I am looking for an immersible small water pump for our science project in University of Tasmania. We will be looking at oxygen consumption by sea urchins in a sealed water chamber, in order to ensure the oxygen level inside the chamber is uniform, we need a small water pump to mix the water layers. I have found a few small water pumps that could be used for those purposes but I’m not sure which one would be the most suitble, thus I’m hoping to get some advice from you.
Those chambers contains about 10 Litres of water each and need to be completely sealed so it would be great if it’s battery operated, otherwise we could make a small hole on the chamber to let the wire out if it connects to power. We are looking at more reliable products other than cheapers ones and they need to be able to operate in 5 to 35 degree celsius waters.
I would appreciate any advice and help with this. Thank you so much!
Very interesting project! I’d be keen to see what results you come up with
Have you had the chance to do any measurements? With a small body of water I cant imagine there would be a massive gradient across the whole volume.
A couple questions about the pump you were after: Did you have a flow rate in mind (how often do you want the water to cycle?) How long will the experiment be running?
Unfortunately I couldnt track down specific temp ratings but 35 degrees shouldnt harm the pump (maybe the enclosure though)
Keeping everything water tight is an interesting problem, to keep small amounts of water out I’ve gone with Tuperware containers in the past. Nothing fully submerged though!
Hi Yenny
Don’t they have pumps in fish tanks? I know they have air pumps to aerate the water but I thought there were water pumps also. There are garden water features that have submersible pumps too. Some would be fairly large capacity and some small plus in between surely.
Cheers Bob
Hi Yenny,
Have you seen the range from TCS micropumps? TCS Micropumps
I thought they had a submersible version years ago, but can’t see it on their current website.
Peristaltic pumps may be of use for this project. Peristaltic pumps operate a little differently to normal pumps - instead of some kind of impellor touching the liquid being pumped, they operate a little like your throat/digestive system in constantly pressing then opening a tube containing the liquid to force the liquid to move along. Great for anything where you don’t want to have to clean the pump (only the tubing) or make no contact with the liquid, as the pump does not sit underwater. It also doesn’t need priming so even less work for the end user!
Core Electronics have a couple of options found here:
The second link for ADA1150 states that it operates up to 40 degrees C which is useful, however the pump still sits outside the liquid so that’s probably not an issue. It also includes a flow rate of (up to 100 mL/min) and current draw so you can match them to your specs as needed. The tubing looks replaceable too.
