Saving power by turning filtration off – can I ?

Can I do the unthinkable and turn my filtration/pump off for say two hours on and two hours off over night. I have 1.5kw Speck pump that has been running 24/7 for seventeen plus years on 25,000 lt pond. The electricity bills are not surprisingly pretty huge! I was thinking of installing a timer to regulate the pump/filter over night. My rather antiquated filtration system consists of a 1.5m high sump with brushes, x2 large size pool filter drums, x 2 siporex biological chambers that have also not been changed for seventeen years, which is no doubt a disgrace, an ultra violet chamber, and several bags of bioballs in a top pond which feeds the waterfall back into the pond. All said, the water clarity is good. I have about 25 koi, many of them large and over 600 to 700 mm with several of them having being bought nearly 35 years ago, yikes !

 

Maybe shorter cycles, but that will damage the pump in the long run.... best option is to get a new energy efficient pump, old pumps are heavy on electricity.

 

@Trevor Pleco - rather look at getting one of those free flow pumps from KLB engineering(Johannesburg based - givethem a ring for local supplier) - they have 2 models - a 300W one that does 18 000l and a 600W that does 36 000 liters per hour... All experiments I have done in the past with intermittant pumping have been an absolute failure,with heavy koi losses...

 

have a look at this, only 9000lph but it is only 130w and it is controllable, so you will be able to put in a controller to swith off or adjust the rate of flow etc....

Tunze Master Electronic 1073.090 http://www.aqua-africa.co.za/TUNZERecirculPumps.asp bit pricey @ R4 257.20

 

Thanks guys will certainly look into these pumps, but surely say one hour on one hour off just over night would be ok. I freqeuntly turn the pump off for an hour or two or more for cleaning and so on with no problems. I could then save four to five hours of Eskom per night, that's nearly 2000hrs a year !

 

wait, it is electronic but NOT CONTROLLABLE !

 

ummmmmmmmmmm - how big is your filter? a 1.7kw pump is serious overkill for a 25 000l pond. I am running a .45 on my 28 000L pond running a bubble bead filter.

 

ok cool, will look into flow rates and that, as the water needs to be pumped through all the filtration I mentioned then up a further 1.5m to the waterfall before returning to the pond..

 

i do believe switching the pump on and off continuously will end up in shortening the life span of what is as you say, already a very old pump...

 

oh i just re-read the OP. I suggest changing your filtration to one bubble bead filter and scaling down to a .45kw

 

Trevor, I know what you are talking about!
Elec. need to be used wisely.
If you turn this pump of for a short period, remember that the bacteria need flow to get their O2
and they will start to die off as soon as you switch the pump off.
I also thought of using a smaller pump continuously during above pump-off, but even reduced flow, will have the same effect...
The best will be to look at a more economical pump, as suggested, or look at alternative power sources.
Good luck, and keep us posted.

 

The thing with filtration pumps is that ”most” of them work with electro magnetic induction to work the impeller. Those magnets don't like the on/off every so often. That can also in turn damage the coil windings of the transformer aka power supply. HTH

Sent from my BlackBerry 9530 using Tapatalk

 

Hi Trevor,

I just want to say that I agree fully with what Gert has said and that is that if you switch your filter off the bacteria will start to die in a very short time. They need oxygen not only to survive, you actually want them to use oxygen to do the biological filtration so they are used to a constant amount of oxygen. Switch off the filter and they start dying. I would NEVER switch off a filter, you will start having nitrite spikes and before you know it your most sensitive fishes such as catfishes will start dying off. Not worth it!

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

if u really wanted to switch off ur pump, why not run a airline with diffuser in the filter chamber till the pump is back on.. Ive seen others with this type of setup But with the compressor switched on permanently.. Just a suggestion..

 

Please explain what's a bubble bead filter is, I had thought of adding after the mechanical drums and ulta violet about twenty plus plastic milk crates filled with shade cloth and ideally some bio balls with a drip system above, is this the same kind of thing ?

On closer inspection I see its a 1.1kw Spek pump not a 1.5. The pond volume might well be closer to 30,000 and if I include the large sump and top two ponds. As it's an irregular shape it is difficult to calculate the volume, but it took about three hours less to fill than the swimming pool with my well point pressure, the swimming pool is close to 30K. I have attached some old pics and to show the size comparison wit the pool -
Will contact KLB and see what they have to say, thanks for this.

 

flippin nice setup you have there dude..

 

@Trevor Pleco - reread this and unfortunately the flow pumps wont work for you - they have no head pressure... but the good news is that your pond will be able to get by with a .75kW pump - that is at least a bit of a saving allready - a 1.1 is overkill on your pond... + often wasted.. There is a maximum flow that can pass through a 50mm pipe and the flow that a 1.1kW pump provides FAR excees that (think it is close to 40% if I remember correctly - dont have the exact figures anymore)
To overcome this you need to split your 50mm pipe into two lines or upgrade to 62mm(still has slight restriction) or 75mm pipe,so a .75kW should provide you with almost the same flow..

Koi ponds differ vastly in the amount of flow needed when compared to our aquariums - pond should only be turned over every hour to 2 hours - you might even be able to get away with a .45 then - the Speck ones do around 24 000liters per hour at zero head...

 

http://users.vcnet.com/rrenshaw/BubbleBead.html

have a look there