Is that a homemade water filteration system for a huge saltwater fish tank?
Close enough. I'm really impressed by the intelligence here!
It's known as an RBC (Rotating Biological Contactor). I'm using it in an RAS (Recirculating Aquaculture System) (Freshwater). It's a small scale system to overwinter some fish fingerlings and get some experience with this kind of thing. The tank is supposed to be three times the size of the one in the below photo. I got the plans out of a book called
Small Scale Aquaculture by Steven VanGorder. Excellent book if you want to raise your own fish for food with limited resources.
This one provides 600 ft2 of surface area for two types of bacteria to grow on via 50 fiberglass plates (cut from fiberglass roofing sheets) and 50 polystyrene plastic sheets. One type of bacteria changes harmful ammonia produced by fish to nitrites, which in turn the other kind of bacteria changes the also harmful nitrites to nitrates which are pretty much harmless to the fish in moderate quantities. It's known as nitrification and is a natural process in all outdoor waters.
A 55 gallon drum draws in water to the bottom of it, and waste particles from the fish tank (350 gallons) via a U shaped siphon tube. The water is then pulled up via a small 5 gpm pump at the top of netting bunched in the tank, and then the water makes it way to the frame of the biofilter where it drops down on the waterwheel, and turns the RBC. With the drum, which is known as a clarifier, the particles are trapped under the netting, and periodically sprayed off of the netting and flushed down a drain in the bottom of the drum.
I have four ponds on the property where I raise fish in static and flow through ponds, and some in floating cages, and want to get my feet wet using a different type of system. I want to raise beautiful fish like this, in this kind of system, vs. one of my outdoor ponds this one came out of. Less water use, better biosecurity, temperature control, and no predators.