OK ONE MORE TIME raceway filtration

[luke frisbee]

Eugeneg's post of the Momotaro Porous media Showers has me thinking I should ask the people that be here what they know about raceway filters...and for pics of filtration raceways they have seen.

first I'll post a few pics of the raceway of LakeLuke
but before I do that here is the 10.5 ft wide by 6+ ft deep vortex chamber. it is under the "Vortex Island, which is in the middle of LakeLuke... in the foreground is the bridge out to the island. it is a true island water goes under the bridge

[luke frisbee]

here is a pic inside the island...at the edge inside the vortex chamber are eight 4 inch pipes coming from eight bottom drains.
and there is a 6 inch exit pipe (duct tape) for the water to leave the vortex and come up inside the raceway.

[luke frisbee]

the pipe does NOT come up at one end of the raceway and empty at the other. When I was trying to put this all together I figured I'd need to have the racewway take care of the skimmer(s) as well, so 80% of the north leg of the raceway was going to be for the skimmers and they were going to go back to the lake through a couple of four inch lines that are at the east end of the north leg of the raceway...

[luke frisbee]

the pipe does NOT come up at one end of the raceway and empty at the other. When I was trying to put this all together I figured I'd need to have the raceway take care of the skimmer(s) as well, so 80% of the north leg of the raceway was going to be for the skimmers and they were going to go back to the lake through a couple of four inch lines that are at the east end of the north leg of the raceway...
in this pic I inside the raceway at the west end of the north leg. the pipe right up close is the 6 inch feed from the vortex...you can sorta see the two four inch pipes at the other (east) end. They have four inch ball valves on them..and are never used. well let me say the 4 inch ball valves are used all the time...to keep water from going out the pipes.
also if you look on the right wall you can see blocks stuffed in the two "skimmer" holes about 15 ft apart.

[luke frisbee]

so there you have it. the pipe from the vortex comes up about 10-13 feet before the turn to the left into the west leg of the raceway.....
(one thing you can see my raceway is bigger than some people's ponds.)
give me a little bit and I'll post more

[luke frisbee]

right now, where I am standing in the pic above is two spools of strapping to mechanically filter the larger floating objects. then next is about 15-20 cu ft of pvc shavings to catch the smaller stuff...
then ( in case you've been living in a cave) the water is liffted and tossed over this porous media shower.
I had considered this PMS too small but after Eugeneg's pics of Momotaro's Porous media showers i think these are a greater relative size to the body of water..but I am probably going to add more to it

[luke frisbee]

what i have done so far is in no way an end...I am not at all sure that this is all i can do with this raceway.
i need to see all the raceway pics I can.
i need to hear from those that have some insights about raceway filters...and even maintenance of these kinds of filters.
what have YOU seen...what would you do.

[mitten]

The latest thing I saw is the thing that has impressed me the most. In FrankMs rebuild of the rock pond he used chair blocks to create up down concrete filters. He's Bad. The filter is Good. Maybe NancyM would share more details.

[luke frisbee]

Why Mickey?
Why did you respond to this thread?