I love learning from the people who have suffered and learned on our behalf. It's a gorgeous design and hearing about the problems is almost as useful as having the effective design in the first place. Thanks for all of your work.
Wow! Hats off you to for doing this and creating a pool that only uses 80W of electricity and no chemicals. For water that's so clean you can actually drink it! Incredible. I'm sure you lost more than a bit of sleep over the aggregate nightmare. I can see a lot more of these separate planted zone-pools popping up somehow, you can see how appealing it is to anyone who wants a more traditional swimming pool.
@@safffff1000 Yeh when i see that pool covered in sunlight i see protein with zero food miles. The best thing a person could do for any sort of carbon/independency/environmental concerns. If you like nature/money/sticking it to the man/environmentalism this is the hobby for you.
Great job on the pool. We also built a natural plunge pool with a separate planted zone, sand filter etc based on David's design philosophy. crystal clear water, that is drinkable.
Did the calculation for my pool. My standard pool pump normally runs 4 hours per day at 1110 watts vs this pool 24 hours a day at 80 watts. That means I’m using 2.3x the electricity plus harsh chemicals, etc. Makes a natural pool very attractive by comparison.
@@Cravinsanity1234 Without trying it, I don't see any reason why not. The issue would be that many food plants like plenty of plant food, whereas the goal of a pool filtration system is to remove as much plant food as you can to make the water as clean as possible. So it would take some experimenting to find what edible plants grow well enough in this situation to be worth the effort. Also, they would need to be cooked properly before eating, just in case someone swimming in the pool was carrying something contagious.
Amazing!! I love the natural look of organic pools, but Justin's look and design gives the concept a whole new modern, sleek, and if I dare say, posh feel.
Bonus feature: a massive water reservoir of perfectly potable water in case some kind of shortage appears. Very cool indeed. I'm much too lazy to ever attempt anything like this, nor is the climate here really pool friendly, but a great example of working with nature instead of tackling it head on.
Double bonus feature, with all that running/stored water I would definitely start an hydroponic greenhouse and/or grow some nice trouts for eating now and then.
You missed the point here. He use no ozone or chlore to get clean water. In the industrial side of things, it's pretty revolutionnary. No chemical involved to swap dirty water into clean water.
What's most impressive about this design is that it's a prototype that can be adapted by a municipality for a public pool. Here's why: - The water is so clear that you can see the pool floor (which is important for lifeguards). - You have isolated the plant filtration away from the swimming area. There is no delicate landscaping that could be damaged from public use. - I'm willing to bet that this design can be expanded to standard competition sized dimensions. - All these materials are readily available to engineers, especially IBC totes!
With a municipal pool you have a public liability issue if anyone gets in there with a contagious disease. They all have signs up telling people not to swim if they've had diarrhoea in the past 24 hours, but that's no help if someone gets sick and sues the operator. Chlorinating the water so it kills stuff like that before the person swimming beside them can be infected is the only way public pool operators can protect themselves.
"It all needed to be accessible in case we needed to change it, because I have no idea what I'm doing" is exactly what people with an idea of what they're doing would say.
This pool is amazing! I have been researching doing a natural pool for a year now. This one is like the best of both worlds! An actual swimming pool but with natural water. The climate you're in seems like it's similar to Hawaii... all great info for starting something here. Amazing work with an amazing outcome. Thank you for sharing!
Something like this is a labor of love. If you have the wits and willing to look after a pool like this, then you'd probably want to build it yourself. Most average people can barely cope with running a chlorine pool and that's not at all difficult. So I don't think this is realistically something you would find much market for as a product. Justin shared his experience online which is what it's all about.
I would love to see a 50m size version if it was possible. Maybe using something speccy like a vertical garden as part of the filtration - just because it could be done.
I liked your video... I have built two separate farms in my day. One was a tilapia farm and the other was a white shrimp farm. What you call a bubble pump we call that Airlift. Your initial concept is great, but it's always based on the ecosystem. You always have to give it a chance to do its job to be able to see if it is going to work. Great job and I think I will be building something like your pool in my area. New challenges to be dealt with I'm sure. Balancing on many factors lead to success my friend from down under.
not sure if Australia has the mosquito problem that the south east US has. but I wonder how well that system keeps mosquitos out. and if it needs help I wonder how well fish could be put in the planted zone
If needed, toss in a "Mosquito Dunk". It's a natural/biological mosquito control that is safe & works well. It disperses larva killing bacteria into the water.
@@jeggo182eeeh.... Not stagnant. Just still, ish. If flow rates aren't fast which they're not, you could definitely get mosquito larvae. But it's not like that's impossible to solve as per several comments.
