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    Thread: Sand & Gravel Filter Alterations

    1. #41
      catfish whiskers's Avatar
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      Quote Originally Posted by pickerel View Post
      Take a good look at those granules. I thought it was made of slate. What I have dug out of our gutters in the past did not look like granite.
      I was just kidding , My cardboard box doesn’t have a shingle roof .

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    2. #42
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      LOL...oops

    3. #43
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      Interesting thread. Between my design and Kent's design there have been hundreds of these filters built. Most if not all working Perfectly. Innovation and new ideas can be nice but as Jeff said there's no real nead to deviate from a tried and proven design. If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it

      OR

      KISS!.

    4. #44
      Nevermore is offline Senior Member
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      Hey. No harm in trying to make a better mousetrap !!!

      So quick question ... I have one bulkhead that I’m using. It’s basicallt the same as the shower drain I also am using. For the bulkhead... do I need to remove the rubber gasket and use marine sealer ?

    5. #45
      catfish whiskers's Avatar
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      Yes , remove the gasket and use only sealant

    6. #46
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      Thanks. Now i just need it to stop raining to do the final install.

    7. #47
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      So I finally got my S&G filter up and running this past weekend… and I am amazed on how it’s worked out. I went from seeing less then a foot down.. to completely clear to the bottom just overnight. (I now see how many river rocks my son has “accidentally” dropped into the pond… a drill bit… and a small PVC piece.) I had put off the cleaning of my other filter while building this S&G filter so the water was bit worse then normal. Anyway…I still need to add some “trim” to hide the pipes under the barrel and then stain it all…. But I am very happy with the results so far. Just some random thoughts along the way…

      - I must of run to the hardware store a million times getting parts here and there. It probably would be easier to just buy all the PVC joints at the store.. And then return what you don’t use.

      - SHOWER DRAIN: The 2in shower drain I used for the bottom clean-out line was indicated as PVC …. But after glueing it up with standard PVC glue and then doing a leak check the next day.. The glue failed and I could pull the pipe right out of the drain quite easily. So I then glued it up with PVC to ABS glue which worked as expected. It’s just a gray plastic and indicated as “PVC” by the manufacturer… not ABS… so I was a little confused. But it’s nice and tight now and not going anywhere.

      - BOTTOM GRATE: I cut out a bread rack for the bottom grate in the barrel. The material is nice and ridged… but I was worried the 1” openings were still a bit too big on it, so I cut up a few of those plastic gutter guards things and zip tied them to the grate. They are basically sheets of vinyl with tightly perforated 1/4in holes.. And I just removed the screening that’s glued to them.

      - STONE: The largest stone I purchased in bags for the bottom layer didn’t seem to be sorted quite that well.. Too many small broken pieces that I didn’t want on the bottom… so while dumping them into a wheel barrow to clean them up with the hose… I did a quick sorting to get the smaller stones out (to be used in a higher layer of the barrel). Having a 9 year old helps with the hose and sorting part!

      - OUTLETS: I mistakenly drilled my two outlet holes too high in the barrel. Me no good at math! This puts the opening of the elbows quite hight in the barrel… but it’s worked out so far. Even with it boiling it doesn’t overflow out.

      - AIR MANIFOLD: I left the air manifold line sticking quite high out of the barrel for now. On the first cleanout.. I was hanging close to the barrel and didn’t realize the water comes rushing back into the manifold and will pop out of the top pipe…. Almost got a soaking.

      - NOISE: I did drill in a few air holes to the outside elbow of the outlet. This helps with the sucking sound you get at the top inlet. The loudest noise though is from the water falling down the 3 foot drop before it hits the long sweep elbow... which in my set up has some water in it. I am trying out a fix by taking a bunch of those packing strips… tying them together at one end… folding them up to get a bit of a zig zag in them.. and letting it get pulled into the 3 foot drop area. I am hoping interrupting the fall will reduce the noise a bit. It seems to work a bit… but I need longer strips.

