I use central heating pumps. They are virtually silent and move a lot of water (3000l/hr) and have a good head (up to 6m). The flow at 3000l/hr is at a head of 1.5m, and the 6m head has a flow of 650l/hr. They can be fitted easily to standard plumbing pipe. The most silencing I have had to do it put a sponge scourer behind one to stop it vibrating against a plaster partition wall.
One of the best bits is that if you get Grundfos, and they break in the first five years, for any reason, they get replaced.
I second the call to have things plumbed in properly. It is nice to not be worrying about leaks.
Never had the budget for a stainless Grundfos, the cheaper models I have looked at are all with brass or cast-iron houses.
My floor heating is run by a Grundfos pump, but it’s a brass model that can’t handle acidic water.
Could you link to the model you are using or is it the UP 20-30N model, very nice but not cheap.
it has options to show flow for ‘any newtonian liquid’ ‘emulsion’ and also water and antifreeze so I guess it is rated for them.
I have replaced pumps with them before, the only question they ask is ‘is the pump within the warranty period’ and if it is, they accept it.
EDIT :
From the datasheet
ConstructionGrundfos ALPHA2 L is designed for long and trouble-free operation due to the canned-rotor type, i.e. pump and motor form an integral unit without shaft seal and with only two gaskets for sealing. The bearings are lubricated by the pumped liquid. These constructions ensure maintenance-free operation.The pumps are characterised by the following:• Permanent-magnet/compact-stator motor which contribute to high efficiency and high starting torque.• Ceramic shaft and radial bearings which contribute to long life.• Carbon thrust bearing which contributes to long life.• Stainless-steel rotor can, bearing plate and rotor cladding which contribute to corrosion-free long life.• Composite impeller which contributes to corrosion-free long life.• Automatic air venting which contributes to easy commissioning.• Compact design featuring pump head with integrated control box and control panel which fit into most common installation.
EDIT 2 :
Pumped liquids
The pump is suitable for clean, thin, non-aggressive and non-explosive liquids, not containing solid particles, fibres or mineral oil. The pump must not be used for the transfer of flammable liquids, such as diesel oil, petrol and similar liquids.
It’s a Cast-iron housing, so the housing is not corrosion free.
It just corrodes much slower, then a brass housing would, but it will leache out into your reservoir over time.
Question is if’s so little it don’t matter, only tried the brass housing and that messed my plants up fast. It might also be the coating protecting it, and once the coating is gone, it might corrode much faster.
Would be nice, if it’s just so slow it won’t harm the plants.
Fingers crossed for you, that would be really cool.
So the worst that could happen is some iron in my nute solution?
I have no worries about that.
I have been using them for well over a decade now with no issues. Using a 3-year-old set of pumps I recently got 1.3GPW from HPS. I do recall once using copper pipe to build a system which made my plants rapidly head in the direction of death because copper blocks iron absorption, isn’t brass an alloy of copper and zinc? That might be the issue you had.
I even started using old central heating pumps taken out of an old central heating system which were given to me by a plumber friend (although they were also decent Grundfos ones ). I have tried cheaper brands but some of them did not even last a single veg/flower cycle.
Whatever they do at the Grundfos factory, it is the right things.
Now I think, I have never seen a brass casing on a central heating pump in the UK.
Since we’re talking pumps. I am using the DCT-6000 for my secondary system – it’s nearly silent and handles up to 1585 gallons per hour (just under 6000 liters per hour). Hard to beat $90, the only issue I had was the pump is BSPT so I had to find specific adapters to get the threads to match perfectly.
Most of the minerals it will leach, will be eaten by the plants.
It’s micro nutes, Mn, Mo and S that worry me. But if you have been running hydro with these, and don’t see issues with odd difficiencys and/or over feeding. Im guessing it’s not as big a deal as I assumed, it might be.
A small update, I am changing pumps and fittings to remove all metals in contact with my nute solution. Turns out you were more on the money than me and because of a situation last year where I had PH 1.5-2 solution pumping round for a few hours corrosion started in my fittings and pumps. This did indeed lead to an S def from copper interaction AKAIK. I have replaced them like for like but I will be replacing them again very soon with plastic fittings.
I had a nice surprise in getting an Iwaki MD55 pump for under 1/5th of the retail price which has only had about 100 hours running time.
I have decided it is far better to not need a replacement schedule.
Well i’ll be buggered, as they would say here. That is something I would not have thought of.
I skimped on my last pump and am totally regretting not buying the exact Iwaki pump you have got. In the end I probably will anyway. I have seen those things in all sorts of adverse conditions just pumping away, day in day out. They make awesome beer sludge pumps. They are about as reliable as you are ever going to get would be my take.