I really hope this becomes the norm! It really should be because those horrible chemicals don't just disappear when they're down the drain or evaporated which is why we're having such environmental problems with 'forever chemicals'. This water is drinkable and safe for living things. Thanks so much for this wonderful information.
I love that you took the risk to experiment on a worthy project. This information you learned and shared is quite valuable for other similar projects. Thank you for taking the risk for us and sharing with us.
My interest in this would be to use this on a larger scale to clean polluted harbors, lakes and rivers. Very impressive! I wonder how much cleaning power of the plants is actually the algal mat...
I love this video so much because how it started with an idea that works in concept that demanded so many problem solving solutions and how a community of creators helped make the concept a reality. Thanks for teaching such wonderful content.
Justin, keep in mind that in the filterzone the water doesn't need to be above the plantinglevel. The 10 cm of water heats up faster and grows the algea. You could just fill it up with a nice type of gravel.
I have found that 20 - 25 mm crushed stone works extremely well with the water level about 50 - 75 mm from surface level. This totally eliminates the possibility of mosquitoes breeding in the filter area
@@ecomandurban7183 Maybe add some minnows here and there for the mosquito prevention. Although that would increase the bio load and require more plants also.
Great video and very enlightening and educational as I never thought one could (or should) have the 2 areas apart. Thanks for sharing this and describing in such detail how it was done
There's nothing like the feel of swimming in fresh clear water. This might be the closets feeling to being in river or glacier run off water without the cold!
That's outstanding! Thanks to David Pagan Butler for the initial inspiration. I'd sure like to see some examples of natural pools in cold climates like mine, Zone 3 Canada.
I'm in Maine but a zone 4b I definitely agree. I'm only on a couple of acres but my kiddo is into mermaid swim tails and I would love to have a pool for her to explore that more.
Thankyou so much for taking the time and energy to share this. Generous indeed. Very excited at the possibilities for our new pool build. Our pool will be higher than the plant filter system. Not sure if this will work but very much hoping so. Thanks again,
The water level needs to be at the same height in both sides of the system or it will just overflow out of the plant zone you could put the plants zone higher but then you would have to pump the water up to it
I grew up swimming in an "organic pool". It was spring-fed, and over the years millions of people used it with zero health incidents (except an occasional slip and fall). As an adult, I built several koi ponds and learned to make small-scale complete nirogen cycle systems. One time a sump pump I was using failed and created an oil slick in the pond. I feared I had created an ecological disaster, but because my system was well-designed it captured and degraded the oil within a day, with no damage to the fish or plants.
Bravo... What an amazing DIY project. I declare that one day I'll have one. Based David's mock the next level would be to put some edibles in the planted zone, watercress, mint, Coco yam.. so many possibilities
This is amazing and house looks just as amazing. Congratulations Wow, I love everything so far. I think how you did it is brilliant. I would hire you to do the same for me if I could I have always loved the idea of having a house like that with a garden/fun place in the middle of the house. To top it off you are off the grid. Truly beautiful home and pool.
I do believe you can put a rudimentary power station under that area of your water catchment to help charge a battery station for rainy day power. It is worth looking into especially being off grid or power out scenarios. Have a great day.
In Germany there is a public bath installed in a lake that uses the same principle to clean the water. The waste water from the bathing area at the end of the lake is pumped to a point above the inflow, which is located on the other side of the water body and fed in there. A wetland has been created between the feed point and the original inflow of the lake. This protected retreat for water birds serves as a clarification stage for the water fed in from the public swimming beach.
So you got an algae bloom due to excess nutrients in the water. Welcome to every fish tank hobbyists first lesson. Very cool concept this whole design.
Do you think this would be possible in a colder Canadian climate where things typically freeze in the winter? I know the bubbles would keep it from freezing over, but the challenge would be keeping the plants alive (maybe greenhouse over them) and keeping the water warm enough for both the plants to survive the winter. Just a crazy thought as this set up is a dream of mine and I love how beautiful and natural it is. Thank you so much David for sharing your research and expertise! I can't thank you enough!
I'd put the whole thing in a greenhouse with triple or better glazing and all the rest of the bells and whistles so you can keep the water warm enough to swim in all year around. There's no point having a pool if you can't swim in it half the year.
Great project! He should make a quick operation manual. I figure this because some day someone will turn one of the blue knobs on the air lines and nobody there will remember the optimal setting. Probably a toddler or teenager.
