Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations My First LMB Sighting on a Nest

Yes Brian, please post here. I'm very interested...

Alright, I am back where I have my fiber optic connection to the internet!!

This was a very busy couple of days, and I will try to keep this readable.

Things we got done this week out at the farm. 1) we upgraded the solar powered sprinklers to a four zone DC powered system that covers 90% of the dam face. It was a lot of work, but I am very happy with the results.

Here are the pictures:

This it the new intake, it is 1 and a half inch PVC one foot under water about eight feer out from the dam. If the water rises as much as 3 feet, I am still okay, and if it falls as much as five feet I am still okay as well.

The pumps are 12volt DC shurflo and I love them, they have not been treated well but they just keep right on going. In the future, I will be adding an enclosure with a fan for the pumps. The intake is anchored and supported with very high class floats.



Here are the solar panels I am using for this project. They are 85watt panels and I have them connected for high amp. I get something close to 20 amps in full sun. I use a simple 20 amp solar controller to keep the cost down while I am proving the concept. I am using three 12 volt batteries to hold the charge, they are in the black box. All of the panels are zip tied down to each other on the bottom and they are also zip tied to the buckets using 550 cord sent through half inch holes on both sides of the buckets.

On an side note: the 550 cord/zip ties worked great in the storm we had on monday night!! Everything stayed anchored right where I put it.



The water then travels through two hoses to the main manifold where it can pressurize any of the zones.



Her is a picture of the manifold with the four zones as is yesterday! There were several earlier pictures that I will add after this one, but here is how it ended. The two middle zones cover about 110 feet laterally and about 60 feet vertically each. The end zones cover between 70 and 90 feet circularly each. The reason I left it with that coverage was that I ran out of pieces to add to the project, it could easily support another zone or two, or I could simply add another head to zone one to complete the coverage on the east side of the dam face. The zones are numbered 1 through 4 from east to west.



Here are a few picture from earlier this week as we were building sprinkler 3.0! The white bucket houses the new DC powered sprinkler controller. I weighted down the bucket so it would not be bothered by the wind. The bucket has two drain holes just in case!






Now on to the rest of the weeks work!

I finished repairing an old fish feeder given to me by a friend that no longer needed it. I gave it a new brain and I gave it new motors and a new spinner plate. But as you can see, I need to choke down the feed as the discharge motor can not handle all the feed that comes through! I figured if I make a plastic plate to fit over the hoppers drain port, I should be able to slow down the feed and get a better pattern. Any thoughts?


Here is a picture of its new brain!




There is more good news, I got a few pictures of the Tilapia eating the Aquamax!



And of course, I would be remiss if I did not show off my new friends!



I also added 3000 lbs of ag lime to the little pond to try to clear it up a bit. When I go back next week, I should see some results.

All in all, this was a very busy week out at the farm. It paid off very well and I am proud of the work we did.

Let the questions begin!!!

ahhhhhh...the sight of flooded timber warms my heart!

Brian, I have the same feeder (actually, I have 2 of them). The feeders worked great with AM600 when new, but now that they are a couple of years old the one that is in service does the same thing as yours - I can only get it to run for 1 second before it reads "feeder jam".

If you choke the hole down any more it will have a tendacy to bridge, and you won't get any food thru it at all with AM600. You can make a smaller plate and use AM500, let me run to my feeder and measure the hole/plate that I made.

What are the specs on the 12v SureFlow pumps? Those panels look like the ones that I have.

Zep, this should warm your heart further, it is a picture from this past winter showing the back water area where we left a 3 acres area in timber to be flooded. You can also see the duck island in the background.



Scott, I misspoke I have flojet pumps. They are 13 amp 12 volt DC providing 4.9 GPM. I love them, even if I call them by the wrong name..... I got them from Northern, but I am sure you can get them from several others places as well. Also, I found that this year there is a slightly newer version!

Also, I am using Aquamax 500. I figured a reducer down to 3/8 of an inch would be a good place to start, but if you have a pattern that works well, I am all ears!!

Dang it, the only plate that I have has a hole in it that is 7/8" diameter. I thought the plate that I modified was around 1 1/8" - 1 1/4".

I drilled the plate smaller to start, and updrilled with a Uni-Bit in 1/8" steps to get the correct size to work with AM500. If I didn't use the baffle plate, it'd throw roughly 3# of food on a 1 second setting.

Thanks Brian. They are roughly the same ones that I have on my sprayer.

Be careful using the Uni-Bit. Clamp the plate down in a vise or to a piece of wood. If the bit grabs, you'll slice and dice your hand that is holding the plate.

Good call on the vise, I like my hands!

I'll try a smaller hole first and let you know how it goes. I figure a 3/8 inch hole to start with, and then I'll upgrade if needed, I would rather let the feeder run a little longer to get the food out in a better pattern than throw the food close. Remember that I also changed out the spinner plate as well, so I think I will have to figure this one out solo.

I'll post when I know more.

Thanks Brian....hope to get over there to see it next Fall after the Texas heat goes away. With no cabin and A/C I'm pretty much done with my property until then.

Keep up the great work.

Well we are growing grass on the dam using the solar powered sprinkler system!!! Some of the grass is over a foot tall and the Bermuda is sending runners everywhere!!!





Also, the pond is as full as it has ever been!





And I passed my Maneuvers Validation!!! One more checkride in the sim and I am off to fly the JET!!!

Brian, that's good news all around, both pond and flight.

Brian I always wanted to see a full pic of your pond. Really nice place!! I know you will have years of great fishing to look forward to. Congrats on the flight!

Thanks guys, the sim ride was real strong, but I have to admit I was a bit more nervous than I expected. Our evaluator was very positive after the ride which made both of us feel really proud! Our LOE sim check is at the end of next week and I am finally feeling pretty good about all the work I have put into this program.

