If you have unclean water, purchasing a Vu-Flow screen filter can be very beneficial. Once you get one or more of these filters, you’ll want to make sure you understand the best way to use them in order to get the most out of your purchase. Today we’ll cover one method that is very useful to put into practice if you’re filtering water on a hog farm.
As a hog farmer, you understand the importance of having clean water for your pigs. Just as water is necessary for humans, it’s just as important to raise a healthy animal. More than likely, the water on your farm isn’t completely free of sediment meaning you’ll want to do something to make sure your hogs are getting the healthiest water possible. A Vu-Flow screen or sand separator filter can help with this.
Installing even a single Vu-Flow filter will help to clear up the sediment in your water, but only installing one can lead to some issues. The problem with just using a single filter is that, in the case of a Vu-Flow filter for example, you’re limiting yourself to a single size filter. In a situation where the sediment you’re trying to filter is all the same size, this is more than fine. In most situations though, you’ll be filtering a variety of sediment.
Let’s say you pick a filter that has a finer mesh. Your filter will be great at filtering the very small sediment, but any larger sediment could lead to the filter getting clogged up very quickly. If you pick a filter with a larger opening mesh, you’ll filter out the bigger sediment but, you’ll be allowing a good majority of the smaller sediment to slip through, which will keep your water dirty.
A concept known as the step-down method is a good way to completely avoid these problems. An article posted on National Hog Farmer states that most farms would benefit from implementing the step-down method assuming it doesn’t already have sediment free water. The step-down method essentially maximizes the potential that exists for being able to separate and trap sediment by using more than one filter.
Once you decide to implement the step-down method on your hog farm, it’s important to understand what order you need to put the filters in. The first filter in the line should always be something with a coarser mesh. In that article on the National Hog Farmer, you’ll read that you want to pick something along the lines of a 250 micron (60 mesh*), 150 micron (100 mesh^) or 100 micron (140 mesh*), which are all sizes offered by Vu-Flow. These sizes will allow your first filter to catch all of the larger sediment.
As far as the second filter in the series goes, you’ll want to choose one with a finer mesh. Since you already would have filtered out a lot of the larger sediment with the first filter, you don’t have to worry about this finer filter getting clogged up and instead it will take care of eliminating a lot of those smaller particles that are a nuisance in your water. That article on the National Hog Farmer suggests for hog facilities that you’ll want to go with something in the 200 mesh range and Vu-Flow does offer a 60 micron (250 mesh*) filter.
With all of this in mind, there are of course a number of filters on the market to choose from when trying to clean up the water on your hog farm. One of the bigger advantages to picking a Vu-Flow filter here though, aside from the fact that they are designed to last for years without needing replaced, is the clear cover that it comes with. This allows for you to more easily tell when the filter is full and when you need to flush it out, which will help keep a lot of those clogging issues from popping up.
Aside from the clear cover advantage, another reason to choose Vu-Flow and implement this step-down filtration method is to ensure that your hogs stay healthy, which will keep your farm running as it’s supposed to. The last thing you’d want to do is give your hogs access to dirty water, as sick pigs are a quick way to slow down your entire operation. You’ll also want to consider that having any type of sediment running through your system will cause wear and tear over time, which will lead to you not only spending money to replace parts of your system, but it will also take time away from both you and your operation while the issues are being fixed.
If you’re interested in learning more about how step-down filtration can benefit your hog farm, call 1-800-833-5171 for a live customer service representative.You can also always visit vuflow.com to find out more information.
Running a hog farm is already a big undertaking and you shouldn’t have to spend time worrying about your farm’s water quality. Allow yourself to have peace of mind and use Vu-Flow to implement the step-down filtration method today!
SourceNotes: All information in this article regarding step-down filtration came fromNational Hog Farmer.
*micron size shown denotes general micron removal rates for industry and fall within expressed mesh size specified
