A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Pressurized solids filtration

We are using a Little Giant mechanical filter rated for 1,500 gallons and it is only filtering a 100 gallon tank with about 20 fish. Still getting too many solids in the NFT tubes. Since we removed the bio filtration from the filter on arrival, we added some gravel in to aid in the filtration. Anyone using any other method of solids filtration. Needs to be able to handle 10psi. Picture of what we are using is attached.

0 members like this

Attachments:

solids.JPG, 594 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on May 4, 2010 at 2:00pm

Hum, I don't quite understand. You removed the bio-filtration from the filter on arrival? And you put gravel in instead? and you are wondering why it isn't working so well? Those pressurized filters are different than gravel beds, I'm not sure that they work as well using gravel instead of the media they came with?

Anyway, to really polish the water for use in NFT pipes, you may really need to work out some sort of swirl filter or settling tank that you can remove the solids from manually and then run the fairly clean water through some sort of filter material that you would then need to clean often and replace when it gets too clogged up. Even with my gravel beds, I notice that my NFT pipes do slowly build up gunk in them even when the water in the sump tank feeding them looks crystal clear.

Permalink Reply by Jon Cavin on May 4, 2010 at 2:20pm

We reomved the biological filtration but left in the mechanical which is substantial. They include three different grade mesh filters, a swirl filter at the bottom and a screen at the top. To that we added the gravel after noticing too many solide coming through. Our flow rate is good in speed and levels are about 1/2" in each tube. I was just wondering if there are any other models that people had experience with that worked better. As of now we clean tubes after each harvest.

TCLynx said:

Hum, I don't quite understand. You removed the bio-filtration from the filter on arrival? And you put gravel in instead? and you are wondering why it isn't working so well? Those pressurized filters are different than gravel beds, I'm not sure that they work as well using gravel instead of the media they came with?

Anyway, to really polish the water for use in NFT pipes, you may really need to work out some sort of swirl filter or settling tank that you can remove the solids from manually and then run the fairly clean water through some sort of filter material that you would then need to clean often and replace when it gets too clogged up. Even with my gravel beds, I notice that my NFT pipes do slowly build up gunk in them even when the water in the sump tank feeding them looks crystal clear.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on May 4, 2010 at 3:27pm

Cleaning the tubes after each harvest is probably a good idea. Sorry I don't have a better model to recommend.

Permalink Reply by Nate Storey on May 6, 2010 at 7:44am

Hmm. Not sure. I take it it's a pressurized bead filter of some sort? It's possible if it is a pressurized bead-type filter that you are simply moving too little volume. Another possiblity is that the "solids" you see acumulating are some leftovers, but maybe biofilm accumulation downstream of your filter. I have problems with biofilm in my pipes from time to time. I'm not sure gravel in your biological filter tank is doing anything for you. Almost all of the bio-filter tanks i've seen have media that is either very very porous with lots of water circulation, very light materiall, or material that is suspended. your gravel might be to heavy with too little pore space. . .
my two cents.