How to Build Your Own Sand Filter
- 1). Sort and clean the sand and stones. Pick the large stones out of your rocky soil and put them in a pile. Pour the remaining soil through your coarse wire mesh to form a pile of smaller stones. Now pour the soil through your next-finest mesh to get an even smaller pile of stones. Take your leftover soil one more time and pour it through your finest mesh to get a final pile of tiny stones. Now wash each pile of stones and your sand in a large basin of water.
- 2). Install the water pipe in the large pot. On the outside of your large pot, measure 20 1/2 inches straight up from the bottom with your tape measure and mark the side with your marker. Drill a hole through the side at this mark with your 1-inch masonry bit. Feed your PVC pipe through the hole and bend it until it just touches the inside bottom of your pot. Mix a palm-sized amount of cement and dab it around the circumference of your PVC pipe (where it protrudes from the hole) to waterproof it.
- 3). Add stones and sand to the large pot. Spread the biggest stones (about potato sized) in a single layer at the bottom of your large pot. Fill in the gaps between these stones with your second-largest pile of stones to form another layer. Spread the third-largest pile of stones on top of the second to make another thin layer. Cover this layer with your remaining pile of pebbles and make sure it's level. The four layers of stones should be no more than 4-inches thick to allow room for the sand. Now pour in the sand until it's 5 inches below your pipe entry hole.
- 4). Make a drip hole in the small pot. Measure and mark a spot 4 inches from the bottom-center of your small pot. Now drill a hole at this mark with your nail-sized masonry bit.
- 5). Place and cover the small pot. Put your small pot on top of your large pot and wedge a leftover stone from your rocky soil in between your upper and lower pot so you can see if the drip hole gets plugged. Now spread the cotton cloth across the mouth of your small pot and stretch a small bungee cord over the cloth and around your pot's neck to hold the cloth in place (hook the bungee to itself). Stretch a bigger bungee cord around the neck of your large pot and hook it to itself as well. Now stretch a few more bungee cords between your upper and lower bungees to hold the two pots together.
Source...