On our block we have water pumped straight out of the Murray. It is milky brownish. We have had a sample of it in a large jar for 2 weeks. It has not settled out at all. We are planning on using this water in the loo and laundry. The loo would be fine but it may not be so good for the clothes. Has anyone had any experience with carbon filters or something that will remove the milkiness? We had been looking at the type of filter that has a very fine steel mesh to filter water, but decided that because no particles settled out those filters probably would not do anything.
Good question!! I bet there are some GR8 homemade filters out there! What happens if you aerate the above sample ??? I put a piece of marble in my tank to absorb heavy metals,, i recon it works! I trust not too much of my shit/wee is getting in your water!!
I've been building one for the past few weeks, well...gathering parts. Stones, through to varying grades of gravel, through to sand, through char will give you clean water at the end. The same design can scale up or scale down, maintenance is cleaning out larger chunks and harrowing the top scum layer from the fine sand stage (or removing an amount). Char replaced when it's full, minimum a year. This is for drinking water, your needs may get away with sand/gravel filter which would probably speed up the movement of the water through the substrate.
I built a gravel filter for my pond. When I turned it on for the first time the water was the colour of bad sh#t lol for the day and a half. You couldn't see into the water at all. Very pea soup like After that it was crystal clear and still is. I built a box out of treated pine sleepers and lined it with liner. I feed water in through a 50mm pvc from a 25mm black poly pipe from the pump. The 50mm goes down to the bottom at the back then towards the front with a series of elbows to allow the water in to the filter. I filled it with 5,10, 20 river rock only because I couldn't get scoria here in Qld. The box from memory is about 900 x 700 x 600. It holds about 1 cubic metre of rock. The pics show the old way I first did the pvc before the elbows but give you an idea. The fish pic is overnight after I turned it the afternoon before. I have it all planted and except for the plumbing you would think it is just a raised garden bed. You could try this idea and flow into a tank. I cleaned the filter after 4 years several years ago now but still running clean. If you can get some powerful magnets attach them to the pvc pipe on a removable section and they will pull the iron out of the water. Try small scale then you could go bigger.
This is the original article I wrote on it. https://forums.permaculturenews.org/showthread.php?12154-My-Home-Made-Pond-Filter
Thanks for all the thoughts. Very interesting home made filters. I was hoping I could clean the water without the use of pumps but I think that was a pipe dream. I might see how the washing comes out without any sort of filter and there is a possibility of doing a final rinse in rain water.
the water is the CPC pipeline. This is a private water supply that was put in during the last drought mainly for the vineyards around Langhorne Creek. The water is pumped out of the Murray at Wellington and piped to places in this area. If you are on the pipeline you can buy into it. it is a community based water supply.
Water can gravity feed through substrate using a float valve. Comes out slow out the other end though.
https://www.slowsandfilter.org/ This guy is getting up to double digits of water liters an hour. [video=youtube_share;BaCOlRlw3K4]https://youtu.be/BaCOlRlw3K4[/video]
dreuky, have you had the river water tested for contaminants and organics? Are you sure there are no leaking septic pits or cattle upstream, or industry leaking/dumping substances, or even high-nitrogen fertilizer runoff from the vineyards? Dirt may not be the only thing you need to filter out. Brian, what a wonderful looking filter. When you cleaned it after 4 years, did it show layers of stuff on top, or what made you decide to clean it when you did?
Sweetpea your concerns about my water supply gave me a chuckle. This water is straight out of the lower end of the Murray River. Anyone in Australia knows that the Murray particularly the lower end is very polluted. No one in their right mind would think of drinking it & when we signed the contract to be connected to this water they made us sign that we know it is not potable water.
dreuky, so then you know that those pollutants can get taken up in the food you grow, and cling to the fibers of the clothes you wear. even if you don't drink it. There are special charcoal filters that say they filter 98% of the bad stuff out of water, but I'm not sure if they are starting with municipal water that meets some standards or what. Those large pitchers with the white plastic screw-in filters are the ones I'm talking about. There are larger filters for houses that can be screwed in under the sink. There are large collection ponds not far from me that a small community takes from that requires charcoal filters, and they seem to feel that those do a good job, except when the algae growth gets too heavy and the clothes smell like mold. Have you seen the YouTube videos about collecting rainwater on carport-type roofs that go directly into big water tanks? They seem to be able to collect quite a bit, and maybe that's your safest source? House roofs with composite shingles are not a safe water source. Those shingles are breaking down into toxic substances all the time, so that water should only be used for landscaping plants, and not household water or vegetable/fruit tree water.
Of course we will be having rainwater for the house. I have lived on rainwater only for the last 40 years. The reason I will be using Murray water as well as rain at the new place is the rainfall is much lower and we would be really struggling to collect enough rainwater. As far as worrying about pollutants in the Murray water killing me if I water the vegies and wash my clothes in it, The whole of Adelaide is on Murray water for most of every summer. It is "treated" by SA Water to be made safe for humans. In MO the treating is probably worse than the water. When I say the Murray is polluted, it is but it isn't going to kill you unless you are immune suppressed. Thousands of people holiday along the Murray swimming/boating. As an aside for the Aussies who are old enough to remember the "school milk programme", I am, if you survived that you can survive anything Thanks Sweetpea for your concern
Elizabeth Downs Primary South Australia 1963 to 1968. I remember the milk very well with the little foil tops. Still alive today. I also grew up on the un treated, unfiltered rain water. The city supply water here on the Gold Coast is very yellow at times. Really noticeable when I run the grandson's bath. Sweatpea there was a lot of sediment on top of the filter but in reflection I think it was because we were having a very dry period and dust was settling on it. The intake filter at the bottom of the pond clogged up very fast too which reduced the flow to a trickle. It is made of shadecloth made into a bag with hot melt glue and gutter guard inside to hold it out.
dreuky, I guess I just meant maybe you want even more roofs collecting water. Cheers to your vibrant immune system! Brian, oh, I see, you used shadecloth as a filter before it even got to the gravel. Yeah, that would clog up really quickly. I've got iron coming out with clean water, so it seems to do well with frequent cleaning. The thing about the magnet, though, that is a bit interesting!
