Finally found the ideal pond filter - not too large and not too small and it fits perfectly in the shed overhang.
Facebook Market again (£110), but with the added plus that the seller is willing to come at the weekend and take possession of my excess koi colony. He'll have to bring his own jam jar though.
This filter utilises a vortex created by the pump in the inlet side to separate any solids (on the right), a section with brushes and two filter pad sections, one of them having small pieces of plastic in the bottom for good bacteria to colonise. The twin outlets are on the left, near the top, using gravity to decant the clear water after it has cascaded from compartment to compartment.
Spent £80 on additional pipework, unions and elbows, but I still need a couple more bits.
Each of the compartments has a sludge decanter at the bottom, but the one at the exit end is blanked off for some reason, and it's the one most likely to catch most crap. It looks a pain to link it in series to the two other sludge evacuation ports, so I think I'll give it a separate one with its own gate valve at the other end of the filter.
I'll be inserting the UV steriliser before the filter; however, once again, it's a mix of imperial and metric piping - metric for the sludge and 2" imperial for the clean outlet. The UV steriliser will stay indoors in the shed with the rest of the electrics. I could put it on one of the walls of the shed overhang, but the pump would be struggling to pump the water uphill. Laying it flat in the shed is much better for flow.
Should have it up and working by the weekend, all going well.
Just a quick note on the trial of sheep's fleece as a filter medium - it works perfectly, but the stuff needs making into felted mats for ease of use and occasional wringing out. As it is, I have large clumps of algae soaked wool, which is messy. It could be felted quite easily with an industrial felter, which just has a pad with a myriad felting needles, but that would be for turning the fleece into mats as a business.
1 comment:
Perhaps you could wet felt the fleeces by trampling them in say, an old bath tub - a bit like pressing grapes, only smellier.
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