Air-Lift Pump - Permaculture hack for organic irrigation and aquaculture

This is my most challenging animation yet, a 23 second GIF demonstrating an Air Lift Pump Design that I made several years ago. (not my design).

Life - Oxygen and Water
Healthy soil is rich in micro-organisms - the enzymes they produce make the minerals highly absorbable or bio available. This organic richness or fertility is actually locked up in the bodies of billions of diverse organisms, when they die this nutrition is made available to the tiny root hairs of the plants.

Plants actually release chemical compounds called exudates that influence the ecology around them. Plants use the suns energy to produce carbohydrates, fungus can ferment these carbs to produce energy. Fungus produce powerful enzymes that can dissolve rock. They can trade these valuable minerals with plants for their much needed sugar fix.

Aerobic Bacteria can use either sugars, (carbohydrates) or fats for fuel, this is because they have learned the trick of utilising oxygen's thirst for electrons.

Plants can even use these exudates to attract predators that eat other micro organisms, then the plants also get to feast on the fresh kill. Its an all out orgy and total warfare at the level of the micro-organism, there is still vast biodiversity here.

Healthy soil contains a good balance of aerobic bacteria, it is possibly the same with our gut micro-biome but I am not sure about that.
Moulds and fungus do not rely on oxygen to break apart fuel, they ferment sugars, but this produces an acidic environment of decay and spoilage, it is not conducive of vibrant life and it smells bad.

Adding oxygen rapidly heals these environments by changing the balance of the organisms present and thereby un-locking vast mineral wealth.

Plants can actually thrive in more water laden soils providing that soil is highly aerated, (or the water in the soil contains more dissolved oxygen). Once again this is due to the type of bacteria present and the whole web of life that can be build on top of that.

Fish, birds and animals also require oxygen, their cells contain mitochondria (which are in fact of bacterial origin) that use oxygen to provide them with energy. Water that has a higher dissolved oxygen content can sustain much more dense fish and other life.

So as you can see Oxygen is key.

Irrigation is also key, for healthy soils need to be kept moist to keep all those micro organisms alive. Obviously the plants the animals that eat the plants and the animals that eat the animals, also need water.

If we are going to move water it makes sense to add oxygen to it at the same time.

Air -lift Pumps

By releasing air at depth, the resulting air/water mix is lighter than the surrounding water and so it rises.
If we inject air into the lower end of a submerged open ended pipe, the light air/water mix will rise.
As it does so it will suck new water into the pipe. This new water when mixed with air will also rise, and so it goes.
Any sand, mud, leaves or other particles may also be sucked up the pipe, this is how "dredging" works.

There are no *moving parts in an air lift pump, which makes them perfect for shifting water that is heavy in organic matter.
*the source of pressurised air will have moving parts.

Head height is the distance a pump can move water vertically.
Volume is the amount of water a pump can move

The air lift pumps do not have very good head height performance unless the flow is restricted.
If the system is designed to minimise head height, but release the air as deep as is possible, then an enormous amount of flow is possible. This enormous aerated flow, is perfect for bio filtration.

Bio Filtration
Bacteria requires a surface area on which to proliferate, this is like keeping its back to the wall. It prefers little holes and protected spaces that still enjoy access to a great flow of passing food. If we run our water through progressively finer "meshes" we will have different kinds of organisms feeding at each level.

When it comes to grey water recycling, )providing it has a tolerable level of non-organic toxins and detergents in it), aerated bio-filtration is the ultimate in working with nature. It is applied ecology or permaculture at its best.

Basically what we are doing is creating a mini mangrove system, a micro environment. Good systems actually increase in performance over time, as their ecologies develop and become more diverse, they actually become more stable, less fragile.

So Psychobiology is not all emotion, mind and awareness, it is also grounded in the greater biology of which we are but passing guest stars =8-P