This is absolutely incredible! I myself have a 'self-cycling' aquarium which I absolutely adore. So from that background I have some questions: 1. Is there any longterm solution to keep plant roots away from the piping? If I have three Epipremnum aureum in my aquarium and after only half a year the roots are everywhere in the substrate, even inside the pump inlet. 2. Is the flow strong enough to avoid the filters turning into a breeding paradise for mosquitoes? 3. Would it be a viable option to keep shrimp or animals in general in the tanks? They work wonders against algea and fertelize at the same time. I am pretty sure that there will always be some algea/biofilm, no matter how strongly planted the tanks are. At least this was the best solution for my auqarium, but I can understand that this is whole different level.
Justin's pool is amazing. David you are so inspirational. I would think keeping plant and swim zones separate, could be beneficial for smaller sites. He is just a hour and a half north of me, should take a look. lol.
this sort of feels like something revolutionary for DIY pools, I know salt water has been making "waves" recently, but honestly literal filtered pond water is absolutely the single best conditions for swiming, I don't think you could get better swiming quality without some unbelivably complex filtering system which delivered treated drinking water 24/7
I feel like having the plumbing in that configuration encourages sediment to flow into the system potentially causing wear on your pumps and introducing potential for other issues. I would have them reversed, inlet at the bottom with the outlet up top where the sediment shouldn't reach, but ideally I would have them side by side with some kind of barrier between them to ensure the water circulates through the tank rather than travelling the short distance to the outlet next to the inlet. I would also encourage the use of union joins. To make any modifications you must cut the system requiring a costly repair. With a union you could simply unscrew the union and move the pipe away from the valve which you wish to access.
The only pump in his system is the bubble pump, so there are no moving parts exposed to the water. Personally I'd be running the filter tanks in series, not parallel, but I can't deny his system looks like it's working very well.
@@uncletrashero That's precisely the point though: in the plant zone, the water is relatively still (even if it's circulating). And that's ideal breeding ground for mozzies.
Well done Mate, was going to add my experience’s in WA with similar water balance issues. Now that I have scrolled down, I see most addressed. Went to school in Warners Bay! You are a hero.
That is absolutely freaking COOL! That's exactly what I've wanted to do at some point. I hadn't had time to really research it all so this is proof of concept, I can't wait to do this myself. Thank you so much for posting this video David.
How do you prevent Naegleria Fowleri from entering your pool water? It's notorious for occurring in warm fresh water(non-chlorinated) temps and it's almost always fatal once it finds a human host
Maybe they're just accepting the risk. This wouldn't be particularly worse than a freshwater pond, and lots of people let their kids play in freshwater ponds.
Yep, or any bad bacteria. They should've used chlorine resistant plants and use just enough to keep it clean. That's pretty easy with automatic feeding/metering.
Have you had the water tested over a period of time, to test for any pathogens, quality and consistency? Could you share that process, sources, methods and results? This would be my bottom line before taking the “plunge” to build one of these…
I lived on village where I would casually swim on the river nearby. The water is clear but of course it’s natural. Animals, plants, their leftovers and of course pathogens are there. Still alive and healthy today. What I learned is that, those are natural things going on, and we should adapt to it rather than completely avoid it. Now I live on a capital city and kind of understand why people here are so hygiene.
Hi Justin - thank you so much for sharing what you have done - it was really informative and you must be delighted with the result. I wondered how you worked out the number of IBCs you needed to achieve the level of filtration - or did you try and get a % of water volume in IBCs vs Pool? I'm trying to work out how much I might need! Thanks
A decade ago I had a plant filtered aquarium, been wanting to do this at pool scale ever since. I have a hillside, I think I would do one pump to the uppermost tank, then gravity fed down a cascade of containers.
THe ibc setup is mostly like an interior fish tank. good idea. Also, the old fishtanks also used to have a air bubble type of pump, the difference is that the fishtanks had at the bottom a kind of plastic mesh and the aggregate sitting on top of it, can perfectly be done in an IBC too if needed. Thanks for sharing, great job!
David, first of all I'm a fan and I'd like to build a pool, but I'm wondering about a natural pool, I have some concerns - about parasites, bacteria, say a bird brings in an amoeba or. some harmful pathogens into such a water system.. can it thrive in chlorine free water? do you have any experience, knowledge? what you think? Take care.
there is no way to sterilize the water without damaging the bacteria and plants that do the filtering, also as a result of the clean chemical free water backswimmers and pond skaters may be attracted to feed on insects that land up in the water but these are no problem at all. My brother had a number of very large koi fish in his crystal clear pool which he would swim with.
