Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey all,

I'd like to introduce myself before I begin. My name is Ben Hayt, I am from Long Island, New York and I am more of a koi pond guy than aquaponics but I figured I'd check out the forum. At age 18, I am pretty young to be as passionate about fish as I am now. I feel I have a pretty good knowledge of fish keeping, but I want to expand my knowledge into aquaponics and aquaculture.

Well, I am starting off on this thread because I have a product that I would like feedback for. For years, I looked for the perfect filtration system for my pond and finally I found one. It was a rotary drum filter that was completely powered by tap water pressure. One thing led to another, and my father and I somehow became the distributor for the product. In short, a rotary drum filter is a filter that uses an automatic cleaning cycle in which a mesh screen traps debris and fish waste. The screen then clogs, triggers a cleaning cycle in which water sprays the debris and waste off the screen and out of your pond. You might ask how could a filter do this without any electronics whatsoever?

Well here is how the filter works! The RDF is entirely powered by tap water. The water connection requires that one has a minimum of 3 bars/45 psi of water pressure - this type of pressure is typical of a standard household’s water supply. Both the drum and spray bar are entirely driven by the energy created from the pressure from the tap water. A float valve is used to trigger the spray bar and rotation of the drum. The drum is equipped with a stainless steel screen and is designed to rotate 90 degrees during a cleaning cycle. While the rotation drum can be sped up by an adjustment knob to make a full rotation, there’s a reason for the limited radial turn because of the benefit in keeping the inside of the filter partially covered in debris. In the same fashion that a dirty oil filter will trap finer particulates, the dirty drum effectively filters smaller than 60 microns from the pond water.The RDF is filtering down to between 10 to 20 microns.

Here are my thoughts, in how the filter can be applied to an aquaponics system. Since the fish waste is being removed so efficiently, you get a very nutrient rich mixture of waste/water and if you connect the waste drain from the RDF to a set of grow beds you may have some success. Every time the cleaning cycle occurs, dirty water will flow out the waste drain into your grow bed which minimizes the amount of maintenance one must do,

Please feel free to ask question and give input on what you might feel the system could be applicable to.

Attached are some videos of the filter for a better understanding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v39Lt9taekc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtoai2e9uyk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxGPPdpnl6w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkumgRZqFn4

2 questions. Price? How much water does it waste?

yes, running on tap water sounds really bad.

also, running from drum to mineralisation tank would be better, no point filtering solids to send to a bed when they were going there anyway.

It use approximately a quart of water per cleaning cycle.

Doesnt a drum filter constantly spin?

you said it runs completely by tap water including the spinning of the drum during normal operation.... how much water does it REALLY use in a 24 hour period??

<pedantic mode = on>
Really? I'd suggest the energy is *transferred* from the currently undisclosed volume of tap water, but certainly not created. That would violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, but being new here, you may not realise that all AP systems must obey the First Law!
</pedant>

omg, classic pedantic.

This drum filter does not constantly spin, it only spins during a cleaning cycle. A cleaning cycle is activated by a float valve. For example, the drum remains still but water has to pass through the screen. As the screen gets clogged with debris the water level in the filter drops. This activates a cleaning cycle that uses a quart of water to turn the drum and to clean the screen from the spray bars.

It really depends how much water it uses a day because if your water is dirty and has a lot of particulate in the water it will clean more often then water that doesn't have as much dirt in the water.

Yes! Transferred is correct. Thank you

Still no mention of cost

If you're confused by people reacting negatively to the use of tap water, bear in mind that many areas of Australia very nearly ran out of drinking water a few years ago so we changed our way of doing things and how we think rapidly.
For years it was illegal to water your garden and households were even supplied hourglasses for the shower to help us keep showers under 3 minutes. Water saving taps (faucets), toilets and shower heads are required by law too.
So you'll find a bit of resistance here to any use of mains water to power anything at all.
Not criticism, just trying to explain what's happening if you're surprised by it.

Thanks, that sounds a lot better for water usage

Bodgy is right we simply reject the idea because we are water poor, in some areas (mind I could have a vent about industry).
Country's of high rainfall and dams are a different situation because if they don't use enough water it is lost (or the energy stored is lost), my only question is drinking water is disinfected and the water would have chlorine or chlorinamine. I have not had a chance to look at the links you put in so if you have thought of this I apologise.

Edit

Or if you have surplus energy (was going to say energy to burn), like Gordon, you could drive it off a separate pump then recover the water.

If you are interested in cost please PM me. I made this thread not to advertise the product but rather to learn from experts if the product would work in the Aquaponics field.

Thank you for the clarification, I really appreciate it. Hmm, I am trying to think of a solution. The only thing I can think as of now of is if you can use water from your pond and run a booster pump from the pond to the filter to gain the pressure to rotate the drum. The issue is with this is that you would need to find a way to reuse the quart of water that it uses in each cleaning cycle because it is taking away water from the pond.