a DIY mini-bakki shower type filter

[JohnHuff]

I had these mini drawers laying around for years and decided a mini-bakki type shower would be a nice project for my elementary school aged kid. He'll be doing all the labor.


This is what they would look like stacked up. Not sure whether this will finish with 4 or 5 levels:


By trial and error, 7-8 holes will match the output of the mini-pump I have.


Three larger holes drilled in the back of all except the top level will allow some air passthrough, but not that much because we don't want a lot of evaporation.


Cut up straw media. This will be in 2 of the levels. They're having some kind of Earth Day so we decided everything in this project will be recycled, these straws are from some other leftover project. Actually there's so much leftover stuff from the kids' old projects that I'm pretty sure I can build a car with it.
Cut in about 1 inch lengths, not sure if we should cut into smaller lengths to allow more aeration, maybe, but it's a lot of work. Each level holds a suprising number of straws, I estimate an 8x10 amount of surface area counting inside and outside of straws. The straws are "slightly positively bouyant" and appear to mimic the positive characterics of the more expensive trademarked plastic media.




The other two levels will have pea gravel and the weight will help keep this from tipping over. The top layer will have a piece of styrofoam over it to decrease evaporation and probably a piece of foam for mechanical filtering. The bottom layer will have 3-4 openings for straws to release the effluent. Spent about 2 hours on it tonight, mostly testing flow rates and splashing water around.

Should take another couple of hours to get done on some other day. I will post more pictures then!

 

[addy1]

Very nice and creative! Bet it works well

 

[j.w]

Will we get to see it in action? Hope so as it sounds like a neat project!

 

[JohnHuff]

Thanks for your kind comments. Not much was done today other than getting the pea gravel from the backyard and cleaning the dirt off them. But yea, it has been a fun project so far. Went past his bedtime last night and was sure better time spent than in front of the TV or computer, and also helped him with his drilling skills. Drilling is always fun, but drilling with a purpose is even better!

I think we're going to drill more holes in the bottoms to increase the flow rate. I was planning on having the media sit in the water but it seems that fasting flowing water with more force is better, and the straws will be cut shorter for more air exposure. Yes, I will continue to post more pics as the project continues.

 

[fishin4cars]

neat idea, looks good and I like the idea of going green. I do though think a better option for the trays would be lava rock instead of pea gravel. Pea gravel will actually trap dirt and hold it and lava rock is more pourus and should hold more bacteria to it's surface than pea gravel would.

 

[JohnHuff]

I've only heard bad things about lava rock though, like how it needs to be cleaned because it gets clogged up.

 

[Waterbug]

Since it's a project for an elementary school aged kid it would be cool to actually test the filter when done in a controlled environment using ammonia. Takes a couple of weeks.

 

[JohnHuff]

Update!
Here are 4 levels, 2 of gravel and 2 of cut up straws. We did go back and cut up the straws into smaller pieces for better aeration.


Here are 4 of the levels stacked up. We will be zip tying them to keep them from falling apart. We're stuck here at this point because I'm still hunting around the house for some silicone or glue to seal the 4 straws on the lowest level. But I have some doubts about that and may be changing it to a single larger tube or even remove the straws depending on where we situate this.


I will post a final set of pics once it is finished and running.

 

[j.w]

Cool will be looking for the pics of it up and running!

 

[addy1]

Very nice, great looking project

 

[JohnHuff]

Did a trial run of the mini-bakki shower this morning. It was not a great success. Here it is temporarily set up next to the Skippy filter.

We decided to go with a single large outlet instead of the 4 straws because we thought we might use it to feed the Skippy filter. It has a styrofoam lid to help prevent evaporation and a small piece of filter at the outlet. The problem with it is there is a point of diminishing returns and this mini-filter is it, the flow through is too small and the height between levels too small to get that water crashing effect. And to top it off, I didn't manage to get another small pump yet.

In the end, we decided to put it into a nook of our waterfall where we just ran a large straw from the waterfall for the water supply. It's mostly hidden unless you look right at it, and actually it looks quite zen-like! You can see the water falling from level to level just like the real thing.


If I were to do it again, I'd double the dimensions of everything to make it worthwhile, but overall both this and the Skippy filter were fun mini-projects to do.

 

[addy1]

Nice looks great.

 

[j.w]

Very good and it is working fine all zenned out,lol!