I tried to improvise a Swirl Filter and believe it or not it is working rather well. I used gravel instead of coral (I have some on order). My water is clear occasionally during power outage (quite common here) the water will back up into the fish tank and flow onto the ground.

My questions are for those who use this type of filter.

How often do you clean it out? even for the smaller version I made this is a big job.

How do you preserve the water? Water here is a precious commodity. just flushing the water though a clean out valve seems like a waste. In my case I never put one in.

It is a very interesting. it is not a fast cyclonic action but the waste seems to settle to the bottom and sides quite easily.

I made some design changes my fill line goes over the top and then down midway near the gravel in the clothes basket. I only drilled one hole and that was near the top for the water to exit to the grow beds.

everything right now seems to have settled down we had some cooler weather. the fish cleaned out the float troughs and so I put them back in the fish tank. planted some new seeds transplanted some others. the tomatoes made it through the ordeal but still no real fruit. I will plant again in gravel cups and see how they do.

never did figure out why everything started dying but as soon as I cleaned up everything and replaced 30% of the water things balanced out on their own. chemistry is all the same and pH is at a steady 7.0