More Pictures!

This is the final setup for our filters. Before moving it to this position, we would have to pour water straight into the filters. By doing so, it disturbs the top layer of sand, which is not good for the system. In our new setup, all we have to do is pour 1 liter of water into the beverage dispenser on the left and 2 liters of water into the beverage dispenser on the right (the amount of water is dependent upon the volume of each filter). We found the optimum outflow for each of the beverage dispensers, slow enough that they wouldn't overfill the filters, but fast enough that the water leaving the system would be a flow rate similar to a real bio-sand filter.

This is a top look into the larger filter where there is now a diffuser plate. It ensures that the water is disturbing the biolayer as little as possible. This piece is especially crucial for a real bio-sand filter where the user normally dumps water into the top of the filter. We've already controlled our system with the beverage dispensers, but replicating our system as close as possible to the real thing will hopefully give us results as similar to real-life application.

Side view of the diffuser plate on the larger filter. This one is held up by some string and rubber bands. As you can see, the top of the filter has a lip which would not easily allow something like the diffuser to end up where it is now. It has to be in this position because we will be adding our activated carbon filter piece to the top of this filter in a few short weeks. This diffuser placement was craftily done by Mikell who had to bend the diffuser plate before placing it into the filter and then unbend it once inside, no easy task. (Thanks Mikell!)


Diffuser plate on top of the smaller bio-sand filter.

This is the side view of the smaller diffuser plate. This one is held up by ridges at the top of the filter.

At the end of every day, we cover our system with black trash bags. We want the filters to be in as little contact with sunlight, which could potentially stimulate some unwanted growth.


Thanks for reading =)