On 16/01/2011 00:17, IVP wrote:
> The question is though that some manual effort seems needed
> to periodically remove the sludge and I'm wondering if anyone
> has seen an automatic method that could be built at home. I
> don't really have room for a settling tank, and have to keep the
> health of the fish in mind too of course
>
> Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated

Not really thought this through, so likely to have many flaws, but maybe=20
it will at least trigger some real ideas (quite possibly in the form of=20
the flack I get for suggesting it... :-) )
Anyway - taking the sticky nature of the sludge into account, maybe some=20
sort of motorised conveyor belt made out of filter material could=20
somehow lift the sludge out of the water and deposit it in a receptacle=20
for "convenient" emptying (maybe it could be incorporated into your UV=20
tank) Run very slowly (or best speed taking into account and making best=20
use of settling/gravity), and with a narrow gap on the return to=20
"scrape" any remaining sludge the gravity fails to deal with.
Another random un-thought-through-properly thought was applying the=20
Dyson (vaccum) principal to the centrifuge/filtering somehow... (never=20
looked into exactly how it works, but it sounds like a possible source=20
of ideas)
Ok, now I'll go off and get on with something I (may) actually know a=20
little bit about... :-)


--=20
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