Idea for an RUGF plate

[Mandelstam]

I work as a landscape architect and today I saw something in my bookshelf at work that gave me an idea. I've been thinking of incorporating a reverse under gravel filter in my tank and been looking around on different diy solutions.

These are drainage mats for green roofs (amongst other things). They come in different thicknesses but they all consists of a hard sheet of polystyrene and glued on geotextiles made of polypropylene. All I need to do is get a pipe down to that mat and it will distribute the water under the gravel.

The geotextile might be to densely woven and might get clogged up but it should be easy to change it out for some netting instead...

I might be able to score bigger pieces for free from the green roof company but these shouldn't be that expensive to start with.

These are made by a Dutch company called Nophadrain.

 

[Larry L]

This looks like a potentially cool idea, would be easy to cut to size for any given tank. The things I wonder about are: a) whether the fabric/screen is attached securely enough to prevent pressure from below from separating it from the grid over time, and b) whether the cone-shaped things in the grid would fill up with crud over time.

I also wonder if it would work for denitrification without the reverse flow, as a Jaubert-style plenum.