Is this a skippy?

[buckry]

So I got my new pump ready to go for the UV filter tonight. It's pumping from the deepest part of the pond into a long hose which I will cut for the UV, and then into a small 3 or 4 gallon container. I put the hose all the way to the bottom, put in some really dense filters, then some less dense, then finally some really coarse filter, then put a layer of lava rocks on top. I closed the lid on the container, and cut a 2" hole in the side just above the lava rocks. So for now, it's pumping water, pretty forcefully through this material, but what I want to know is, will this contraption function as a bio filter at all, or am I just going to get some large particulate filtering out of it?

On the flip side, I have the same filter media set up in my in pond filters. A layer of really fine scrub pad type material, a really thick layer of soft dense filter, and on top some coarse natural media. My pumps draw water down through this material and then pump it out to my waterfall, but in this case it's a really large bucket, 15 gallons I think, so the suction power of my pump is spread out really thin, there is no spot where you can feel suction. Likewise if you stir up the algae in the area, you really cannot see the current of algae being drawn towards the bucket. Do you think these buckets have a decent amount of bio filtering going on?

 

[ididntdoit99]

Kind of... but you might want to switch your media around, coarse on the bottom, then medium, then fine.

that way the coarse media gets out all the big stuff, medium takes out a little more, and the fine stuff takes out the small stuff, if the water goes through the fine stuff first, it clogs faster, and its already taken out anything it can and the other two are pretty useless.

 

[buckry]

Actually the way I did this filter was with the medium dense stuff first, then the coarse stuff in the middle just for bio surface area, and the super fine on top, with lava rock on top of that. The coarse stuff is cut into 3" or so triangles and the two other filters are sandwiching it together to keep it in place. I ran it all night, and tried to check to see if it looked like it was filtering anything but the lava rock prevents me from seeing the filters very well. I might take it apart tonight and see how it looks. I'll repack in more appropriately and try to put some more media in there Maybe pack the dense stuff in and skip the lava rock, it's not going to do anything except hold a little bit of bacteria, but my filter should do that as well.

 

[koiguy1969]

thats not actually a skippy filter. it is an upflow filte. but not a skippy. all skippys are upflow but not all up flows are skippys. what makes a skippy is the swirl bar plumbing. the water creates a whirlpool or a semi "vortex" affect in the bottom of the filter basin. this gathers and settles the debris in the "sump" or bottom area of the filter. just running a hose or pipe down to the bottom will allow water to rise up thru the media but is likely to keep the water adgetated and debris in suspension longer . making them much more likely to rise up into,accumulate on, in, and clog the media.
thats why square containers dont make for a good skippy, you want round or oval containers so the water can swirl (whirlpool) and the debris can settle. a properly built skippy will perform quite well.

 

[buckry]

Ahh, I see, well I will have to try again with a small bucket that is round, actually no I'm not going to do that, I'm just going to wait and do the real one when I'm ready, no point wasting money on 5g buckets at this point.

 

[ididntdoit99]

oh, i guess i assumed it was a round bucket you were using, and if the hose was run down the side of the bucket and pointed in one direction you would get somewhat of a swirl going on, provided you left a void under the media... anyway, thats why i said it was kind of a skippy...

 

[buckry]

It's actually just like a kitchen trash can, but a lot smaller. I ran with it for about 48 hours then checked the filter, I didn't see any algae in it so I put it away. I'm just running the hose directly into my waterfall now, and the only reason I'm doing that is its going to be 100 degrees today I want to make sure I have maximum aeration. Once it cools off I'll take this pump offline and store it.