Drum Filters are basically fully autiomatic pre-filters designed to remove dirt particles to as low as 50 microns in size, this reduces the biological load on your biological filters significantly improving their performance.

Although drum filters are generally more expensive that other types of pre-filters such as sieves they afford the pond keeper the best form of mechanical filtration available and significantly reduce the mainenance to keep your pond in tip top condition for your fish.

There are two basic types of filtration required for a successful pond, mechanical filtration and biological filtration, in this section you will find a variety of drum filters by the worlds leading manufacturers that will perform this task for you. Here you will find stand alone drum filters, these are available in pump and gravity fed versions and are basically just the pre-filter which can be installed before your choice of biological filter, this can be for instance a moving bed module or bead filter. You will also find here combination filters which as the name suggests are a combination of both a mechanical drum filter with an intergral moving bed (biological filter) built into the same unit, saving on  both space and installation costs.

We carry a range of drum filters such as AquaForte, Filtreau, Superdrum and the amazing OASE modular systems, which can be designed and taylored to meet the needs of the most demanding environments and fish stocking levels. We have the latest technology drum filters such as the Bio Rotator drum filters that basically contain an addition drum filter that acts as a biological roating bio chamber.

How do Drum Filters work

The pond water enters the drum filter via the inlet side to the filter. The pond water then enters the inside of the drum, the drum's screen has slots of 50 microns (depending of the drum filter purchased)  allowing the water to pass through the screen to the outlet side of the drum. All dirt particles greater than 50 microns (depending on model) which is less than the width of a human hair are then trapped on the inside of the drum screen. As these deposits are collected on the inside of the drum screen, the screen becomes more and more dirty, when this happens the water flow is reduced passing through the screen. This will cause a change in the water level inside and outside of the drum screen. A water level difference between the incoming water and the outlet water is monitored by a float water level switch.

The water level switch detects the change difference between the input water level and output water level and sends a signal to the drums controller to activate a cleaning cycle. The drum filter itself will decide when the drum screen needs cleaning. Once a cleaning cycle has been initiated by the controller, the controller will rotate the drum automatically and activate the pressure cleaning pump which will pump water under pressure through the spray bars to wash the drum screen and dislodge all the dirt from the inside of the drum. This dirt or debris from the pond, is basicaslly jet blasted into a collection shute which is connected to the waste outlet of the drum and therefore all the dirt particles are removed automatically. Once the cleaning cycle has finished (approximately 20 seconds) the drum filter simply returns to normal filtration mode. Depending on model you can decide if you wish to clean the drum with mains tap water (minimum  pressure: 2 bar, Maximum pressure: 4 bar) or with a pressue pump using the clean pond water (recommended).

TFrom here, the mechanically filtered water then passes through to the next stage which is the biological filtration, this can be in the form of an integral moving bed, an external seperate moving bed filter or multiple moving bed filters arranged in line. From here it is also possible to connect external bead filters and pressurised filter systems where the biological nitrifaction process takes place. The fully filtered water then simply returns to the pond.