I have my matala laying flat as a block for the exit pipe of the vortex.
This serves two purposes. The first being to keep the fines from finding
their way to the filters. The second to keep frogs from taking the ride to
the pump impellors. Putting the matala in vertically would prevent the
water from being able to swirl, and would impede the settlement of the
solids. Some of the people that had the vortex filters when I got mine used
brushes in the vortex to catch a lot of the material that was too light to
settle.
A better option might be to split the water flow, with half coming from the
bottom drain to the vortex and half coming from a skimmer or mid water
return around the vortex. This would bring the bottom drain into the
correct flow range. 4" gravity feed pipe will have about a 1" draw down at
3500 gallons.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html
Zone 7A/B Virginia
"~ jan" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 3 May 2008 11:14:01 EDT, "RichToyBox"
wrote:
I have two ponds. Each has a vortex filter. One has the W Lim large
vortex
and one sequence pump pumping about 3500 gallons and it works well. The
exit pipe on this one has a piece of hardware cloth covering the exit pipe
to keep frogs from taking the ride to the pump. The other has a different
vortex, about the same size and has two sequence pumps, handling about 2
times the flow and it does not provide enough settlement time. This one I
use a piece of Matala to cover the exit pipe and it collects a lot of the
algae and other debris before it goes to the pumps. There are a couple of
microstrainers out there that are pressure washed from the inside to keep
it
a hands free cleaning, supposedly, but I think they are more than I want
to
spend. I have had small fish take the ride to the vortes filters, but a
small net gets them out and back to the pond. I don't think that I have
had
one make the trip twice.
RTB, if Dave got the largest vortex would just the swirl drop the solids
using the 7500 gph pump? Or do you think a piece of course matala hung
vertical would be wise? This would stop the fish and solids and probably
wouldn't need cleaning all that often. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us