@@ecomandurban7183 If you set a UV light on the water going into the bubble pump you'll sterilise the water with no residue. With the number of water changes they've got going, the water in the swimming area would be reliably sterilised, and it wouldn't affect the planted area at all.
I would have been a little hesitant to add the Azolla you have in the IBC's. Are you concerned about its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen? It may outcompete other plants but much of it's nitrogen is sourced atmospherically rather than from the water column so it's role in water filtration may be minimal. In saying that, the ability to grow different plants in different units is interesting. Perhaps if your nitrogen is under control but your phosphorus is creeping up, colonising an IBC or two with Azolla may be effective. Great results so far. How can we watch this system progress and mature into the future?
So amazing! Question, about the plant filter IBC planting zone would those be an issue for mosquitoes/etc breeding? Or is the water moving enough on the top? Or something else?
This is very much in accordance with the organic filtration systems I was working on for my aquaria in the 90s and 00s. I wish I could claim some sort of originality, but my designs were all based on the research carried out by other aquarists before me. Very interesting to see this system being used on a grand scale. One of the things that became important for my systems was the use of floating plants, as their roots take contaminants directly out of the water.. Fortunately, every bio zone has floating plants, but you do need to be very aware of not using invasive species as these can get you into really big trouble with departments of agriculture. For those unaware, for these purposes a floating plant is one whose roots are waterborne, but the leaves are out of the water. In tests, probably the very best plant was the water hyacinth (Pontederia/Eichornia crassipes) but this is a native to the Americas and, because it is so invasive, it is illegal to use it anywhere else. In Africa, Pistia Stratiotes (water lettuce) works very well, and in Europe we have Duckweed.. Emergent plants are extremely useful, but you can't just drop them in the water. One problem with floating plants is that they tend to be too effective, and can quickly remove all nutrients from the water, and in so doing, you can quickly have an invasion of them, and then they die off because they've not got nutrients left in the water. Emergent plants are not nearly as efficient, but can more easily reach an equilibrium. These are plants which have their roots in the substrate and the leaves coming out of the water. From my experiences, I found a combination of emergent and floating plants to be an ideal combination. BTW, that's a lovely pool/system.
Now that biochar is starting to be made on an industrial level I imagine it would make an ideal layer for filtration. I haven't watched all the videos pertaining to this but some way to easily remove algae and sediment would be awesome addition to gardens/compost.
How about an aquaponic system that has aquatic life that keeps the containers clean with the ability to insert veggies directly into these containers as u see in aquaponic systems. The idea would be not to overstock your system that can create an ammonia problem. Again a balanced system that along with keeping the tanks clean, also gives u fresh food.
@@Blue1Sapphire Adding fish means adding animal-based residue to the system that the plants then have to remove - and fish can be carrying zoonotic pathogens. You can do it, but you need a much bigger bio area, and you really need to sanitise the water before it reenters your swimming area. The goal of this system is to strip all the nutrients out of the water, so any veges you try to grow would have to tolerate that. Lots of water and sunlight, but zero NPK or anything else they want that can't be obtained from the occasional shed human skin cell floating past.
Don't drink from it. It's better than a normal pool because it also acts as a water reservoir but you should still at least boil that water before drinking.
Its an interesting story and cool that they faced and beat the challenges they had. I'm not a fan of the turquoise looking water though. Too similar to chlorinated pools. It is the very wild-ness of the natural pool that you build David, that is compelling to me. I want to see the bugs flying around, I want to see the plant growth almost overwhelming it. That to me, is a natural pool.
Hello. This is a brilliant video. Congrats to Justin and his family for this amazing project, i would like to know if Justin has a youtube channel or a video with his amazing of the grid journey. Regards
Very impressive project, but I much prefer your actually natural looking swim pond David. So much extra work and infrastructure on Justin's approach, but I much favor having nature itself do as much of the work as possible. This looks more like a factory than anything to do with nature to me.
I love learning from the people who have suffered and learned on our behalf.
It's a gorgeous design and hearing about the problems is almost as useful as having the effective design in the first place.
Thanks for all of your work.
Technically it's not on your behalf unless you have made one too.
@@Rig0r_M0rtis how dare you, you have stolen my dreams and my childhood. :)
@@nandodando9695 Go and build the pool :D
A very wise approach to life
or in other words: “we are all dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants” (Isaac Newton)
Wow! Hats off you to for doing this and creating a pool that only uses 80W of electricity and no chemicals. For water that's so clean you can actually drink it! Incredible. I'm sure you lost more than a bit of sleep over the aggregate nightmare.