      - PUMP QUESTION: Right now I have my pump choked down a decent amount to not overrun the single barrel. Would it be better to have a Y and ball valve in that offshot line to essentially just return water back to the pond and help with water movement in the pond? I could completely hide this under the bridge before the line goes under the deck towards the filter.

      - FUTURE ADD ON QUESTION: I am already looking into making a trickle tower in a 30 gallon barrel to the right of this one. I would put the media in two stacked egg crates.Trying to find a black barrel might be a pain to find on craigslist though… but my mom always told me to make sure your barrels match! I could essentially seal up the existing outlet.. Make a new one to the side which will feed the TT at the top.. And the just join the outlet to my exiting line. I am seeing I could get a used supply of K1, K2, & K3 mixed together for $30 for 1.4 cubic feet. Do people ever use this in TT? Or would featherrock be better?

      Thanks again for the help! Below is a pick of the deck when i was pulling it apart to run the lines.. and then a few "where I'm at now" pics.
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      Last edited by Nevermore; 10-09-2018 at 01:17 PM.

    8. #48
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      Next stage to add. Just comparing price on used mixed K1,2,3 vs featherrock.
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    9. #49
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      Quote Originally Posted by Nevermore View Post
      Next stage to add. Just comparing price on used mixed K1,2,3 vs featherrock.
      great diagram !!!!!!!!!!

    10. #50
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      Thanks

      So I’m now seeing that a 3” bulkhead is $30... quite the jump from a 2”. Does anyone have either a good source or maybe an alternate fitting at 3” that has a low profile to be used as a bottom drain on a barrel
      Last edited by Nevermore; 10-13-2018 at 06:29 PM.

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    11. #51
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      It's not the overflowing that's an issue as much as the sand will fluidize and channel at around 2200 gph....in my 4 barrels that's my Max flow, yours may vary but 2- 2.5 k is Max I believe..

      Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

    12. #52
      kimini is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by Nevermore View Post
      Thanks

      So I’m now seeing that a 3” bulkhead is $30... quite the jump from a 2”. Does anyone have either a good source or maybe an alternate fitting at 3”?
      Is this thread going in circles, or was that another SG thread(?) because 3" electrical male/female threaded conduit connections are always mentioned early on. As others have said, just stick to the recommended parts and design and get on with things. "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."
      Last edited by kimini; 10-13-2018 at 06:18 PM.

    13. #53
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      Sorry... I didn’t mention a segway to my building of secondary barrel that I’ll do a trickle down filter with. So I was looking for something with a lower profile then the electric conduit since it is going to be at the bottom of the barrel draining out.

    14. #54
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      As soon as you do one thing… more questions arise!! So I got the shower running on the 35G barrel.

      For the bottom drain, I did end up using the male/female conduit pieces as advised… but I then just cut off some of the the male piece to reduce it’s height as much as possible. Also my original plans of using milk crates didn’t work… they are just a bit to big to fit in the mouth of the barrel. So instead I dug up a roll of the plastic fencing I had and zip tied together a cylinder with a bottom. I then filled it with feather rock. (Side story at the rock store… I know the rock was sharp… but it didn’t feel too bad and I thought it would be easy to walk a hundred yards with a 19 lb rock…easy peasy… but after twenty feet I started to wonder why my hands hurt. I put the rock down and my hands had blood all over from the cuts. The guy with the forklift took it from there). Once in the barrel, it leaves 3-4 inches of air space on the sides. For the top diffuser, I picked up a large shower drain and drilled more holes in the opening. So now I block up the original return port and waste port to run the shower.

      This is still a work in progress… looking around the site I see others have added “air holes” on the sides of there barrels to increase airflow… so I’m open to making adjustments.

      First off… the reduction of noise is great. The original straight drop on the 3” return (before I added the shower) was noisy. And it started getting to me (and more importantly the wife and kid). It was such an echo’y noise which I couldn’t seem to reduce by much. This shower doesn’t have any areas where the water is falling clear to the next level so there’s not any “crashing” going on. Once it exits the diffuser… it’s just trickling through rocks and then going out the bottom drain. So it’ just sounds like a small waterfall or fountain. It’s nice.

