Aquaponics - Pump change

I put a new (to me) pump in the blue barrel system and put it on a $3.99 timer so that now it runs for 15 minutes out of every 90 minutes. A lot of people in aquaponics seem to do this. This is because it pumps so much more water than the other one did. I'm not sure how it will go when there is fish in because I'm not sure if that will be enough oxygenation. I'm not sure about some stuff sometimes. I also have an old aquarium air pump, so that might come into play to solve the lack of oxygenation issue.

It looks like the system is cycled and running steadily so its time to get some fish!

Aquaponics - New pump and powerhead

My old pump looks like this. Yes those opposing wire loops I added are in fact the new front bearing. This is the pump thats been running for the last 45 days in the small blue barrel test system.

I took delivery of the new pump and powerhead. This is for the second, larger aquaponics system. The pump is the big box and the powerhead is the small ball shaped thing on the top left.

The pump will shift 5000 litres per hour at zero head. That is to say if all you were using it for as a stirrer it would shift 5000 lph but if you want it to move water uphill, the amount of water it can move tapers off depending on how high you are trying to move it.

For some crazy reason not all pumps tell you how much they can pump at any given height. This one only tells you that it can pump to a maximum head of 5 metres. That means you will get 1 drop per hour at 5 metres . From what I'v read and seen, at 2.5 metres you can expect a bit less than half of its maximum output. So I'm hoping this one will pump around 2500 litres per hour at 2 meters head. It might turn out to be a bit more than 2 metres so I made sure there was plenty of excess. I hope. All I need is 1000 litres per hour so It shouldnt matter.

The pump is 150 watts but will only run for a few minutes every hour. The powerhead on the other hand will run all the time in the fish tank, but is only 12 watts even though it also moves 5000 litres per hour. The powerhead cant lift water at all and is there only for its ability to stir water to aid oxygenation. The powerhead's other function is to create a slight whirl pool which will make solid fish waste gravitate to the center. Once there it will be picked up by the overflow outlet. and piped to the pre-filter.