Vortex Maintenance

[Akai-San]

What kind of maintenance clearances is required for incorporating a vortex as the first settlement chamber for bottom drains? Aside from utilizing a direct flush valve to the drain to get rid of heavies, is there anything else associated with the maintenance of a vortex? Like Tom C, I have planned a deck around my pond and my filtration equipment is on another lower pad below deck. I will plan maintenance access via large hatchways to access vortexes but am I missing anything here? Thanks much.

Also would like to know which is a better set-up as a secondary solids separator. To have two 48" Vortex chambers in sequence leading to the pump and than biological filtration. Or, to have a 48" vortex chamber that leads to a micro-seive assembly which then leads to the pump and than biological filtration. Any successes or failures? Aloha.

[dick benbow]

I think either application you mentioned with vortexes or vortex/seive would work.

One thing I've learned is if the units are hidden away and not easy to get to, you won't clean them as often as if they are a breeze to get to and operate. No hassel operation is more productive than something that looks good.

[bekko]

You might want a small hinged hatch to access a vertical extension handle to operate the flush valve and larger two-man hatches to access the vortex for major cleaning, to clear a fouled drain line, etc. If the deck is built of two-inch lumber, a hatch gets pretty heavy if its more than a couple of square feet.

Since the top of the vortex has to be slightly above the maximum pond water level, the elevation of that concrete pad for the vortex becomes very important. I don't know if you can shim a vortex up with hollow tile (concrete block) and 2x4's. Remember, regardless of how well the system is engineered, they will invent some new and vastly improved way of filtering water as soon construction is complete.

steve

[Tom C]

I'm with Dick, it seems like when you put the filter out of the way under a deck they don't get the maintenance they need. My ponds some what new, but I was dumping my settling tanks on the Nexus units everyday in the summer.

I would also think about adding a T valve to each bottom drain. I have found this to be a major plus on cleaning out any waste that settles in them.

Tom