I am in the process of building a pond around 5,000gal and beginning to plan the filtering system. I am a teacher and have had 40 cases (500 per case) of drinking straws sitting in my storage closet for the last 5 years. I have read about using drinking straws as biomedia before, but there is not a lot of info about it. Basically that it works but is not worth the work if you have to buy and cut them yourself.
I am planning on building a large bio tower and filling it with scrubbies, but the straws are free so I am thinking of using them too. My question is what do you think is the most efficient/best use of the straws?
Option 1, cutting them into pieces and putting them in a trickle tower. My question is what size would work best for housing bacteria? 1"-2" ? Also would the water mainly run off of them and not fully use the surface area? Especially if they are too long? I probably have about 30gal worth after they are cut up
Option 2, I was thinking of filling a 8' piece of 4" PVC pipe mostly full with small pieces (.5" ) and running a flow of water up through it similiar to a FBF. That way the pieces will be fully submerged and bouncing around, kinda like a bead filter. I could countersink it mostly underground and have a screened output (to keep straws in) that runs back to the pond. My concern would be having a flow rate high enough to keep the straws moving without clogging but not blast the bio off. With it countersunk I wouldn't think there would be much pressure so a small pump around 500 gph run after the trickle tower should work. If I go through all this work it seems like I may as well build a FBF with sand that would have much more surface area though.
Option 3, Build a basic up flow filter above the pond so they are fully submerged. Use scrubbies and then a grate to keep the pieces in. Concerns would be clogging and build up. If i use them in a tower it is easier to use a prefilter.
Option 4....I am very open to suggestions and opinions.
So what do you guys think would work best?
The straws were all individually wrapped. Luckily I have plenty of eager helpers who unwrapped 20 cases (10,000 straws) yesterday. (After work was complete of course
)
Here is one 5 gal bucket cut into pieces .5"-3" There is probably enough for about 6 full buckets.
I am planning on building a large bio tower and filling it with scrubbies, but the straws are free so I am thinking of using them too. My question is what do you think is the most efficient/best use of the straws?
Option 1, cutting them into pieces and putting them in a trickle tower. My question is what size would work best for housing bacteria? 1"-2" ? Also would the water mainly run off of them and not fully use the surface area? Especially if they are too long? I probably have about 30gal worth after they are cut up
Option 2, I was thinking of filling a 8' piece of 4" PVC pipe mostly full with small pieces (.5" ) and running a flow of water up through it similiar to a FBF. That way the pieces will be fully submerged and bouncing around, kinda like a bead filter. I could countersink it mostly underground and have a screened output (to keep straws in) that runs back to the pond. My concern would be having a flow rate high enough to keep the straws moving without clogging but not blast the bio off. With it countersunk I wouldn't think there would be much pressure so a small pump around 500 gph run after the trickle tower should work. If I go through all this work it seems like I may as well build a FBF with sand that would have much more surface area though.
Option 3, Build a basic up flow filter above the pond so they are fully submerged. Use scrubbies and then a grate to keep the pieces in. Concerns would be clogging and build up. If i use them in a tower it is easier to use a prefilter.
Option 4....I am very open to suggestions and opinions.
So what do you guys think would work best?
The straws were all individually wrapped. Luckily I have plenty of eager helpers who unwrapped 20 cases (10,000 straws) yesterday. (After work was complete of course
)
Here is one 5 gal bucket cut into pieces .5"-3" There is probably enough for about 6 full buckets.
.