Return of the S.I.M.P.L.E. (Easy) thread

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Return of the S.I.M.P.L.E. (Easy) thread

Post by B.Scott »

I saw the thread posted by Chita and thought the board could well do with a repeat of the thread on static Kaldness. In Gaza's reponce he posted a picture of his convertion in one of it's many forms. Many of us on the board have repeated the static Kaldness idea and as far as I know most are quite pleased.
Unfortuanatly most of this info was lost with the demise of the old board. So here we can do a thread where we can all repost, what we did, how we felt about it and improvments. we might be considering.

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Post by B.Scott »

Here you can see my situation at the beginning. An Answer filter retro-fitted into a smallish 70cm vortex. While I did like the answer and the result it gave, the power costs were wearing me down quite a bit.. Having gotten advise from Maurice on Koi-Bito I decided to follow his example and convert to static kaldness.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/pics/answerinstall9.jpg[/img]


Once I finally found some materials I thought might be useful I proceeded to strip out the answer from the vortex. in this picture I still must remove the pipe with the elbow stuck in the inlet from the pond bottom right.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/pics/answerinstall7.jpg[/img]


A neighbor was about to throw out his old washing machine and a quick peek at the drum made me realize this might just be the perfect starting point. With the necessary beer, cuts in the hands and accompanying swear words I stripped the drum out. As luck would have it another neighbor had a trailer parked out front on his way to the garbage tip. With a sweet smile on my part he not only agreed to take my left over washing machine parts but helped me carry it out as well.

So here you see the drum in it's full glory. Nice and shiny but with one major drawback... The bottom is solid. At first I considered drilling holes into the bottom or using an angle grinder to cut slots. Drilling holes into Stainless steel is tedious to say the least as the drills tend to get overheated quite quickly. Using an angle grinder overheats the metal and will cause it to rust. Secondly it creates whopping burred edges that are hard to remove and will slice your flesh like a razor. One little side note... I recently tried some new angle grinder disks designed for stainless steel. They are very thin to reduce heating the metal and contain no iron which reduces rust forming on the edge on the cut... Worth noting.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/rebuild01.jpg[/img]


My Answer at this point was to replace the bottom of the drum with some perforated stainless I had in the shed. Using hacksaw blades in the jigsaw I cut our the bottom leaving only a small flange on the edge. The flange would serve as an attachment point for the new bottom and help maintain the rigidity or the drum.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/rebuild02.jpg[/img]


With the bottom removed I then cut the perforated stainless to size with a pair of heavy duty tin snips (not for those of you with weak hands)


[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/rebuild04.jpg[/img]



I then cut the central hole for the pipe to the next chamber of the filter. Because the strips of perforated stainless were too small I used two strips, aligned the holes and bolted them together.
Now it is simply a matter of drilling a few holes and bolting the stainless strips to the drum body.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/rebuild05.jpg[/img]


Adding an air pipe on the bottom allows me to mix the kaldness and loosen trapped debris before flushing

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/rebuild07.jpg[/img]


And here we have the finished product installed and working


[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/rebuild08.jpg[/img]

To be continued...
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Post by B.Scott »

I was so impressed with the results of the vortex to static kaldness conversion I decided to do the same for my 2000 liter Q-tank. Until that moment I had survived with a massive trickle tower and a primitive pre-filter. What I didn't like about it was the amount of power needed to pump the water almost 4' up to the top of the TT. A static Kaldness system would increase my pre-filtration and reduce the amount of power needed to move the same amount of water.
One lucky day I had a couple of pieces of large diameter pipe left over from a job. My plan to convert this to a q-tank filter quickly formed.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/mini-easy.gif[/img]


Having purchased all the needed valves and bits I stated to transform the PVC pipe into a useful filter system.

Starting with the fluid Kaldness chamber (on the left) I first needed a grate in the bottom to prevent the Kaldness from being flushed when I opened the valve to the drain. Using a couple of end caps, I took my trusty angle grinder and cut slots into it and then removed the sides. Once it was small enough to fit snuggly inside the pipe I took a small section of the same pipe and cut a bit out of the side allowing me to insert in inside the main pipe and allowing it to act as a support for the grate

The finished grate with support
[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy02.jpg[/img]

Support inserts in main tube
[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy03.jpg[/img]


Here you see the original cap (to be used as a bottom of the chamber) as well as the finished grate together with a second grate to be used as the bottom of the static kaldness chamber.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy10.jpg[/img]


Looking down the pipe the bottom grate sits firmly in place

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy07.jpg[/img]


In the picture above you see the black rings on the sides of the tube. These are sealer rubbers where the pipe attachments are inserted. Here you can see the rubbers in place and a second one fitted.


