• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
permaculture forums growies critters building homesteading energy monies kitchen purity ungarbage community wilderness fiber arts art permaculture artisans regional education skip experiences global resources cider press projects digital market permies.com pie forums private forums all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
master stewards:
  • Carla Burke
  • Nancy Reading
  • r ranson
  • John F Dean
  • Pearl Sutton
  • paul wheaton
stewards:
  • Jay Angler
  • Anne Miller
  • Nicole Alderman
master gardeners:
  • Christopher Weeks
gardeners:
  • Maieshe Ljin
  • Benjamin Dinkel
  • Jeremy VanGelder

Sepp Holzer's ponds - oxygenation

 
                                              
Posts: 42
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Hello, I am just curious if anyone can explain how Sepp keeps his water oxygenated? I assume he isn't using pumps, etc., but I am wondering if lack of oxygen would be a problem in any aquaculture ponds I hypothetically create?

Any thoughts would be great, thanks.
 
pollinator
Posts: 11853
Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8
1268
cat forest garden fish trees chicken fiber arts wood heat greening the desert
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I'm guessing he has oxygenating plants. 

 
                            
Posts: 271
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I think on a previous thread it was mentioned that he does have pumps, that he pumps water from the bottom of his property back up to the top......

Some of his "ponds" appear fairly large and he makes them deep, they should oxygenate just as well as natural ponds.
 
                                              
Posts: 42
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
I'm guessing he has oxygenating plants. 




That would make sense I suppose, but do plants release oxygen in their roots (ie. in the water) or through their leaves?
 
                                              
Posts: 42
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Feral wrote:
I think on a previous thread it was mentioned that he does have pumps, that he pumps water from the bottom of his property back up to the top......

Some of his "ponds" appear fairly large and he makes them deep, they should oxygenate just as well as natural ponds.



Pumping from the bottom to the top makes sense, if you assume that as the water descends from one monk to another it becomes oxygenated.

I don't understand how depth would matter though - if there are fish in there consuming water, it wouldn't seem to matter how deep it is, eventually the oxygen is going to get used up if it's not being replenished.
 
                            
Posts: 271
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Sorry... I don't have any knowledge or experience with this at all. I was simply thinking of some of the natural ponds and small lakes I've seen.. and of the plant life and fish I've seen in them. I would think that there would be some association between pond depth/temperature/oxygenation.

 
Posts: 2134
18
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Trees that grow in water have pores on there lower trunks that take in oxygen to provide it to their roots. I got that from a great book on Trees called Trees by Roland Ennos, who talks about how trees work, how they fortify their wood or make it more elastic as needed, so that the tree will stand up and how they pull water up to their leaves, and such very interesting things. It is not too long and it is great.
 He also say manglares and swamp cypreses have knees sticking out of the water to catch oxygen for their roots.

 Sepp Holzer aligns his poonds so that the length is in the same direction as the prevailing winds, so that the winds can oxyginate the ponds running right down their length.
        I should think that is when some other alignment is not necessary because it will catch more sun and create a hotter area around the pool.

 There is an interesting you tube video on the "pulser pump", by a very ecological man called gaiatechnician, you get water draining down a pipe and swallowing air as it goes down and the air bubbles swallowed push water back out again along another tube in gasps, or very noisy whoshes, i think i heard a noise like this in a sepp holzer video and does not he have near the house a water wheel, that would also pump up water?  

    My grandmother had a pond in a bomb hole in the front feild as it was callled it was the field nearest the ouse and another at the other end of the farm. There were ponds of the sort all over that bit of the country, it was closeish to liverpool and it had fish in it and no one worried about them getting oxygen.
  I did once erad about  and try out putting a pond in a big bowl sunken into the garden. I had i read that the forces in it would equilibrate and the water did not start to stink so i suppose that is what happened. It would seem as if Feral is right. I think that sepp holzer just has to try everything he hears about, he is so energetic and able so, need it or not, he works out how to optimize the oxygen in his ponds. Maybe more oxygen allows him to have more fish.  agri rose macaskie.
 
Posts: 137
Location: Seymour, MO Zone 6a
3
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I have seen a fairly detailed albeit incomplete discussion of this somewhere. I think he talks about it in his book and I think it is mentioned in some of the youtube videos.

I think there are several factors at work (as with everything he does) including orientation, and judicious use of gravity feed from higher ponds to lower ones. I don't recall a pump being mentioned although I do remember his talking about his generator turbine doubling as an oxygenating device in his book.
 
rose macaskie
Posts: 2134
18
  • Likes 1
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I only, maybe, started to imagine i had seen evidence that he uses a pulser pump in his videos. I dont remember what made me think that he did. He does have a long description of his vertical over flow pipe that as it is vertical and just below the water level, too high for sticks to get into. A thin layer of water goes over the top of the pipe but a stick that is a bit thicker would bang into the wall of the pipe, this stops sticks getting into it and it did have this noise as if it swallowed air.
       It was when  looking for the name of the pulser pump just now that i saw a video on the wheel pump and thought, "maybe that is why he has a water wheel by his house as if he has a millhouse.
      I have to buy his book. Buying on line is still a new venture for me but it is a step i have now taken three times!!! All I know about him comes from whatching his videos, often, that is to say repeatedly.

         The pulser pump is very interesting whether Sepp uses it or not but it is very noisy.
       My parents were given dinner in Germany once and they had some sort of river fish to eat among other things, pike i dont know if thats possible. The only river fish the English eat are trout and salmon. I like earthy food like potatoes, so fresh water fish might be great. agri rose macaskie.
 
rose macaskie
Posts: 2134
18
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I  have just whatched a great video of Sepps that i got pressing a link here and i wanted to say how good it is and now i can't see it. Who sent it where is it. rose macaskie.
 
                        
Posts: 3
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
What I remember from biology is that all plants; including aquatic plants consume CO2 and discharge O2 whenever they are receiving adequate light; when they do not have enough light they consume O2; that's called Kreb cycle?  This is why you get fish kill when there is too much snow on the ice in the winter.
 
steward
Posts: 7926
Location: Currently in Lake Stevens, WA. Home in Spokane
357
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
@ Rose:
Are you talking about the link in the "Have you seen this" thread?
 
Posts: 201
Location: Germany/Cologne - Finland/Savonlinna
1
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
[flash=200,200]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFQUKQVwRXU[/flash]

On 3:29 Minutes you can see how Holzer oxygenates his ponds.
 
Posts: 42
1
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
It seems like the question has been answered already but here is another link to a Sepp Holzer water retention process: http://youtu.be/4hF2QL0D5ww
 
It wasn't my idea to go to some crazy nightclub in the middle of nowhere. I just wanted to stay home and cuddle with this tiny ad:
Learn Permaculture through a little hard work
https://wheaton-labs.com/bootcamp
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic