I am looking for some activated carbon to make a filter/ water purification filter.
Anybody know where to buy the stuff??
Anybody know where to buy the stuff??
Aquarium supply stores. Try here http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/filter-media/aquarium-carbon.html
I buy cartons of it for my aquarium at Petco and PetSmart. Not sure if there's a "food-grade" version that's different than what I buy, but it's there and it's cheap. I've never looked at Wal Mart's aquarium supply section, but they may even have it.
http://thefilterguys.biz/bulk_carbon.htm
Used their stuff before for my RODI, had no problems with it and it's cheaper than a lot of the "retail" packaged products.
Used their stuff before for my RODI, had no problems with it and it's cheaper than a lot of the "retail" packaged products.
I will let you know what I am thinking about and anyone please tell me what your thoughts are.
I have 2 big swimming pool sand filters that the top controls are messed up so I can no longer use them for a pool. These sand filters tanks have a bottom spout for draining the tank to winterize.
The gist of my idea is to make layers of activated carbon at the bottom of the tank with layers of fine sand in between then sand at the top.
The water would enter the top of the tank, water would seep its way thru the layers and exit out the bottom drain into a holding tank to end up with potable water.
Of course I have to figure out the down and dirty details of other small things but this is what I am thinking in a nut shell.
Any ideas about this??
I have 2 big swimming pool sand filters that the top controls are messed up so I can no longer use them for a pool. These sand filters tanks have a bottom spout for draining the tank to winterize.
The gist of my idea is to make layers of activated carbon at the bottom of the tank with layers of fine sand in between then sand at the top.
The water would enter the top of the tank, water would seep its way thru the layers and exit out the bottom drain into a holding tank to end up with potable water.
Of course I have to figure out the down and dirty details of other small things but this is what I am thinking in a nut shell.
Any ideas about this??
I sent messages to the filter guys link to pick their brain and what to use, they might be the sourse for the carbon.
I remember taking apart one of the sand filters before. . . If I remember right the controls had a tube that went down to the bottom and that had a manifold with "fingers" radiating out where the water would go in to and then head back to the pool. Water would go in the top of the sand area during normal filtration and be pushed through the sand.
Even if the controls are goofed you should be able to disassemble them and set the control into a regular filter position and use the system as intended with your layers of carbon and sand. The one thing I would do is wrap the "fingers" in a cloth filter material and the bottom 1/3 of the filter would be carbon and the top 2/3 would be sand. Allowing the sand to capture as much of the initial as possible, then the carbon to remove the rest of the stuff. Still have to wonder about contaminants like bacteria and viruses etc but that would do pretty good to filter out metals and other contaminants. Since you have two filters you could go as far as to do a multi stage setup, running through one first and then the other.
After that my best guess is some pool chlorine tabs to sterilize, it sounds bad but when I worked on a pipe crew and installed water lines every junction had one tossed in. When they were flooded with water for the first time the tabs would help to super chlorinate the water and sterilize the lines since they had been exposed to air. I have no idea how long they took to fully dissolve but I can guarantee that people were drinking the water before the tabs were gone. Probably just set something up in line that would allow the water to flow over the chlorine tab and then pass to a holding tank after it is filtered. . . if you didn't mind wasting the carbon for absorbing the chlorine you could do that before it entered the filters to kill off the bacterial and viral contaminants.
Even if the controls are goofed you should be able to disassemble them and set the control into a regular filter position and use the system as intended with your layers of carbon and sand. The one thing I would do is wrap the "fingers" in a cloth filter material and the bottom 1/3 of the filter would be carbon and the top 2/3 would be sand. Allowing the sand to capture as much of the initial as possible, then the carbon to remove the rest of the stuff. Still have to wonder about contaminants like bacteria and viruses etc but that would do pretty good to filter out metals and other contaminants. Since you have two filters you could go as far as to do a multi stage setup, running through one first and then the other.
After that my best guess is some pool chlorine tabs to sterilize, it sounds bad but when I worked on a pipe crew and installed water lines every junction had one tossed in. When they were flooded with water for the first time the tabs would help to super chlorinate the water and sterilize the lines since they had been exposed to air. I have no idea how long they took to fully dissolve but I can guarantee that people were drinking the water before the tabs were gone. Probably just set something up in line that would allow the water to flow over the chlorine tab and then pass to a holding tank after it is filtered. . . if you didn't mind wasting the carbon for absorbing the chlorine you could do that before it entered the filters to kill off the bacterial and viral contaminants.
Now were are getting somewhere.
You are right about how it is made up inside the tank, that is one of the things I will have to address so that I can use it as is with minor mods.
Using these in two stages is what I was thinking, the water would be captured from rain run off on a metal roof, it will have a screen element to knock out the bigger stuff then thru a mess sock for the smaller particals, from there it would go into the first 500 gallon tank which feeds the stage 1 sand/carbon filter then to stage two, from there it would go into another 500 gal holding tank.
Really wondering on what kind of volume can go thru this type of setup.
As for the bacteria and virus protection, I have got to figure out if there is a particular type of carbon to use for that, or if something else will have to be used.
You are right about how it is made up inside the tank, that is one of the things I will have to address so that I can use it as is with minor mods.
Using these in two stages is what I was thinking, the water would be captured from rain run off on a metal roof, it will have a screen element to knock out the bigger stuff then thru a mess sock for the smaller particals, from there it would go into the first 500 gallon tank which feeds the stage 1 sand/carbon filter then to stage two, from there it would go into another 500 gal holding tank.
Really wondering on what kind of volume can go thru this type of setup.
As for the bacteria and virus protection, I have got to figure out if there is a particular type of carbon to use for that, or if something else will have to be used.
Any industrial chemical supply should have it or be able to get it for you. But you may have to buy far more than you need. If you are going to sell these, that's definitely the way you want to go, the price will be drastically less in bulk.
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