So we decided to experiment with an…
Pond update: heavy rains
Another week of heavy rains and the water level has reached from the wall on one end of the pond area to the wall on the other end for the first time. We are still trying to get all the welding and machining done so we can install the circulation pumps before the water gets…
Mounting the circulation pump into the cistern
We’ve made some progress in figuring out how to get the circulation pumps mounted into the cement cisterns. All three pumps have been constructed, with the long-tail boat propeller shafts cut down to the right size, the mounting brackets welded onto them, and all of that mounted into a short piece of 12″ PVC pipe….
Pond update: beginning to lay down the sand
The laying down of the washed gravel has been mostly completed and now we are beginning to lay down the washed sand. The washing process is still quite slow and laborious, but all options for purchasing gravel or sand already washed have been impractical. Here is a picture of the main regeneration zone now: You…
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
Categories