Andrew Burgess wrote:
One summer we used plastic forks as our filter media. It worked well,
but they turned out to be heavier than I had expected.

Hey, good idea!
What do you use now?

We are now using the strapping "tape" or plastic strips (~1/4 inch wide)
that are overlapped and heat-sealed to secure boxes or bundles or loose
items. We get ours from the newspaper bundles for the boys' paper route.
It was a free, reusable substitute for filter "ribbon" or Springflo. You
might also be able to buy the tape from packaging product companies.

Other small, light-weight plastic filter materials: forks, tubes from
rolls of adding machine tape or adhesive tape, PVC pipe (small pieces,
or one ponder cut his PVC into 1/4-1/2 inch spirals with a lathe and a
blade set at a slight angle), dish "scrubbers" (typically orange/white,
blue/white -- buy in bulk from Costco, Walmart or on line), quilt
batting or other nylon / plastic based "stuffing" or "filling" (large
cell foam), nylon window screening (easy to "swish" clean); etc. Just
about anything with holes, grooves, indented surfaces that water can
flow through without any impediment. Don't use something like plastic
bottle caps because that creates "dead" areas where water can stagnate
or other materials where the water can create channels that bypass the
filtering ability of the holes, grooves, indents. The other thing to
look out for is that whatever material you use can't have any built-in
antibacterial or antimicrobial treatments (some furnace filters, some
quilt batting, some foam). Any of these smaller plastic items can be put
into mesh laundry bags, then the bags placed in the filter. That way
they're easier to swish and clean or hose off with declorinated water,
and it's easier to create layers that cover the entire barrel or box so
no water goes around the filtering material.
--
Kathy B, zookeeper
3500gal pong (Oregon)