step 1:
find 42" by 8" schedule 40 PVC pipe at construction site. ask worker if I can have it. He replies, "what pipe?"!
Check.
step 1:
find 42" by 8" schedule 40 PVC pipe at construction site. ask worker if I can have it. He replies, "what pipe?"!
Check.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
Step 2:
locate cap for one end. visit local plumbing supply company. they reply they don't have anything that large.
walk out in utter disgust with business. report them to better business bureau.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
step three, figure out whether I should do a counter current phoam phraxionator or a trickle tower style phoam phraxionator. Important thing is to hide from dear wife, as she despises PVC in all forms.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
Buy a small piece of pvc sheet 12 x 12, place the smoothly cut end of the 8" pipe centered on the sheet, draw the outline with a pencil, coat the crap out of the pvc sheet and bottom of the pipe with clear pvc glue, place the pipe down on the sheet and twist it back and forth a few times to really make a good contact with both pieces, and let it dry for an hour. Come back and run a bead of PL or 3M adhesive around the bottom and you are done!
Last edited by Luck; 03-22-2010 at 12:12 AM.
Zac Penn.... Please sign-up for our MAILING LIST HERE904-294-2231
Zac@DeepwaterKoi.com
www.DeepwaterKoi.com
pvc sheets:
1/2" thick
http://www.mcmaster.com/#8747k116/=2uygo3
1/4'' thick:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#8747k114/=2vgfym
A little thick but you can see the price is much better. I use 1/4 sheet stock all the time, and you can't bend a 12 x 12 piece unless you stick it in a vise!
Zac Penn.... Please sign-up for our MAILING LIST HERE904-294-2231
Zac@DeepwaterKoi.com
www.DeepwaterKoi.com
I'll try and follow and contribute to this thread, per a request from Ethan, but I just got confirmation I have consulting work and very little free time left.
I agree that is one big piece of pipe.
Back to the original Q: I'd go with the trickle tower style foam fractionator as I think (in hind site) a bit easier (more forgiving) to setup. With that size pipe you could go either way though.
Brad
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
Albert Einstein
Bradley W. Olin
newest member of EIHIOICGI
My pond stuff can be found at...
My Pond Build
My QT Build
My CC-FF Build
My Active Carbon Filters
Interesting .. I just finished the build and tweaking of my counter current, which is built with a 4 foot piece of 6" diameter pipe (plus about a foot of 4" pipe at the top where the collection cup is).
As I was building mine, I left the collection cup / air input piece (the 4" stock) unglued so I could mess around with the height / amount of air, etc. very easily.
Is it that type of tweaking you think is easier to dial in with a trickle tower style?
Yeah maybe that's right ... i just have a ball valve in front of the water input and then as i mentioned, i left the collection cup unglued so i could play with the overall height vs. air supply.
The ball valve on the input did require me to build a bypass to deal with the leftover water ...
Okay, I got a friend to give me some PVC pieces from a leftover job he was doing. The pieces are 6", including the tower, which is plenty big IMO.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
First, I got a 54" piece of 6" PVC pipe.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
I went to Lowes and bought a 6" strainer for a gutter. It was too wide to fit into the elbow of the 90 degree fitting I was given, so I used a dremel to trim off the edge, around 1/8 inch around the entire thing. It fit crookedly, but that didn't matter.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
I was given a 6" x 4" x6" Tee fitting. The four inch is the output for the phoam. IN the exit for the water, I put two reducers: a 6" to 4" reducer, and a 4" to 2" reducer. I assume I will be running between 1500-2800 gph through the 2" exit. I will use a ball valve after the exit to put back pressure on the water to move it up or down in the chamber.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
Since I have two hubs....one on the end of the 90 coming from the tower, and another from the T going toward the tower, I will need a small 6-8 inch section of 6" pipe. I don't have this piece, so I will have to go to lowes to buy a 2-foot section of 6" pipe. that's $15.
I will be getting a pump capable of driving 2500 gph to this thing. I'll back off the flow if I need to, but I am not convinced I will have to.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
Here, you can see the grate in the bottom of the chamber. 1" bioballs will fill up the chamber. You can see the hole I drilled in the side of the top of the tower, which will allow two 90s to be attached THROUGH IT for my water flow.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
The nice thing is that where I drilled that hole in the last picture, the end of that pipe is a hub. So, if I feel I just don;t have enough height or bio balls, I could add a 2 foot section of pipe to that end and increase the height of the unit by 1.5 feet, or, in technical terms, a bunch of bio balls more.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
Here's what I did. I got an additional small piece of 6" PVC, around a foot long, and put it into the two pieces....the tower and the exit port.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
one can of that PVC glue barely did it for these 6" fittings.
I dumped the bio balls into the top, let the glue dry, and put a ball valve on the end of the pipe, to allow the ability to adjust the EXIT flow. That's where you can work with the sweet point of the water in the chamber. You want the water to sit in the chamber, even starting up the "T" pipe a tad, so that when the bubbles try to find their way out, they are forced that upward direction. They already want to go upward anyway.
The 6" pipe works far better than 4" for all this for a few reasons. One, it will scare your neighbors more.
two, (the real reason), is that it makes the chamber in the bottom a heckuva lot bigger and holds more water. By doing this, it allows the water that has come crashing down filled with air to allow the air to settle longer (longer dwell time), allowing the phoam to really collect and move upward. The ball valve allows me to adjust the exit flow to assure that the water stays at the level I desire.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.