I can see a lot more of these separate planted zone-pools popping up somehow, you can see how appealing it is to anyone who wants a more traditional swimming pool.
Would like to see some sort of plant or fish for food production tried.
@@safffff1000 Yeh when i see that pool covered in sunlight i see protein with zero food miles. The best thing a person could do for any sort of carbon/independency/environmental concerns. If you like nature/money/sticking it to the man/environmentalism this is the hobby for you.
Great job on the pool. We also built a natural plunge pool with a separate planted zone, sand filter etc based on David's design philosophy. crystal clear water, that is drinkable.
Please share your pool on David’s channel. Where is your pool.
You can't just casually throw that out there without dropping the deets!
Agreed! You have to show us, even if only something basic filmed on your phone!
Show us now! We waiting 😂
I would be highly concerned with the abundance of mosquitoes with the planted low current area.
Did the calculation for my pool. My standard pool pump normally runs 4 hours per day at 1110 watts vs this pool 24 hours a day at 80 watts. That means I’m using 2.3x the electricity plus harsh chemicals, etc. Makes a natural pool very attractive by comparison.
And in summer you should be running at least 6hours
Don't forget expensive filter replacements every x years as well
Then add food plants like water chestnut you could be growing in the filtration side.
@@tealkerberus748 I'd love to see that being done. Is it possible to have a fully edible filtration zone?
@@Cravinsanity1234 Without trying it, I don't see any reason why not. The issue would be that many food plants like plenty of plant food, whereas the goal of a pool filtration system is to remove as much plant food as you can to make the water as clean as possible. So it would take some experimenting to find what edible plants grow well enough in this situation to be worth the effort.
Also, they would need to be cooked properly before eating, just in case someone swimming in the pool was carrying something contagious.
Wow it’s so clean and beautiful! This is fantastic!
I’d never heard of an organic pool before!
Amazing!!
I love the natural look of organic pools, but Justin's look and design gives the concept a whole new modern, sleek, and if I dare say, posh feel.
Bonus feature: a massive water reservoir of perfectly potable water in case some kind of shortage appears. Very cool indeed. I'm much too lazy to ever attempt anything like this, nor is the climate here really pool friendly, but a great example of working with nature instead of tackling it head on.
Природой бороться не нужно, только дураки так делают. Природа умнее нас! Нам нужно жить с ней в гармонии и любить это. Всё ❤😊
Double bonus feature, with all that running/stored water I would definitely start an hydroponic greenhouse and/or grow some nice trouts for eating now and then.
@@GeomancerHT but he drank it. Still cool with fish poo in the system?
You missed the point here. He use no ozone or chlore to get clean water. In the industrial side of things, it's pretty revolutionnary. No chemical involved to swap dirty water into clean water.
You can drink chlorinated water, it's not the best but it'll keep you hydrated short-term and it's better than having it full of crap.
What's most impressive about this design is that it's a prototype that can be adapted by a municipality for a public pool.
Here's why:
- The water is so clear that you can see the pool floor (which is important for lifeguards).
- You have isolated the plant filtration away from the swimming area. There is no delicate landscaping that could be damaged from public use.
- I'm willing to bet that this design can be expanded to standard competition sized dimensions.
- All these materials are readily available to engineers, especially IBC totes!
On David’s page he has a video about a municipality in the UK opening one
@@AlexDSmith35 Fantastic! Thank you.
I know of one municipality that opened one but I don't know much more.
With a municipal pool you have a public liability issue if anyone gets in there with a contagious disease. They all have signs up telling people not to swim if they've had diarrhoea in the past 24 hours, but that's no help if someone gets sick and sues the operator. Chlorinating the water so it kills stuff like that before the person swimming beside them can be infected is the only way public pool operators can protect themselves.
@@tealkerberus748 Oh, I understand. Hopefully an assumption of liability for illness can be put on the patron through.
You're absolutely correct... I have never seen a *_natural_* pool like that. Good thing too because I like nature.
I am so glad to see that you're back showing organic pools. I hope you keep doing more videos thank you so much
"It all needed to be accessible in case we needed to change it, because I have no idea what I'm doing" is exactly what people with an idea of what they're doing would say.
This pool is amazing! I have been researching doing a natural pool for a year now. This one is like the best of both worlds! An actual swimming pool but with natural water. The climate you're in seems like it's similar to Hawaii... all great info for starting something here. Amazing work with an amazing outcome. Thank you for sharing!
That's amazing, the power of bubbles and plants!!
I feel like Justin could easily turn this natural pool system into a very successful business.
There is a huge difference between a one-off project and a profitable business.
