Revolving drum scrubber - patent

[Rumpy Pumpy]

Stumbled upon this

"An improved algae scrubber system having a partially submerged rotatable drum wrapped in plastic mesh or algae screen"

http://www.google.com/patents?id=EUI...ed=0CDMQ6AEwAA



Seen this idea floated on here a couple of times and I did consider building one myself to try it out.

Interestingly the patent was filed ten years ago.

[Rumpy Pumpy]

And an earlier one dating back to '94

http://www.google.com/patents?id=4Yk...page&q&f=false

[Floyd R Turbo]

I think this (first one) is the same one that was posted on here a while back, something made the news and they had a big pond in a dome with hundreds of wheels turning, etc...
Found it

http://www.algaewheel.com/

[Rumpy Pumpy]

I think this (first one) is the same one that was posted on here a while back, something made the news and they had a big pond in a dome with hundreds of wheels turning, etc...
Found it

http://www.algaewheel.com/

Yep, remember seeing that.

Still don't know how they harvest the algae though.

I still think it would be interesting to see a little one on a fish tank, just to see how efficient it would be.

Maybe one day I'll do it, when I have the time.

[rossigeologo]

I believe a mess to pick-up drums and clean them.... it could be less tall than a screen but wider... i' can't see anything useful in such design...

[RkClimber]

You know I like this idea. It would have really good water, air and light contact. It would need to be sized like a horizontal screen but in a tube form using the screen type that is currently being used. Have the water go onto it like a water fall and the lights above. You could use a piece of acrylic with a hole cut out to the same dia. as the tube to scrape it clean. I like this what problems so you fins with this idea? I might try this.

[RkClimber]

So what do you think? The only thing is I don't think pods would live on this thing. The drum has a 1.75" dia.

[kerry]

I figured if it worked we would be using it and not the water fall type we are now.

[RkClimber]

Has anyone really tried doing it this way. I was talking with a friend who has a water treatment degree and he mentioned that this has and is done very successfully the only problem is that there was an overload of bacteria and the point of rotation actually broke from the weight. So I'm wondering why not give it a try. The only issue I see right now for my applications is it being very wide.

[Valberg]

I'd think raising the wall a little would release the stress on the point of rotation.