DIY Parabolic Screen Filter
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- Опубликовано: 17 сен 2024
- This is a parabolic screen filter that you can build yourself in a couple of hours for about $35. It is the most effective and easiest fish tank filter that I have ever used. I use it on my thousand gallon tank but I think that it could handle ten times the flow.
Lol he said, if your having trouble with the basic math go find a 5th grader to do it for you. 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣.
My suggestion would be to make the screen assembly easily removable, so that the screen could be intermittently cleaned, either by spraying from the back side, or brushing (again, from the back side), or somehow dipped in an algicide or antiseptic bath. I did something similar, and used it for the top of a stack. For my biofilter section, I used perlite, which has immense surface area and is relatively low-cost (compared to many other media), and, being super-heated volcanic glass, is inert (it won't mineralize like pumice) and relatively sterile. (There are some easy-to manage containment issues, and the stuff should be rinsed once to get rid of any powder that might have formed while the pellets/pebbles/nuggets were in the bag.) As for the screen, if a micron count isn't available, look for a stainless steel screen with 50% (or a bit more) of blockage. Thanks for the vid!
DukeStreetBill I thought about perlite , have you found it breaks down a lot? What container did you put it in? For the sieve, don't these non wedge wire screens get clogged easily?
I did run into screen clogging if the angle was too shallow: eventually, small particles will seal the screen unless it's brushed. But I gave up on the screen, and constructed a filter whose intake is at the bottom (in a 44-gal. industrial garbage can). I left a void into which water arrives; then, on a small platform, I placed a perforated barrier on which is coarse filter material (some sort of steel-wool-looking polymer), on which I placed a layer of ordinary plastic window screen. On this rides a layer of perlite (essentially glass foam), and then pumice (because I had both), then, in mesh, activated charcoal. If flotation hydraulic pushing becomes an obstacle, I'll weigh things down with pebbles. As the water rises through this, it returns to the pond via an overflow in the side of the garbage can. Most particles will settle in the water in the lower void; the rest will rise and get trapped. I installed an exhaust valve opposite the intake (a manifold of two perforated pipes), and from time to time, I'll open it to purge what has accumulated. If need be, I'll close the valve on the pump side and wash the media by hosing from the top. That should drive down most of what's hung in the media. Perlite is kind of one-way: good for rising currents, but pressed down and closed by sinking ones; so the upward throughput is greater. If that fails (I'm just about to try; I had some container failures), I'll switch to pumice alone.
After use, I'm disqualifying perlite for anything but trickle filters (low volume) or pressure filters (of the type used for diatomaceous earth, etc. In a stacked, up-flow filter, the perlite is too buoyant and too difficult to contain. In my new filter, the layer of perlite erupted (burped in a great blob) through a thick layer of pumice pebbles, and even though I shut off the pump, I spent the better part of an hour skimming getaway perlite from my pond. It'll get a new career as a soil amendment: I'm sticking to well-rinsed pumice and well-contained activated charcoal.
I think it’s not really a parabolic radius. A parabolic radius is actually a series of flats very close together to form a radius. I know this because we used to machine ribs for a certain type of antenna for the government. It appears to be a true radius though. Sorry minor thing and really no issue. And I think a straight screen would be fine. I’m making one right now. My biggest problem is I’m trying to make it as a pre filter in front of my Aquascape bio falls. I’m pumping 8500 GPH from my skimmer. I have a waterfall and everything is great except for the cleaning needing to be done so often. The real problem is this thing has to gravity fed to the bio falls. Unless I change to pump out from the bottom of the sieve like you have. OR I make this thing sit way higher, which I really don’t want to do ascetically. Very good video sir. Didn’t mean to bust on you about the radius lol. 👍🏼👍🏼
Hi, Would a Stainless Steel Mesh 300 be good for an Aquaculture system?
Or would that delay the water flow?
Matt, is this still working well for you? Is the sludge getting removed from the water column or is it still contributing nitrates and such with water going over it still? How fast does it get clogged?
How about add some footage of this screen filter working with pond water?
hi carol ( she is my aunt)
Needs a video in operation
Dear fellow pond lover. Where can you buy the screen? Its impossible to find in denmark. Do you have a link?
+Dennis Henriksen If you want a real sieve bend, you pretty much have to get it from China or pay a high price for it. Google wedge wire screen and you will find plenty of them, except they are not local.
+dusty rhodes thanks, I'll check it out!
I think I saw some on Amazon, too. If you need to piece the screen, fold it together at the joins, and let each fold stand about 1 or 2 cm high: it will act like a sediment trap, and if it gets full or clogged, the water will flow over it and arrive at the next section of screen a lot cleaner; the last section should finish in the collection pipe; but if there's a fold just before that, the only real difference will be the need to clean the folds now and then (which is another good reason to make the screen assembly removable). Good luck.
DukeStreetBill I am trying to get what you are saying by piece the screen. Do you mean if it is not large enough overlap it on top of eavh other? Seems like you could have different micron screens on top of each other so it goes through coarse first and doesnt get clogged as easy. The big advantage to sieve screens, at least the parabolics is tgat the sludge gets removed from the water column, or at least a portion does. Doesnt sound like it would if you vent the screens though. How did it work for you?
Hi. First, I've decided to do without screen: one screen is a maintenance problem (ergo, the complexity of screen-cleaning drum filters); multiple layers would be even more of an issue, and probably the lower layer would be nigh unto redundant. As for the parabolic curve, it would be easier to use a catenary curve (a portion of one that doesn't turn back up), which you can describe using anything that droops, without calculation--from weighty string to fine chain to those metal beads formerly used to turn on closet lights, etc. I envisioned setting up a screen with folds that would serve as catchments: this might have allowed for multiple stages of cleanliness (of the water), and/but still would have required cleaning (by hose if removable; by brush and hand if not). I found that the curve didn't matter much; and, if I used a baker's drying rack of the right size) basically, a rigid chromed grid I trimmed to size, the grid would not only support the screen, but would guide a bit more (not much) water into the collection trough I'd built, aiding in flushing it (I placed a filter sock at its exit that took quite awhile to need emptying). For cleaning sock and screen, I felt that removability was essential.
video would be better if we could see it in action.