@@rogerwilco2and yet he has figured it out and could start selling his set-up and configuration knowledge
Something like this is a labor of love. If you have the wits and willing to look after a pool like this, then you'd probably want to build it yourself. Most average people can barely cope with running a chlorine pool and that's not at all difficult. So I don't think this is realistically something you would find much market for as a product. Justin shared his experience online which is what it's all about.
We call this system: active bog filtration
I would love to see a 50m size version if it was possible. Maybe using something speccy like a vertical garden as part of the filtration - just because it could be done.
Amazing. A lot of work and very intensive, but extremely impressive. Thank you all for making the effort to share all of this!
Guys!! He drinks the water from the pool!! Seriously!! He drinks a whole glass 🤯 Mind blown! I’m sold. Amazing!
Build this on an industrial scale, many people would LOVE to buy this! Amazing
I find it to be a more suitable system for a community-worker-owned-and-maintained communist utopia, myself!
I liked your video... I have built two separate farms in my day. One was a tilapia farm and the other was a white shrimp farm. What you call a bubble pump we call that Airlift. Your initial concept is great, but it's always based on the ecosystem. You always have to give it a chance to do its job to be able to see if it is going to work. Great job and I think I will be building something like your pool in my area. New challenges to be dealt with I'm sure. Balancing on many factors lead to success my friend from down under.
What a beautiful natural pool as well as property I might add. Love the set up and the garden wall 💚🩵. Thank you for sharing.
One's gotta admire your resilience. I would have thrown the towel very early. Pool ended being amazing. Hats off
This is stunning! I like the idea of a natural pool except for "stuff" in the swimming water. But you've 'solved' that issue.
I absolutely adore that plant wall you have in the background in some shots. Beautiful mix of colors.
I love when people take ingenuity to the next level,and your patience to figure out the nuances is outstanding!
It's amazing to see your work evolve into that wonderful pool.
You should be extremely proud.
not sure if Australia has the mosquito problem that the south east US has. but I wonder how well that system keeps mosquitos out. and if it needs help I wonder how well fish could be put in the planted zone
Mosquitos need stagnant water, if that water is being completely filtered through multiple times of days that shouldn't be an issue.
If needed, toss in a "Mosquito Dunk". It's a natural/biological mosquito control that is safe & works well. It disperses larva killing bacteria into the water.
there will be nothing in the water for the mosquito larvae to feed on
@@jeggo182eeeh.... Not stagnant. Just still, ish. If flow rates aren't fast which they're not, you could definitely get mosquito larvae. But it's not like that's impossible to solve as per several comments.
I dont think that works here in Sweden b off The mosquitos. Specioally in The north😂 but i like The idea
This is probalbly the most comprehensive video wrt Natural Pools. Love it. Solves the challenges that would be faced in India.
I really hope this becomes the norm! It really should be because those horrible chemicals don't just disappear when they're down the drain or evaporated which is why we're having such environmental problems with 'forever chemicals'. This water is drinkable and safe for living things. Thanks so much for this wonderful information.
I love that you took the risk to experiment on a worthy project. This information you learned and shared is quite valuable for other similar projects. Thank you for taking the risk for us and sharing with us.
My interest in this would be to use this on a larger scale to clean polluted harbors, lakes and rivers. Very impressive! I wonder how much cleaning power of the plants is actually the algal mat...
Harbor pollution is usually oils and plastics that plants don't eat.
@@D3moknight I know there's a type of algea that eats plastic.
@@D3moknight It is also often effluent or even untreated waste, like in the Wellington City harbor, the capital city of New Zealand.
Or using fungal colonies to clean up pollution
I love this video so much because how it started with an idea that works in concept that demanded so many problem solving solutions and how a community of creators helped make the concept a reality. Thanks for teaching such wonderful content.
Justin, keep in mind that in the filterzone the water doesn't need to be above the plantinglevel. The 10 cm of water heats up faster and grows the algea. You could just fill it up with a nice type of gravel.
Very good piece of advice!
Yep, plenty of literature on vertical flow wetlands
>grows algae
This whole thing reminds me of an algae scrubber in a marine aquarium.. maybe this will be the next step
I have found that 20 - 25 mm crushed stone works extremely well with the water level about 50 - 75 mm from surface level. This totally eliminates the possibility of mosquitoes breeding in the filter area
@@ecomandurban7183 Maybe add some minnows here and there for the mosquito prevention. Although that would increase the bio load and require more plants also.
I love it, awesome, and I am a huge admirer of David and his work, and now of yours as well thank you so much for sharing!
