How to clean the Swirl Filter

[aquaarche]

My new design is working really good. Hopefully urbanfarmer will be posting some pictures of my redesigned swirl filter. the intake line goes down through the center to about 4 inches above the bottom. the water then cycles upward through gravel and some 3M type scrubber pads and then drains out a 1 inch pipe to my float troughs. It works great and I am sure you guys can come up with better designs and filter components but this design work really good.

[rfeiller]

with the system for KOI we have vortex prefilters. these have a funnel design then the wide protion of the funnel becomes a 4' diameter cylinder at the top. it has four 4" outlets at the top and one 4" inlet at the mid point of the funnel to create the swirl and the sediment settles on the bottom of the vortex where a 2" drain pipe is located with a ball valve to discharge the sediment. we have found that it is better to not totally empty the sediment. the old sediment is very active and helps break down the waste. a picture would not help you visualize the vessel as the whole funnel portion is buried in the ground

[aquaarche]

I took a design that someone had linked to here and after setting it up it allowed some floating waste to get through to the float troughs. so all I really did was raise the gravel filter portion up and extended the intake below the gravel. As the water slowly swirls around from the bottom the heavier stuff settles to the bottom that which floats gets caught in the gravel or 3M scrubber filters before rising further to exit to the float troughs.

My current system is basically a very small experimental size. to which I have been learning the ins and outs and other problems of Aquaponics before I invest in a large commercial system. at this moment I did not b\put in a clean out valve. but I will at net cleaning.

though a picture may not help but a cut out or see through drawing of your /funnel/cone design might give us a good idea.