Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

When looking into swirl filters I came across Vortex filter. Has anyone used these?

There has been a bit of discussion regarding them, chuck vortex into the search

Did a search on the title and got this thread. Search for it inside the threads and got some hits. Some where vortex pumps and a lot of others got hijacked when someone said venturi or airlift. Will keep looking.

Duff

Swirl and vortex filters are the same. Basic idea is to introduce water from a FT preferably without power to 1/3 rd of a way up a round container the inlet angled horizontally towards the side.
As the water swirls, slowly upwards towards an outlet, near the top the water on the periphery slows due to laminar flow. This causes heavy crap to settle to the bottom (which is why they usually have cone shaped bases) which can be drained off. (I think )
TC made one and has a thread on it.

Was not sure the vortex looked like it used a faster flow of water.

Vortex is just a settling tank with a conical bottom. If you don't match rate of flow to the diameter of the container there won't be enough time for the solids to settle out. I built my own with a 55 gallon barrel on a 1400 gallon pond. When I first built it I forgot to add a drain at the bottom and in 3 weeks it was clogged at the input (coming in at bottom side) from all the crap blocking it. When I drained it it smelled like a sewage plant. Now with the bottom drain I drain it every other day till the water that comes out is clear. Usually for a half a minute. I drain to plants in soil and they love it. I also do a full draining once a week for a 55 gallon water change on my pond.

I'll have a google again but there are ones they use for ponds that have the water really moving. Mine are a slow swirl but there is some force in others I've seen.

Might be thinking of these http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories ... strainers/
Problem is there is a brand name vortex, used to have an old one long time ago. Charged it with diamatous (spelling) earth and it filtered water down to a few microns. (pain in the ass to charge though as the water initally always became cloudy, and I was unhappy as to what effect that had on the fish)

Or there's these ... http://www.who-sells-it.com/cy/aquatic- ... lsize.html

Link to all sorts of filters including what they call a Vortex filter for Koi ponds.

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38259

Cool Under Water Viewer. Might have to build one of those with a light inside it.

For those who are interested, design for 2 modified vortex filters, also could provide some bio reaction with centres with bio balls etc.
Waste exit is shown as single exit however 2 or four waste intakes to the exit point would be better esp in first design. Outlet pipe can be brought back up to any level below internal water level. Problems in construction would only be finding a glue which would stick to both plastics.

Instead of gluing the internal parts you could have the centre part held down by compression with either a screw fitting or if using a pickle barrel setup the lid could hold it in position. If the centre pipe had large sections cut out of it, it could reach all the way to the top. wot u fink?

Depends on the depth FF (and how good you are with exact cutting ) Holding the central colum would be difficult as bouyancy exerts lots of lift.
I would prefer glueing (spelling), possibly polyethelene glue ie Sikaflex but havent tested it yet.
BTW the first is based on a Bitron design, sort of. Picked one up for nix and it does a good job but the foam is too fine (cleaning them is a pain).

Playing around with the large swirl filter and was wondering what type of vortex I could get going with a 10000lpr pumping through a 2in pipe into a 200ltr olive drum. Small waste outlet in the bottom center that bleeds out at a small constant rate. In a lot of the large demos for vortex they use a stick to make the water swirl fast and you see that the solids are forced into the center.