      Now here’s my new potential issue.. the foam building up in the barrel. So I hadn’t been running the S&G filter for a week and some… only running my old pressure filter until I got the shower running… but I also wasn’t feeding the fish except every few days very lightly since it’s been getting colder. So the filtration wasn’t running at full steam. Within short order the foam started building at the bottom of the barrel and creeping up the sides. By this morning it’s almost halfway up the barrel and now on the pond surface to some extent too around the output.

      Q- Will the foam production reduce once the filtration is running at max performance? Which at this point will be next spring at some point. (working under the assumption I am not overstocked or overfeeding or no removing leaves that make there way to the pond)

      Q- I read up on some of the DIY FF systems people use…. But in my set up.. Since I have the step-up on the return I don’t think it will work. Could I add an 3” or maybe a few 3” openings in the bottom of the barrel and then run a few stand/drain pipes up into the foam? Would the foam make it’s way down a drain pipe efficiently enough?

      Q- any other people have things they do to deal with foam in their shower filters set up in barrels?
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    15. #55
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      I finished up the the setup. Since the tops of the barrels are right by a window... to make it as clean and quiet as possible... I slotted two lids so I can cover the top completely around the central pipe. And yes I will be adding in decent sized venting air holes on the sides of the shower barrel in the spring to allow air exchange. Right now you can hear air being pulled down from the s&G barrel into the shower barrel..... so hopefully a series of 2in holes up and down the sides of the barrel will suffice for air exchange.

      In regards to the evil foam... i tried a few different sized pipes that ran up and over the top of the barrel... but not enough foam was making it's way up. So come the start of spring, I am going to go with the stand pipe in the bottom of the barrel that will allow the foam to make it's way down and to the waste line. I will also box in the bottom some to cover the pipes... and stain the whole stand to match the deck. I do like the painting pipes that see people on here do as well.. so i might paint mine as well.

      the end.
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      Last edited by Nevermore; 12-09-2018 at 10:48 PM.

    16. #56
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      Just as an added note... the set up made its was through the Arctic blast that came though in the past week and some. We had theee days up to -15 to -25 with wind chill in my area during the worst part. Being the first winter with the barrels .. I was concerned it would all run okay.

      Side note: It’s weird to walk just a block from the car to work and have it feel like your eye brows fell off somewhere Between the two.

      Before the worst part of the weather run.. I was checking the shower portion every day And it was just icing up a bit on the inner barrel wall. For three days I did wrap a plastic tarp loosely around both barrels to cut down on the wind chill, but even then it still continued to flow freely. The pond did get an inch or more of ice ... sans bubbler openings that I had keep open manually sometimes...But that is normal for a typical winter here.

      And less then a week later... it was 60 today
      Last edited by Nevermore; 02-04-2019 at 08:28 PM.

    17. #57
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      Fun side story... I have some old mosquito fish where a few make it through the winter and then repopulate the pond the next season. They are nibbling at the koi food as the koi are gulping it down.... brave little things.

      Anyway. So I go to clean my s&g filter... and I see a tiny mosquito fish .. the size of a grain of rice.., swimming around the top of the barrel water. He’s avoiding the side outlet pipe that goes to the shower filter to the side. That means he got direct pumped to the bottom of the s&g filter and somehow... in pitch black ...made his way into one of the 1/8th holes of the air manifold which was overflowing out of the top just today.... spilling into the top of the barrel.

      The alternate less likely option is that he made his way to the bottom of the barrel... and then I blasted him through all the rocks when doing my cleaning last week.

      I scooped him out and tossed him back in the pond.
      Last edited by Nevermore; 08-24-2019 at 10:46 PM.

    18. #58
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    19. #59
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      That's a fun story. I've had similar little fish end up in my filter barrels. I'm always amazed how they get there alive. My wife is especially interested when I find them there. I sometimes wonder if my wife would enjoy the pond more if I got rid of all the big fish and kept only guppies.
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    20. #60
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      Hi:
      Great thread! FWIW, I prefer to put a pair of knife valves off the inlet and outlets, rather than fussing with the cap. I have some that have run this way for 6 or seven years.

      -t

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