Hi Everyone!
Today I'm going to give an update on the mineralisation system that I have set up.
So before I get started, I wanted to say thanks to our top tier Patreon contributors.
We have TrueAquaponics.com.
They have all kinds of neat nutrient deficiency information on their web site.
There's GreenLifePlanet.net.
They're located in the Caribbean.
They also resell our GrowGrips along with all kinds of other great aquaponic equipment.
There's GlassBottleOutlet.com.
They have all kinds of really cool glass bottles, spray bottles, great things for holding all
types of chemicals.
And also a long time YouTube watcher that wanted to remain anonymous.
So, thanks a lot!
Last time I mentioned that I thought maybe with this small line going between the swirl
filter and the mineralisation tank it might get plugged up.
And it did, it had some lettuce that got caught in it.
It's no big deal.
The mineralisation tank looks really good.
I get a little bit of scum on the edges, it's no big deal, it comes right off.
And then in the settling area, the water stays nice and clean and is just bleeding right
out of this little hole and that hasn't gotten plugged at all.
A little bit adds up along the sides of the walls but it just falls off and goes down
to the bottom and exits out.
Here's a close up of what the water looks like without it bubbling.
This one has been running for about 4 weeks without doing any cleaning between the swirl
filter and the mineralisation tank.
For fun, I thought I would see how much solids are in each area of the system.
I don't have a scientific way of measuring it, but taking a few water samples and letting
it settle down to the bottom is a fairly good way of determining that.
We'll get a sample at the swirl filter, and one here at the mineralisation tank.
And we'll get one here as the water leaves the mineralisation tank.
And one as it drains out of the last filtering in the media beds.
We'll let these settle down overnight and see how they look in the morning.
We''ll pull this all apart and see what it looks like inside.
There isn't much too this settling tube.
I have a cutout down at the bottom.
A hole on the inside, that's where the outlet is.
I have this oval cutout, that slides down inside and sits at roughly a 60 degree angle
in there.
So as the solids settle down inside the tube, the angle just forces everything right out
and back into the turbulent water that's in the mineralisation tank.
It's essentially self-cleaning.
There's a little bit of debris clinging to the walls on the inside, but it's no big deal.
The overflow tube is still simple.
It's' got a little tiny hole here, the top of the standpipe for emergency overflow which
rarely is used.
So the water just bleeds out of the tank and slowly fills it in.
You get a very low turn rate, but it holds on to the solids nicely.
It's super easy to put back together.
Drop in the tube...drop in the ramp....and put the standpipe back in.
Turn the water back on.
Alright, so it's been a day and let's see what solids have fallen down to the bottom
of the different bottles.
First one is the water coming out of the swirl filter.
Now I'm actually surprised that there wasn't a little bit of debris on there because that
swirl filter is undersized for my system, but there's almost nothing in this bottle.
The mineralisation tank, of course it has all kinds of stuff in there and some stuff
coming up to the top of the bottle.
See all these little gas bubbles here and it starts to break down it gets some bubbles
stuck to the material and that floats it up to the top.
And then here is the water coming out of the mineralisation tank and it''s nice to see
that there is almost nothing at the bottom.
There's some really fine pieces that are sitting down there.
Overall, very happy, with that.
And the media bed, this is existing the media bed so it is very well filtered and there
is nothing in this water.
And this what's going into the DWC beds or back directly into the fish tank.
Overall, I"m very happy with how well the system is filtering the water.
So overall I"m really happy with this solids removal system.
I do have another design for the mineralisation tank that I think will work even better than
this one, but I"m not going to build that until next year when I do the larger greenhouse.
I''d like to thank all my Patreon subscribers.
If you want to subscribe to Patreon and help support the videos and our future greenhouse,
I"ll leave a quick link up here and thanks for watching!
Remember that little banana tree that planted a few months ago?
Now touching the ceiling again.