Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Thumbs up to Ted...AGAIN!! and a question.

Ordered a new rocking piston pump from Ted at Forever Green on Friday and received it on Saturday....WOW! It was set up perfectly as we discussed and only required two peices of pipe to put into service. Transfered valving from older rotary vane to the new pump and it works perfectly!!

Thanks very much, Ted!

Question: I transfered the old rotary vane pump #0523(rebuilt this year) into previously non-aerated pond #3. 180' +/- of 1/2" weighted tubing to a single shallow water co-active air station. The station is at approx. 7' depth. Is this too deep for that station? I see it says 5' or less on the website. The pressure guage on the pump is reading about 9p.s.i. Seems a bit high from all our conversations. Bad guage? It does drop to 1-2psi with no load on it. I have yet to move it shallower to see if it is better. Is the 5 foot limit an absolute? It appears so from what I'm experiencing.

Thanks again,
Chuck

Hello Chuck,

I agree with you, Ted does a great job at delivering what he promises.

At 7' of depth and 200' of 1/2" tubing and an additonal 1psi back pressure from the rubber membrane on the disc, your pressure gauge should be reading 4.35psi.

The 5' limit is a stopping point not because it will hurt any product but probably because they have a product that is designed to be more effective at depths of 5' and greater.

Keep in mind the start up proceedures for this pond if it has never had aeration before.

Chuck, glad all arrived AOK.You are fine in 7 ft of water with the Vertex Co Active Shallow water model, in fact your fine even at 8 ft and youll see our site state that as our web people are making that and a few other changes.Where you are not fine is that if you are pushing the 0523 to that one station it is too much air for both the diffuser and too much back pressure on the pump if 9 psi is accurate.It should read zero if you do not have a check valve on the pump when it is shut off.If a checkvalve is on the intake (air filter side) it will register some pressure in the line at shut off. ( I dont like 9 psi on a 10 psi pump as its working too hard for pump longevity)) Take the gauge I sent you and put it on the vane to test for a true reading and let me know. Take Cary's caution on startup as the gospel this time of year.

Thanks to both Cary and Ted. I know something isn't right with that pressure.

The pressure guage reads 1psi when the unit is shut off so I know it is 1psi off. I went back and checked with it running and no load it also reads 1psi which makes sense i.e. 0psi. The only thing on the intake side is the brown cylindrical filter. No other valves? that I can see.

The relief valve on the exhaust side does in fact pop off at about 11psi on the guage which takes into account the 1psi error so I'm thinking the guage is o.k. but still will test with the new guage to verify.

If you have any other troubleshooting thoughts on why the pressure is so high, it would be greatly appreciated. I think I'll pull the diffuser back out of the pond and work backwards i.e. disconnecting to see what happens. Someplace in the system there has to be some type of restriction!!

I definitely read the start-up gospel and started with 15 minutes on Monday and been doubling every day. That is the correct gospel, isn't it?? So far so good........

Chuck

Good Morning Chuck,

Start up Gospel correct.

Secondly, the intake filter is ok as long as it is clean. To clean it, use a compressor and blow it out from the inside out. If no compressor available, lightly use some sand paper on the outside and then bang the dust off.

Lastly, the increase pressure may be due to some water still in your airline. If the check valve has failed, which will occur due the hardening of the o-ring inside that check valve, water will fill the air tubing.

Yes, you are receiving bubbles but that is because the compressor is having to work harder to push that air through the tubing. Think about looking at the cross section of the tubing. You have a hole and the bottom half of that hole is filled with water. The top half is where the air is being pushed to the diffuser. So, the area is smaller requiring more pressure to push the air thorugh.

Another example is if you take a McDonalds Drinking Straw and a stirrer straw. It takes more pressure to blow air through that smaller stirrer straw than it does through the drinking straw.

If left alone, eventually that water will be pushed out or evaporated as the air by-passes.

The other option is:

1. Bring the diffuser to shore
2. Disconnect the diffuser from the tubing
3. Remove all the water from the air tubing
4. Reconnect the diffuser
5. Turn the system back on
6. Re-deploy the diffuser with the system on

While you have the diffuser back on shore, that would be a great time to replace the blue check valve.

Good Luck...This is the only thing I can think of creating back pressure unless you have a kinked line somewhere.

Chuck, The Vertex Shallow water diffuser wont have a mechanical (blue Brady check valve) unless you installed one, If so remove it. In a Vertex system they are not needed as the checkvalve is intigrated into the disc. That diffuser also has "FlowControl" which equalizes airflow to each discs when installed on uneven bottoms.The orings in the blue checkvalve go bad often and one does not realize this so now its just another restriction that a vane pump does not need to maximize its performance.Stones and Mix Air type diffusers(soaker hose) do need themSome diffusers have them to create back pressure in the line so on startup all of the air does not go to only a few of the diffusers (path of least resistance)Some of these diffusers have wide operating cfm ranges 1-5 cfm and are difficult to balance and flex thus must be removed for cleaning.On a single Vertex CoActive Airstation the range is 1- 2.5 cfm, When you put a Gast 0523 to this single Airststion you are going to get additional back pressure beyond the water depth and tubing size. I just aired up a new 0523 and put all of the air to a new CoActive air station sitting on the shop floor and registered 4 psi with 2 ft .625 ID (ForeverSink Hi-Flo) :)piece of tubing. If you get water in the line the pressure relief valve will do what it is designed to do and protect the system as the water is expelled out of the line via the membrane.

