Try This DIY Surging Air Lift Pump

[seandanekind]

I'm going to try this later this summer:

I was searching for air lifts, and found a cool design that I'm planning to try as a DIY project:

I may have found the coolest air lift style pump of all time. It has a chamber at the bottom of the water column to catch the air from the compressor. Then release 1 massive water bubble instead of tons of little ones. It's a little different than a standard air lift since it surges vs the normal constant flow. It's marketed to sewage treatment plants. It's called the Geyser Pump.

According to the webstite, it's a lot more efficient than a standard air lift. The site says using a Sweetwater L45 (older model from Y2K) they could get 120,000 GPD in a 10 ft tube that was 80% sumberged. That's 5000 GPH at 79 Watts!!! That's about $40 per year in electricity here in Cincy!! Granted, the air pump costs about $350, but so what!

After looking at the design on the web site, it looks like a pretty cool DIY project, and if it doesn't work, you can just scrap is and go with a normal air lift.

Personally, I like the idea of a surging airlift. I could forgo the Eco-Wheel ATS design, and just have the surge spill over a screen inside a 100 gallon rubbermade stock tank.

I figure that water level in my tank will be 5' to 5.5' off the floor (28" tall tank on a 32"-36" stand). I want to come about 6 inches over that to surge into my sump (slightly above tank level in the next room). Accorsing to the Geyser Pump site (capacity page) I can get 500 GPH from a 3" diameter pipe. About 4' of the pipe will be under water, giving me about 2.6 gallons of water per surge. At that rate, I need 1 surge every 2 seconds. I could run 2 geyser's on 2 ATS screens on opposite sides of the sump to get a 2.6 gallon surge every 4 seconds. Or, build a 6" diameter beast that could give a 5.75 gallon surge every 14 seconds.

I have absolutely no idea how loud this thing is. It probably won't be as efficient for me due to head pressure since I'll be plumbing the intake from the tank overflow, across an 8 ft distance, a 90 degree corner, and then finally into the air lift.


This will be a fun experiment.

[Zephrant]

Neat idea- I would like to see a video of it in action. With a name like "Geyser" you can bet that it burps out the water at a pretty fast clip, a lot like a RCSD at the end of a blast I would bet.


Give it a try and let us know- Sounds like a great trick for a frag tank too.

Zeph

[slipknottin]

Uh, where do you see anything about it being to operate at a head of 5 ft?

Their chart seems to show that it can only operate with a head of 4" or less. Though it is quite confusing...

[seandanekind]

I agree it's confusing because he doesn't put the real units on the graph.

4" is the diameter in that graph. X axis is in units of Head over Submergence.

I'll have 6" of head above water, and some more head due to plumbing.

I'm guessing now, but I can think of a way to calculate this

48" / (48" + 6") = 88% submergence
.5' head / 0.88 = 0.57 units on the X axis of that graph.

That should put me well inside of the first column on the graph. For a 4" diameter pipe. That will be over 100,000 GPD, or more than 4167 GPH (1.3 gallon surge every 1.77 seconds).

Granted, head loss due to plumbing will have to be added in, but I'm thinking of using 4"-6" drain pipe.

[H20ENG]

This is cool. Basically an RCSD discharging its air to an airlift.
When I first read about RCSDs in Sea Scope a few years back, I made one out of a 5g bucket with 2" piping. It shot up about 2' when it vented the air, along with a bunch of water spray. It actually pumped quite a bit of water out the vent. I figured it could be set up as a pump to a slightly higher tank, to kill 2 birds with one (air)stone .
I can guarantee that this thing wont be suitable for your living room (unless you are with Greenpeace and love the sounds of whales spouting). It'll be loud, but could probably be dealt with creatively.
I have been trying to come up with a way to recover some of the air energy of the box venting, either to a smaller RCSD, or to aerate a media bed.
Keep these ideas flowing guys!
Chris

[Alfalfameister]

I'm bringing this thread back from the grave...

I have built a Reverse Carlson Surge Device before, but this works slightly differently. The water intake is at the bottom, as far as I can tell.

Can someone come up with schematics/drawing of how this thing works? I can't really figure out from the video in the geyser pump website.

Thanks!

[Aquayne_wv]

I read your thread on the reverse carlson device. I built a version of this using two inverted 2liter pop bottles and pvc fittings. My version costs less than $10.00 to build. Will post pics when able.

I thought I was the first to come up with this idea, Oh well, "day late and dollar short again"

Wayne

[dogstar74]

can someone post a schematic drawing of this device? I am having a hard time conceptualizing how it works and the video from that website you gave is pretty low quality. thanks.

[H20ENG]

I have played with it. It is simply an RCSD, with all its qualities, good surge, lots of loud spray

It IS a great application for wastewater plants. Good for tanks too if you can deal with the forementioned side effects.