Iron filter for water

[Piggy_jags]

for @snarling bee
Anyone who knows me, knows I hate with a passion iron in the water supply from bore holes in pigs.
I have been playing around for about a year now with differing systems to take away the iron through aeration of the water. The brief to myself is:
It needs to do 10 cube + a day
Cheap and easy to build and maintain in the region over £1000, against off the shelf £3000+

In the video below is proto type 2
The water comes out of the bore at 4-5 bar.

Then goes through the aeration bar outlet being one inch.
There is always 4inch (8cm) layer of water above a layer of sharp sand 8 cm then 20mm Stone shingle of around 12 cm finally concrete blocks
The exit is 32mm water pipe with numerous 8mm holes drilled in.
The 32mm pipe is all connected together and leads to a small pump and pressure vessel that then pumps the water into a 10k litre tank via a 3 quarter inch ball valve. Important that the outlet is smaller than the inlet on the filter.

I’m going to leave the filter running for a couple of weeks to settle and then I will test the iron levels which I will share with you.
if anyone else has done anything similar would love to hear your stories and thoughts

 

[milkloss]

for @snarling bee
Anyone who knows me, knows I hate with a passion iron in the water supply from bore holes in pigs.
I have been playing around for about a year now with differing systems to take away the iron through aeration of the water. The brief to myself is:
It needs to do 10 cube + a day
Cheap and easy to build and maintain in the region over £1000, against off the shelf £3000+

In the video below is proto type 2
The water comes out of the bore at 4-5 bar.

Then goes through the aeration bar outlet being one inch.
There is always 4inch (8cm) layer of water above a layer of sharp sand 8 cm then 20mm Stone shingle of around 12 cm finally concrete blocks
The exit is 32mm water pipe with numerous 8mm holes drilled in.
The 32mm pipe is all connected together and leads to a small pump and pressure vessel that then pumps the water into a 10k litre tank via a 3 quarter inch ball valve. Important that the outlet is smaller than the inlet on the filter.

I’m going to leave the filter running for a couple of weeks to settle and then I will test the iron levels which I will share with you.
if anyone else has done anything similar would love to hear your stories and thoughts

Well done, looks good. I will be watching with interest. We used to pump from a spring that was high iron years ago and we were milking at the time so eventually the fsa didn't like it. Have since cut up some of the iron pipes and they are absolutely choked.

 

[Piggy_jags]

This is one I made last summer. The bore pumps in at the top. This uses gravity to fill a tank and a submersible pump fills the header tank. The problem was we couldn’t get the bore to switch off. Luckily it didn’t matter as there was 9000 pigs on site so we needed back up from the mains.
there was 9mg/l of iron in the water, after it had passed through the tanks we got it down to 0mg.The tanks needed to be raked weekly to free the trapped iron. The top couple of inches of sand changed after 6 months.

 

[milkloss]

We tend to get iron settling at the bottom like a jelly. Would it work to use settling tanks like you have in the picture but to draw the cleaner water from higher up the tank and use the bottom tap to drain the sludge?

 

[Piggy_jags]

From what I’ve found out.
you need to filter it. But I am certainly no expert.
with the tanks the important bit is having the water above the sand so that jelly and iron can settle out. I read somewhere that bacteria eats something probably that jelly.
if I am honest I don’t know if the gravel and concrete blocks are needed it just seemed sensible

 

[Piggy_jags]

Just a quick update.
the filter has been running now for 10 days so we decided to see if its working.
Iron levels prior to the filter 2mg/l and out of the filter 0mg. We then attached the main water pump to the bottom of the tank to backwash it. we had to run it for about 10 mins to clear it.
the pigs on the farm are 15 weeks in so i reckon we are using somewhere around 18 cube a day.
the whole thing cost in the region of £1000

 

[Piggy_jags]

Thought I would try to show the plumbing. The cost just below £1000