Ted, boy thats a lot of back pressure without even being in the water. I guess that is from the regulating orfaces combined with the standard air to inflate the disc.

That 4 psi combined with the 4.35 that I calculated earlier makes sense on why Chuck is getting a reading of 9 psi. Water then is not the issue in this case.

We use the check valves as a redundant check. The tube membranes utilize the same integraded check as the disc but we only show a 1.25 psi back pressure. Therefore the minimal back pressure created by the check valve is a mood point for us.

With a piston compressor, I'm thinking we shouldn't need it any way. The piston acts as a positive pressure thereby not allowing any air to back up into the compressor like it will on a rotary vane compressor. Hmmm I see a new change soon.

Great post Ted and I'm glad you had that equipment in your shop to test. Being a remote sales office now, I don't have any equipment to test with anymore. I miss that part when I sold the company.

Troubleshooting:

Complete system: 0523 Gast rotary vane, 180' +/- 1/2" i.d. weighted hose, single Vertex co-active shallow water air station(installed as received i.e. no valves installed).

System installed at 7' - 9psi
Air station on shore - 7psi
Air station on shore both diffuser heads removed - 3.5psi
Air station disconnected from airline - 3.5psi

I had a couple old MD3 style diffusers:

Air station on shore w/1 vertex shallow water diffuser and 1 Ecologix 250D (MD3) style diffuser installed - 4psi
System re-installed at 7' with above diffuser head combination - 6.5psi

It is now bubbling away at 6.5psi with the "mis-matched" diffuser head combination.

Sooooo. What do you guys think that tells us?

Rotary pump 0523 with X number of feet of hose beyond 2' (as tested by Ted) and the Vertex shallow water diffusers causes too much back pressure? That's my theory....?

Any installed systems similar to mine and no problem? Longer hose runs? Rocking piston or ? style pumps work better than a rotary vane with the Vertex shallow water diffusers? The inlet orifice on the Vertex diffuser is definitely much smaller than the orifice on the MD3 style diffuser. I guess that would explain my pressure drop using the MD3 diffuser head.

1/2" i.d. hose not optimal for the length of my run?

Thanks for both of you guys commenting and look forward to the next round!!

Chuck

Chuck,

What is very perplexing to me is the reading of 3.5 psi with open hose and no AirStation on shore...you should be reading about 1 psi for the 180'.

Something is clogged somewhere. Try disconnecting the hose at the compressor and see what the reading is there.

Lastly, I'll let Ted respond on the Vertex diffusers and back pressure.

If the air hose sat disconnected (either end) for any length of time, a 6 or 8 legged critter could have found a home and started housing construction.

esshup may hold the key !! Back on this pressure saga/ When a diffuser has a cfm operating range it is for a reason. 4 psi to one Vertex Station is only when you are beyond the cfm guideline (dont go there then)When you put two Vertex Air Stations with the same short hose the reading on the digital is .92 psi. The Aqua Control tube measures 2.13 psi with the Gast 0523 going to one station approx 4.1 cfm being pumped.Im guess'n that tube usually gets an average of 1.5 o 2.2 cfm for maximum lift depending on a single dual piston pump driving 2 or 3 stations. If you want to use the Gast 0523 compressor to a single air station in shallow or deep then go to the new Vertex XL5 and enjoy the benefits of FlowControl and StableTrak operating cfm range 2.5 to 6.25

esshup....your theory had crossed my mind! You've brought it back to the forefront...Thanks!! The tubing I'm using is left over from the original installation of aerators in the other two ponds. It has in fact been in the loft of the barn for about 5 years!! The total 180' is made up of two pieces. One being about 110' and the other 90' with a splice to connect them. The boxes they were in were closed but not sealed. I know if I had 6 or 8 legs I'd find it quite inviting.

My next step will be to disconnect the air station then separate at the splice. If the pressure doesn't drop then the piece between the pump and the splice has a blockage. Then I'll test the other piece. After all this discussion a line blockage seems like it may be the problem.

If it is, I guess either hooking it up to the air compressor or water hose may dislodge it. Otherwise I'll have to find something that's at least 110'+/- long to swab it out. Any good ideas?

This is the path I'll go down.....before I spend more of my parent's money.......lol!!

Continued thanks for the input....I'll report back.

Chuck

Try the water route to blow out the "guests" will work better than air.Try a garden hose jet nozzle, Good Luck !!

I second that motion! Just have it plugged into the end of the air line, and make sure that the other end isn't connected to the diffuser. If it was me doing the test, I'd make sure I had the hose firmly jammed into the air line, holding both ends, and have someone else turn the hose on full bore.

Ted, at what psi does that air line rupture? Or should I say What is the air line rated for, pressure wise?

ForeverSink is rated to a maximum of 50 psi. We have that tubing extruded for us and give them the spec we need.The 50 psi is based on the idea that 80 feet of depth is rare for us to place equipment in.Also you have the water (outside) force pushing back against the tubing a lot of times at the same pressure. Most of the pumps we use are 30-40 psi rated pistons.As far as having it out of the water an airing it up I would think much over 50-75psi (out of the water) could get ugly as it should start to enlarge. Its a great question that has not come up.

Ted:

Thanks. I was just curious because if Chuck were to use an air compressor to blow out the obstruction, the air pressure might be too high if the partial obstruction compressed and blocked it 100%.