- Hey guys, this is Nate Storey with Bright Agrotech,
and today we're gonna be talking about sizing pumps,
and how to think about pump ratings.
Whether it is gallons per hour, or horsepower.
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When your thinking about pumps, there are two metrics
which rise to the surface most commonly,
there's gallons per hour, and there is horsepower.
And this can be really really confusing for people.
People ask what the horsepower is on a small submersible,
or the gallons per hour an a larger horsepower pump.
So, the reason this is confusing is because,
they're really talking about very similar things.
Horsepower is the power of the motor,
and gallons per hour is how much solution the pump
will pump at level within an hour.
So the most common metric that people deal with is
gallons per hour, and this is really common,
especially in hydroponic systems, when you're dealing with
small submersible pumps.
Almost all of these things have a GPH rating,
and if you are looking at pumps on websites,
you'll see these tables, these graphs which will show you
how they pump at different heights,
and basically explaining at five feet in the air,
this is 100 gallons per hour,
this is 200,
basically explaining how much this will pump at these
different heights.
And this is really common in small submersible pumps,
mostly because these pumps are so small, that they don't
really have horsepower ratings, they're tiny.
Most of these are just a couple of amps,
so .4 amps, you know, it's a tiny, tiny pump,
but it's also really efficient.
So because it's so small, and so efficient,
they just rate it with the gallons per hour rating,
it's too small to really talk about horsepower,
or the power of the pump.
Now when you start talking about gallons per hour with
these big pumps, it becomes a bit of a misnomer,
because you're dealing with such large numbers,
that it's just simply easier to talk about the pump power.
So to be clear on horsepower pumps,
there's still a GPH rating.
If you go to the manufacturer's website,
they'll list it there, but oftentimes it's a thousand
gallons per minute, or what have you,
if you're dealing with really large horsepower pumps.
The smallest one that we use that is horsepower rated,
is about 1/2 horsepower pump.
I've seen 1/4 horsepower pumps, but most of the time,
by the time you're talking about a 1/4 of a horse,
you are talking about gallons per hour, right,
it's small enough again, that gallons per hour is a small
enough number to think about to use, and to use in
all of our calculations.
So, this is about the smallest you'll ever see,
a 1/2 horse pump, and this goes all the way up to
5 horses, 6 horses, 10, 15 horses for very,
very large applications.
So, when we're talking those kinds of volumes,
it's just easier to talk about horsepower,
even though there is a gallon per hour rating that
goes with each and every pump.
Just by the nature of their size, most horsepower pumps
are in-line pumps.
So these are pumps where you have a motor that is housed
separately from the pump housing.
So this is where the water is moved.
And oftentimes, if they're pool pumps like we use,
you also have a skimmer.
But ultimately if you took this skimmer off all together,
you just basically have where the water flows in,
and the water pumps out of the impeller housing right here.
So, by and large, horsepower is in-line, that's not always
true, but usually true, and gallon per hour is submersible.
So for most hobby applications, we use submersible pumps.
Why?
Because we don't actually need to move that much water,
and these things are really great little pumps,
they're reliable, they last a long time.
The drawbacks are that they are smaller.
They are water cooled, and so they will heat your water up
as they are sunk in there, and as they're pumping.
But by and large they are inexpensive, they're reliable,
and they do a great job at low volumes.
Now, as our applications get bigger and bigger and bigger,
once you start to talk about a ZipFarm,
or something like that, all of a sudden you're talking about
a much large pump.
And this is typically the pump we start with and that we
use for almost all of our ZipFarm applications,
just because it's big enough to work in
almost every scenario.
But this is a big pump.
This moves a lot more water than this pump ever could,
or would.
There are some intermediary kind of submersible pumps that
are about halfway between this and this,
but the bigger the submersible pump gets,
the more expensive it gets,
and the more sense it makes to think about
transitioning from submersible up to an
in-line pump like this.
For the most part, if you're thinking about using a pump,
I would say think about using a submersible
relatively small scales.
If you're moving less than say 1,000 gallons per hour,
a submersible is going to work fine for you.
If your moving a lot more than that, you should think about
a much larger pump.
Also, if you have concerns about your solution overheating,
or in a very hot environment, I would also look into an
in-line pump.
This dumps the heat into the air, not into your water.
If you're in a cold environment, that heat can be useful,
and it's worth considering a submersible just to transfer
that heat to a solution in much colder environments.
If you're in a hot environment though, in-line pumps are
gonna be dumping the heat into the air,
and by and large they are a great type of pump.
They're easily accessible, they're easy to wire.
On these pumps, because they're more pricey,
you want to replace parts as opposed to the pump,
if possible.
And it's much more of a durable, long-term investment
when you buy a pump like this.
Another question that comes up is the difference between
aquaponics and hydroponic systems.
So, it really again just depends on the size.
I will say that I have had issues in the past with
submersible pumps having basically leaky wiring,
you could call it.
And it's kind of electrifying the solution,
which of course doesn't make the fish particularly happy.
So it's just something to stay on top of,
and make sure that you've got an eye on.
And a lot of the time you will know if you have
any issues there.
By and large, most aquaponic systems that I deal with
are large enough that you are thinking about using an
in-line pump, and most likely using an in-line pump.
I will also say that in aquaponic systems, having a skimmer
can be a really really helpful tool for skimming out
some of the larger objects that just tend to make their
way into the system.
So, to just run through the entire thing again.
If you're running a smaller system, let's say less than
a thousand gallons per hour, and you know how big your
system is, you know how many plants are there,
if there's 10 gallons per plant per hour you know that you
need 100 plants to size a 1,000 gallon per hour pump,
right, so all of those calculations are out there.
You can figure out how to do them.
At smaller levels you're using these pumps,
almost guaranteed.
However, once you start getting into
gallons per minutes calculations,
once you start talking about thousands and thousands
per hour, we have to start talking about horsepower rated
pumps, or these larger in-line pumps.
That's when the game gets serious, and you need to start
moving some bigger volumes.
Now there are a lot of sizings here, so there are a lot
of opportunities to fit the pump to the
system appropriately, and the same kind of calculations
that you do at a small scale, are relevant at a large one.
So if you're putting in a big system,
you should have done the math,
you should know exactly how much volume you need to be
moving in your system, and I know we've done some videos
on this, so check those out.
But you'll know those numbers, and then you just basically
need to match those numbers with the right pump.
Thanks so much for watching guys, we hope these videos
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