I apologize in advance for all of the numbers I'm about to throw out here...
After reading the "Another Aeration Project" post by mnfish where he is designing a nice solar-powered system, I decided to look into building my own. (After getting so much negative feedback towards windmill systems...I figured I'd abandon that route.)
So, for the past couple of days I've been researching pumps and solar panels and batteries and power inverters and on an on...
I finally stumbled across this company:
http://store.mwands.com/pond-aeration/10...ter-controller/They sell a system that eliminates the batteries and mumbo jumbo. Just plug into a solar panel and you're off and pumping.
Their system is $599 (You can do it for less by buying the parts individually as I have them below.)
Here is the setup I'm considering, still using this companies power device that bypasses batteries
Their Power Inverter $120
Power Inverter Solar panel $220
Solar Panel 45 LPM Pump?? $120
Air Pump The question is... Will a 45 LPM pump be sufficient for a 1/4 acre pond? Their system comes with a 45 liter per minute (LPM) air pump, but when I started to look closer at the numbers I get confused.
I came across one site that says you should have a minimum 10 LPM pump for every 1,000 gallons. My pond is 400,000 gallons. So I need a 4000 liter (1000 gal.) per minute pump???? That doesn't sound right.
At the same time, I see another pump system designed specifically for 1/4 acre ponds that says it pumps 0.8 cubic feet per minute. Well 0.8 cubic feet is 6 gallons per minute...that equals only 24 liters per minute.
I'm lost...