Great video and very enlightening and educational as I never thought one could (or should) have the 2 areas apart. Thanks for sharing this and describing in such detail how it was done
Brilliant...good job. Now I want to convert my pool into something like this. Only I'd have to consider the winters here in Canada
This was really cool to watch and learn about. THANK YOU ALL!
There's nothing like the feel of swimming in fresh clear water. This might be the closets feeling to being in river or glacier run off water without the cold!
A man and his pool is a love story as old as time. That is an amazing pool and great outcome.
That's outstanding! Thanks to David Pagan Butler for the initial inspiration. I'd sure like to see some examples of natural pools in cold climates like mine, Zone 3 Canada.
I'm in Maine but a zone 4b I definitely agree. I'm only on a couple of acres but my kiddo is into mermaid swim tails and I would love to have a pool for her to explore that more.
Zone 7 West Virginia. With carnivorous plants. Hey I'm dreaming here.
17:23 Love that wall of plants behind you.
Thankyou so much for taking the time and energy to share this. Generous indeed. Very excited at the possibilities for our new pool build. Our pool will be higher than the plant filter system. Not sure if this will work but very much hoping so. Thanks again,
The water level needs to be at the same height in both sides of the system or it will just overflow out of the plant zone you could put the plants zone higher but then you would have to pump the water up to it
I grew up swimming in an "organic pool". It was spring-fed, and over the years millions of people used it with zero health incidents (except an occasional slip and fall). As an adult, I built several koi ponds and learned to make small-scale complete nirogen cycle systems. One time a sump pump I was using failed and created an oil slick in the pond. I feared I had created an ecological disaster, but because my system was well-designed it captured and degraded the oil within a day, with no damage to the fish or plants.
Actual oil from dead fish or you created biofuel?
Bravo... What an amazing DIY project. I declare that one day I'll have one. Based David's mock the next level would be to put some edibles in the planted zone, watercress, mint, Coco yam.. so many possibilities
Congratulations to all involved! This looks fantastic and I really enjoyed hearing about the challenges and the solutions too.
Phenomenal application! Thank you so much for sharing this. It feels like the next evolution!
Really beautifull project. Thanks for sharing valuable information.
I love the playground behind the pool. Could you share few details about it as well?
Beautiful work of art and engineering. Greetings from Puerto Rico 🇵🇷
This is amazing and house looks just as amazing. Congratulations
Wow, I love everything so far. I think how you did it is brilliant. I would hire you to do the same for me if I could
I have always loved the idea of having a house like that with a garden/fun place in the middle of the house. To top it off you are off the grid. Truly beautiful home and pool.
I do believe you can put a rudimentary power station under that area of your water catchment to help charge a battery station for rainy day power. It is worth looking into especially being off grid or power out scenarios. Have a great day.
In Germany there is a public bath installed in a lake that uses the same principle to clean the water.
The waste water from the bathing area at the end of the lake is pumped to a point above the inflow, which is located on the other side of the water body and fed in there. A wetland has been created between the feed point and the original inflow of the lake. This protected retreat for water birds serves as a clarification stage for the water fed in from the public swimming beach.
Do you have a link for this ?
there is a name for that public bath?
thanks this is one of the most informative videos ive seen on natural pools so far
So you got an algae bloom due to excess nutrients in the water. Welcome to every fish tank hobbyists first lesson.
Very cool concept this whole design.
Do you think this would be possible in a colder Canadian climate where things typically freeze in the winter?
I know the bubbles would keep it from freezing over, but the challenge would be keeping the plants alive (maybe greenhouse over them) and keeping the water warm enough for both the plants to survive the winter.
Just a crazy thought as this set up is a dream of mine and I love how beautiful and natural it is.
Thank you so much David for sharing your research and expertise! I can't thank you enough!
A good Isolated heated greenhouse would be good if you don´t want to ruin the pumps and plants. Maybe build the pool with a heating system
I'd put the whole thing in a greenhouse with triple or better glazing and all the rest of the bells and whistles so you can keep the water warm enough to swim in all year around. There's no point having a pool if you can't swim in it half the year.
This isn't where I expected to spend my time today. How amazing and interesting, thanks for sharing.
Great project! He should make a quick operation manual. I figure this because some day someone will turn one of the blue knobs on the air lines and nobody there will remember the optimal setting. Probably a toddler or teenager.
Fantastic … thank you for sharing
This is absolutely incredible! I myself have a 'self-cycling' aquarium which I absolutely adore. So from that background I have some questions:
1. Is there any longterm solution to keep plant roots away from the piping? If I have three Epipremnum aureum in my aquarium and after only half a year the roots are everywhere in the substrate, even inside the pump inlet.