[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy05.jpg[/img]


When the two pipes are hooked up they should look something like this.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy12.jpg[/img]


Now it's time to make the container for the static K. A slightly smaller pipe was given vertical slots with the angle grinder and fitted with the slotted end cap pictured above.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy08.jpg[/img]


The over flow pipe is then slotted through the hole in the bottom

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy11.jpg[/img]


The contatainer is then placed in the larger pipe resting in the sweep to the 2nd chamber

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy09.jpg[/img]


To be continued...
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Post by B.Scott »

The guts are slipped into the rubber sealers. Because of the large diameter of the pipe, all the things that are to be glued are solvent welded with an extra thick glue that will fill up any irregularities in the fitting ensuring a water tight weld. Furthermore I placed the whole arrangement on a plywood pallet with some plywood spacers. Now it can be moved without stressing the joints and fittings.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy14.jpg[/img]


Hook up the q-tank and the outlet to dump the water to waste

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy15.jpg[/img]


And last of all add the air pump with a large air block to keep the kalness in chamber 2 in motion.

[img]http://www.dutchkoi.com/picture-files/wmini-easy16.jpg[/img]
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Post by B.Scott »

Some comments about using static K.
First of all I notice the blanket weed which had previously run wild in the pond began to dramatically die off. The speed of this was frightening. A spent more than a little time wondering whether of not some toxin had piggy-backed into the pond on the surface of the washing machine drum. By mid summer the algae had died back to the point that I could read the stamps on the rubber liner the pond is made of. In the second half of summer the walls were gradually decolonized by algae. This is all short with one remarkable exception. On the waterline mark and slightly above there in a 1/2" layer that still produces blanket weed. This isn't very abundant and it grows quite slowly. The other thing worth noting is that if I scrub the layer off, it doesn't seem to return. Anyone have any ideas as to why?
The static kaldness itself does a great job removing solids. Turning on the air ring is tantamount to making split pea soup. The amount of goop it frees up in impressive! One advantage to this over a bead/sand filter, in my opinion, is that the void space is still large enough that even when the static K is fully loaded the water can still pass through it with little trouble thus avoiding the coffee filter effect of the other two filters where the water is essentially pushed through the shite. The main area of resistance in experience is the holes on the drum getting clogged with larger bits of debris. Ideally one should place a large settlement of a screen/sieve filter before the static K. This would improve the length of time one could go without cleaning (during vacation?) from 3-4 days max to maybe a week or more. This is the only down side I have found to this system. It needs regular maintenance. Not a bad thing normally as a clean filter and frequent water changes are always a good idea. It's only in the vacation period when folks would like to slip away for a few days that it has it's drawbacks.

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Post by Gazza »

Good to see that again Scotty well done and i see you are still pleased with the conversion :wink:
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Post by Bob Hart »

Great post Scotty, lets see if you can get those views up again eh!
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Post by sweeper driver »

err.....didn't someone say something about it being 'simple' ?

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Post by B.Scott »

Well Rich... Simple is as simple does.
I like to muck about a bit and have loads of junk at my disposal. No matter how I do things I can almays find a way to make it better (and harder). I like to impress so I'm a showoff.
Now Duncan had some picture of something he made with from a plastic tub with a few saw holes in it. VERY EASY and simple to make. Still got those pics Dunc?

Garry and Bob also had a go and I wAs hoping they might add some pictures and discriptions of their gadgets to this thread as well.

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Post by Bancherd »

I am also very pleased with the high-void static media as mechanical filter;but my system is slightly different.
:idea:

I actually use a FOK-like pump(very efficient high-volume, low head pump) to pump water THROUGH the static media into the next chamber which is a moving bed system.

Water then gravity flows back into pond.
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deazy / eazy

Post by dave a »

see this link

www.koiquest.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=615
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Post by B.Scott »

VERY nice Dave. I'm impressed, what can I say?

Can you give us some insights into how you went about acutually making this niffty bit of kit?
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how I made it

Post by dave a »

well it is constructed in fibreglass the chambers just happend to be the right size of a couple of large empty food buckets I had lying around the mould for the cone on the bottom is made from a stainless steel dish that i managed to come across and was fit for purpose so the unit comprises of 3 parts,

The outer shell has the cone on the bottom from which the 2" waste outlet exits, at its lowest point, with the 4" feed to the next chamber passing through and into the inner chamber, this just sits on the elephants trunk in the vortex.

Within the inner chamber is the air ring for fluidisation of the K1 for cleaning.

The main reason for coming up with this was to save water as my vortex holds approx 350 gallons and to dump this daily was far in excess of what was need for weekly water changes, with the new system I can dump twice a day for 30 gallons maximum.

I will be making another one for the other filters on my system so will do a full set of construction photos to make it a bit clearer how it all bolts together
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Post by B.Scott »

Excellent. I for one will look forward to seeing it.

BTW Complements on the holes you drilled. Nice spacing and so sign of burrs on the edges.

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Kind comments

Post by dave a »

well thank you for your comments re the holes a very painfull job to get them neat I made a paper template with all the centres marked (use of autocad) taped in position I then drilled each hole 3 times starting with a small drill then 6mm and then 9mm and then cleaned them all with a file damm afull job to do but for me if its worth doing do it properly hence my relucatance to supply commercially LOL

The beauty of the clean holes is nothing snags on them so no build up of ****

to date the unit has worked very well coupled with RO water my TDS is now running at 185 from 460 so well pleased
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