SB, the pond still needs a few feet of water to be full, but it sure looks good so far! It is a lot of work getting the project complete, but it is worth it! It is what it is all about.

I think aeration for the little pond and the deep end of the big pond is the next part of our pond project!! Hopefully I will have that done this fall before the water gets too cold.

All, I had my checkride today and we both did great, it was a a solid ride! Our evaluator gave us really good marks and sent us on our way,

For me, that means I am going to head out to the farm and see how things are doing,

I'll post more asap.

I hope to have a new video if possible and an update on the solar powered sprinkler system.

Who knows, I might even catch a few LMB for tagging!!! And a few CC for dinner!!!

All together now .....
CONGRATULATIONS CAPTAIN COLONEL Brian......Sir

Congratulations!

I must admit some pride right now!!

Well deserved pride.

Congratulations Brian.

I got to the farm yesterday with my son and we worked hard and played hard. First we had to cut the grass on the dam!!! thats right, the grass on the dam needed to be cut! The solar powered sprinkler system is doing great!!



We also got rid of two loads of left over sticks and roots around the dam area. They went off to the burn pile.

Them we got to go fishing. I must admit that we started off slowly. But them my son asked if we could catch a few small BG's and fish for LMB with them, so we got out fish trap 2.0 lite, and a little bit of aquamax 500 and after about 10 minutes we had more little BG's in the trap than we could use all day.

Turns out, our LMB really like BG's for lunch. In short order, my son caught a 1Lb 7 oz LMB that looked pretty good. Then he caught a CC that was around a Lb and a half who could not quite finish his BG lunch.



Eventually, he seemed to get it down, but I think he might have gulped a bit more than he could swallow.

Then my son said that he would be happy if he caught a bigger LMB, and about 15 seconds later, he got a hit, he then landed an 2lb, 4 oz LMB than was in really good shape. That fish set the record for a LMB in our pond and I was very proud of him.




But then I showed him who his daddy was!! I broke his little record and caught a 2Lb 14oz LMB it was 16 and 3/4 inches long and really put up a fight.





For a pond that is only a year and a half old, I was happy to see that a few of the original stockers were still doing okay. Remember, I got my original stockers fron Rex Allen Curtis and after Bob lusk's survey of our pond, it was evident that only a few of the LMB survived from last year.

All in all, it was a great day spent out on the farm with my son. We worked hard and we fished hard. If we we would have had the time, we would have probably would have gotten our selves in trouble!!

I would not trade days like that for anything!!!

Hmm, thinking of borrowing a few ideas from you, though I am wondering where you purchased the solar panels and what model of pump you chose. I was looking at two of the el cheapo 45W panels from Harbor freight.

We have a natural gas/water spring on the side of the dam that we missed capturing when the pond was made, and I am thinking of digging a shallow well to capture the water and let the gas escape (or use it for lighting a lamp) then pumping the water into the pond to help it top off. Otherwise I may use the water to irrigate my grass like you have done.

It looks like the water flow from the spring in total is that of about a garden hose full-tilt but spread over a large area so I don't want to miss out on this great water source as my pond lowers in the summer. Also just to goof around a bit and teach my son about alternate energy.

LS, I used the flowjet pump from Northern, and the solar panels came from sun electric out of FL. I would stay away from the HF panels as they will loose their output way too fast. I have both poly and mono crystal panels. For this application, I used four 85 watt panels in a 12 volt system.

If you read further back in this post, you should see my setup and parts. If you would like more info, just ask.

four 85-watt good panels... wow, pricey. Still... I can put those to so many uses besides playing. Maybe still...

The reason I ask about the pumps is when I look up Flowjet pumps, there are around a dozen capable of running from 12V, and only a few that pump that much water. However, most importantly I cannot figure out how many may be capable of delivering about 40PSI or more to run a single large sprinkler a few times a day. One that looks interesting has flexible impellers rather than a diaphragm.

I should ask my father about what pump he uses since he runs his greenhouse misters from a 12V pump and rain-barrel.

Note: I have designed a solar controller recently, and a good solar controller makes ALL the difference in the world. Example: Mine does what is called "solar peaking" which maintains utmost energy transfer by constantly tracking the "knee" of the panel voltage vs current when transferring energy from the panel to a battery. This eliminates temperature variances as part of the equation. Cheaper controllers simply connect and disconnect the panel directly to the battery via switches (transistors) and diodes, better ones are similar to mine, but as far as I know they assume the knee at a certain voltage, while mine varies.

With a 150 watt panel I use for this work application I am able to get MORE than 150W (165W) from using my controller. A few other controllers I tested AT BEST were around 110W with the same panel minutes later. I have a hard time believing that these controller manufacturers can sell that garbage when solar panels are so expensive and toss out 40W of energy. The again my controller would cost a good deal more than what we tested against, but it was to prove how much better mine was to our customer.

LS,
Are you saying yours is a MPPT? if so, PM me an let me know if you are going to produce them or if you are going to let your plans out. I would love to get a few MPPTs for several projects I am working on out at the farm.

Currently I am using a simple controller.

Actually the controller is part of a larger project which is placed in remote sites with spotty power if any.

One of the things we are considering where I work is to spin the circuit off into our own IP and sell it stand-alone. Right now it is only capable of ~180W max, but to be really useful it needs to be around 250W. It wouldn't take a lot to get it there as it currently does not require any special cooling, but at 250W it would require something like some aluminum heat-sinks. It is very small, roughly 2" square with no heat-sink due to high efficiency.

Yeah, I'm itching to put it to broader use. Very configurable for managing any sized lead-acid battery using coulomb counting techniques.

my vote is for around 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 watt sizes!!!

I have at least 5 projects I could use it for. A 200 watt size would be okay for two of them.