FILTER CONVERSION -- THINKING ABOUT SIEVE, MAYBE?

[Mucky_Waters]

My biggest issue is that I'm not happy with my mechanical filtration, or lack thereof.

So, Mucky, your filter doesn't sit in the pond, but inside a tank? I was trying to come up with something similar [I'd recalled your design, but not the details], but was trying to make mine be underwater and attached to my pump, coming before the pump. Was a nightmare in that I had hoses getting in the way and the darn thing wouldn't stay where I wanted it. Another problem is that the pump I have [solids-handling from HOME DEPOT] doesn't have a way to attach a hose or tubing directly to the input [which I was trying to do....].

Wonder if it would be possible to add a filter component, similar to what you have, that would sit inside the SKIPPY and filter the water as it enters? Something like that would be a lot easier to disconnect for cleaning instead of having to drag something out of the pond -- and I'd be a lot more likely to do that task if it was easier! Right now all I have [in the pond, period] in the way of any mechanical filtration, is quilt batting inside the SKIPPY, at the outflow point so it only catches stuff on its way back to the pond, which is kinda backwards.

You are correct, that quilt batting filter sits in one of my tanks. Actually it sits in the tank that is mislabeled "bio-filter tank" in the picture below. all the tanks are basiclly gravity feed with the pump located after the last tank.

That picture was taken before I even made the quilt batting filter. I wasn't quit sure what sort of filters I was going to put in the tanks, and I knew that I would probably want to make changes sooner or later and try different things, so the tanks were sort of designed to make changes to.
If you look in the tank labeled "mechanical filter" you'll see I have some Malta pads like in the pressure filter design crsublette linked to, except I have a lot larger filter pads and I have 3 different sizes. My quilt batting canister is located after the those Malta pads which is significant because all the muck that the quilt batting collected went right though those Malta pads. My settling tank actually catches the majority of the larger debris. What gets by the settling tank mostly goes right through the Malta, but gets picked up by the quilt batting. I don't always have the quilt batting canister installed. If the water is already clear, and I don't plan on doing anything to disturb the water I don't really feel it is necessary to have in installed all the time.

As to your question "if it would be possible to add a filter component, similar to what you have, that would sit inside the SKIPPY and filter the water as it enters?", I'm not sure what type of skippy you have, nor do I remember what size your pond is? For sure you could pressure feed that canister I built and have it drain into some sort of external tank or container. You'd just have to make sure it sits above your pond somehow and drains back into your pond.
In my case it is gravity feed as the pump is after the tank with the quilt batting canister. If you look in the drawing below the two "in" and "out" pipes are fixed, but the other elbow fittings that sit on the quilt batting canister is just friction fit. This serves as my emergency bypass. When the quilt batting gets very plugged the water pressure differential between the inside of the canister and the outside gets high enough it blows the friction connection apart and the water runs through to the pump and bypasses the quilt batting canister. If I didn't have that it would be possible for the canister to get so plugged that the water level would drop in the tank it's in and the pump could start sucking air and loose it's syphon. You could do something similar with a pressure system.

 

[sissy]

I just use my little baskets on top of my filters and lots of plants in the filters eat the other stuff up works good for me but I have 13 fish and 2 filters done this way .







The round one will become an oval bigger one after i rebuild the waterfall at that end .I think more plants will clean even better .

 

[Mmathis]

Hmm, lots to think about, and I really appreciate all the input.

Without adding any more tanks or barrels, is there a simple way that I can just change the set-up of my SKIPPY so that it can do more mechanical filtering?

Mucky, the pond is roughly 3200 gal, and the SKIPPY is 100 gal Rubbermaid stock tank, with the typical set-up: have 1-1/2" tubing entering from the top (and a little "Venturi" tube), flowing down to the 45 degree circular bottom thing, and a 2" (or is it 3"??) outflow; have a 2" clean-out drain built in the bottom, but whenever I drain it there's very little crud 'cause it never stays in the bottom. Right now I have the egg crate grate in place, but don't have any filter material over it, as I'm in a transition stage, so just some bio-media on top. I did have a layer of filter material that I got from Lowe's covering the grate, but over time noticed that the "blue" coloring from the filter was deteriorating and coming off the fibers. I also had pieces of this stuff cut up as part of my bio-media, but it was all shedding the "blue," so I chunked it all -- that blue stuff was in the water and I didn't like that.

I bought some green Matala that I planned to put over the egg crate, but was going to wait until we moved the SKIPPY (it's in a temp location until we get the waterfall built). That's all I was going to use, but wondering if laying some finer Matala over that would help? Or will that be enough to help keep the crud from getting to the bio-layer, putting me back where I started?

Is there a way I could convert it to a horizontal flow system since it seems like that would be easier for access and cleaning the filters?

Or should I just start over ...? Find a different something with more effective mech filtration, but with easy access for cleaning....

Why am I so obsessed with mechanical filtration???? Arghhh!!!!

 

[Waterbug]

Why am I so obsessed with mechanical filtration???? Arghhh!!!!

The obsession seems to pass after 2 or 3 years of building and testing every filter you can think of. So there is hope. Unfortunately the only way to really understand these things is to build and see the results. Normally the answer comes in the first minute with a total failure.