Helping Hand Dengkil AP The Sediment Catcher

Alright since weve decided to end the era of the solids settling in the gutters, here comes the settling tank!

Before that lets see some better pictures of the pond...after the filter reworking...

 Water is pretty clear but it appears yellowish...before we hooked up the AP system it was much cloudier than this. Since the AP system the particles were being transported to the gutters and settled there...we think thats causing the slow growth were observing...

The filter appears to be working but time to time it will choke and will need us to make way for the water flow so it doesnt choke the pump. This action will create bypasses in the filter hence making the filter ineffective for solids removal. Nevermind, we will attempt one last try for the filter after we install the sediment catcher for the AP gutters. After all, we need to find out if the growth problems would be solved by the sediment catcher.



THE SEDIMENT CATCHER (OVERFLOW FILTER)

A rough sketch of my overflow filter

How it works?
Water enters the bottom of the tank into a settling chamber then flow up through filter pads. The outflow works on the overflow principle and supplies the water to the gutters. Solids will settle at the bottom of the tank, while the finer ones will be trapped in the filter materials.

Items needed?
- plastic barrel (we used 55gal drum, for smaller applications just find the cheap wastebin)
- pvc fittings
- pvc pipes

How to build it?
Well let me explain the process with some pictures...

Some of the items Ive listed...total cost including barrel, pipes, fittings, and filter material. About RM 200

Cut open the top with a jig saw...save the lid

Make the filter material support about midway of the tank. Install a drain outlet at the bottom. Two overflow holes to supply to the gutters. The inlet is about half the height of the space between the bottom of the tank and the filter pads. This empty space is the settling chamber.

Here is the final arrangement, the lid has been sawed for holes and serve as a tray to hold the leca and filter pads. The water enters at the bottom, then overflows into the green basin and proceed to the two overflow pipes (overdesign to prevent mishaps).

Another idea I didnt think of earlier was to use the lid, attach stands to it and just set it inside the tank to make it easier instead of making supports from drilling the drum wall to set the pipes to hold the media, it would also allow us to change the height of its stands if we need to adjust it...too bad the idea came too late after weve drilled 8 holes for the support pipes.

The filtering goes with leca first, then some coarse pad and on to about 3 layers of fine pads. Well also add some coral grits and some iron on top of the filter pads to supply the good stuff to the AP plants.

Weve completed the build of the tank but we couldnt find the time to install it. So Haji Anwar is gonna install it some time this week and Ill update you when I visit him in about 2 weeks.

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