I got the MD55 for £100 for the main system, and a MD40 for the chiller. Should just about cope
The guy I got it from said it would happily suck up and pump out pebbles then just keep on truckin. His exact words were “Would you be interested in a pump that would last you 40 years and has an acid proof neoprene/polyproply/(whatever the exact plastic is) sealed head and a magnetic drive?”
Obviously I said yes.
It was interesting finding a coupler to go from 26mm rubber hose to 22mm UK pluming fitting.
The noisiest bit is the fan at the back that keeps the motor cool. The MD40 is even more quiet.
I have another pump. It is a water pump which is pumping water through a gas heater so there is CO2 produced. The pump has rubber feets but still when it is operating there is humming and vibration noise in the whole house. The Vibration is coming from pump but also from the hose and the reservoir connected to it. Does the pump give the vibrations to the reservoir??? How can I get rid of the vibrations
This looks like a diaphragm pump? These are mostly pretty noisy from the ones I have seen, but you could try minimising the amount of vibration by putting a pad of thick rubber or neoprene between the feet and your wall? Also some will be transferring down the pipes, this is a bit harder to isolate, but you would be surprised how effective a few strategically placed pieces of foam can be.
I do this for larger air pumps and it makes a big difference. I have noticed more recently there are some companies that have been producing some very high pressure low db pumps for misting systems.
Is one who’s pumps I have looked at for high pressure aeroponics, the are surprisingly quiet and capable of up to 120 psi, so if you need the 50psi of pressure or more the pump you have is putting out when it gives up the ghost you could look at something like these?
Mechanical isolation to reduce direct sound transfer.
You have your pump fixed securely to the wall so it can essentially ‘grab’ the wall and shake it at 50/60Hz even if you have rubber mounts. I have similar problems with air pumps.
So I get very strong bungee cords and make a four-way harness to suspend the pump in the air, not connected to the wall. I see your pump is attached to flexible hose with jubilee clips so that solution is totally possible with your setup.
“Do it Yourself Isolators
In less sophisticated solutions, bungee cords can be used as a cheap isolation system which may be effective enough for some applications. The item to be isolated is suspended from the bungee cords. This is difficult to implement without danger of the isolated item falling.”
Basically, make sure the cords can’t just slip off with the vibration by liberal application of zip-ties etc.
To deal with the vibrations through the hose, you need an expansion chamber.
Fit one as close as you can get to the pump and it will even out the pressure waves that are causing vibration down the hose past the expansion chamber.
As you can see, pumps that come with one fit it directly to the pump.
In my experience there comes a point where making a low quality pump perform like a high quality pump costs more, and is less reliable, and less effective, than just buying the expensive but good pump. The cost is spread out over longer but often the cost is more, for an inferior performing part in your system.
Don’t forget the cable ties/zipties to stop the bungees slipping off and water being pumped everywhere.
Expansion chambers also work great on airlines to even out the flow. 2x100ml syringe with the plungers removed and the fat flat ends glued together are about the right size for airlines.
And if your airstones are raised from the floor, maybe by a rubber seal round each end, then the air does not make them rattle on the floor of the tank.
How did you know before buying if the screws are stainless steel?
My ebb and flow tables are 1.1 meter x 1.1 meter in size. I am not sure what size of pump there is needed? Flooding time would be 5 minutes maximum I guess.
how big is your reservoir? and what type of hydroponics you do?
I need one more pump: I want to do ebb and flow with rockwool. my table is 1.1m x 1.1m. I am not sure which pump to choose because I did read I need to be under 10 minutes flooding time and also depends on how high I want to flood the tables.
What you think what size of pump do I need for that? (Its my first time hydroponics, thats why I am not really sure yet about the pump choices)
You should figure out how much water will it take to fill your flood table, then it should be fairly easy to find a pump that will do that in any given time.
Most pumps come with a diagram, of how much water it will deliver at what hight.
Then you messure the hight from your reservoir bottom, to the max water lvl in you flow table.
Find a pump that do a little more then what you need, by comparing thouse numbers or just build in a overflow and over size the pump.
All that been said, I am not sure RW is ideal for Ebb n flood.
Im afraid a 10 min soak of a RW cube will leave it too wet, depriving the roots of oxygen and cause slow growth or bigger issues.
RW is better for drip feeding IMO, where hydroton, growrocks and other course medias that drains fast. Are much more suited for ebb n flood, but maybe if it’s a shallow ebb n flood it could work.
Where did you find your inspiration for RW ebb n flood?
I do drip feeding in hydroton pot’s, on simple flow tables that drains back into the reservoir.
1 of 2 Veg cabinets
That is something I would not have thought of.