2. Is the flow strong enough to avoid the filters turning into a breeding paradise for mosquitoes?
3. Would it be a viable option to keep shrimp or animals in general in the tanks? They work wonders against algea and fertelize at the same time. I am pretty sure that there will always be some algea/biofilm, no matter how strongly planted the tanks are. At least this was the best solution for my auqarium, but I can understand that this is whole different level.
good questions
Justin's pool is amazing. David you are so inspirational. I would think keeping plant and swim zones separate, could be beneficial for smaller sites. He is just a hour and a half north of me, should take a look. lol.
It's such a unique house shape, I managed to find it on Google Earth!
How sensitive are these systems to chemical contaminents like sunscreens and other chemical that may be present on the body?
this sort of feels like something revolutionary for DIY pools, I know salt water has been making "waves" recently, but honestly literal filtered pond water is absolutely the single best conditions for swiming, I don't think you could get better swiming quality without some unbelivably complex filtering system which delivered treated drinking water 24/7
I feel like having the plumbing in that configuration encourages sediment to flow into the system potentially causing wear on your pumps and introducing potential for other issues.
I would have them reversed, inlet at the bottom with the outlet up top where the sediment shouldn't reach, but ideally I would have them side by side with some kind of barrier between them to ensure the water circulates through the tank rather than travelling the short distance to the outlet next to the inlet.
I would also encourage the use of union joins. To make any modifications you must cut the system requiring a costly repair. With a union you could simply unscrew the union and move the pipe away from the valve which you wish to access.
The only pump in his system is the bubble pump, so there are no moving parts exposed to the water.
Personally I'd be running the filter tanks in series, not parallel, but I can't deny his system looks like it's working very well.
Wow! Amazing set up.
Do you have issues with bugs such as mosquitoes in the plant zone? If so, how do you address it? Thank you for the great video and information!
mosquitos shouldnt be a problem if you can keep the water moving
@@uncletrashero That's precisely the point though: in the plant zone, the water is relatively still (even if it's circulating). And that's ideal breeding ground for mozzies.
Well done Mate, was going to add my experience’s in WA with similar water balance issues. Now that I have scrolled down, I see most addressed. Went to school in Warners Bay! You are a hero.
Very cool but my question is: how do the plants react to sun screen that gets in the water over time?
I bet they don't go anywhere near sunscreen! IMHO sunscreen causes way more cancer than natural tan.
also curious about this
Absolutely Fabulous! Thanks for sharing.
Amazing work! Happy to have found this video, currently learning about sustainable living.
Wow. I am so grateful to see this exquisite proof of something I always imagined was possible. Mahalo nui loa!
That is absolutely freaking COOL! That's exactly what I've wanted to do at some point. I hadn't had time to really research it all so this is proof of concept, I can't wait to do this myself. Thank you so much for posting this video David.
keep us updated!
How do you prevent Naegleria Fowleri from entering your pool water? It's notorious for occurring in warm fresh water(non-chlorinated) temps and it's almost always fatal once it finds a human host
Maybe they're just accepting the risk. This wouldn't be particularly worse than a freshwater pond, and lots of people let their kids play in freshwater ponds.
Yep, or any bad bacteria. They should've used chlorine resistant plants and use just enough to keep it clean. That's pretty easy with automatic feeding/metering.
@@TheGuruStud The concept of just enough chlorine will fall over with the bio mass. all available chlorine, redox, will be consumed.
This is a wild guess of a solution. Add a ultraviolet light to tops of the 4 bubbler tubes for sterilization. Or elsewhere an on a timer.
Thank you for sharing this amazingly inspiring info. I hope to build something similar for my family sometime in the future.
Have you had the water tested over a period of time, to test for any pathogens, quality and consistency? Could you share that process, sources, methods and results? This would be my bottom line before taking the “plunge” to build one of these…
It is essentially a hot climate garden pond. Pathogens? Yes.
I lived on village where I would casually swim on the river nearby. The water is clear but of course it’s natural. Animals, plants, their leftovers and of course pathogens are there. Still alive and healthy today. What I learned is that, those are natural things going on, and we should adapt to it rather than completely avoid it. Now I live on a capital city and kind of understand why people here are so hygiene.
I would be concerned about amoebic meningoencephalitis
@@Tom-kl9jfhave you ever been to the beach? Where there is all types of plants and wildlife living in the water?
@@sharriceowens913that's not really a good comparison since it's salt water, a sanitizer in its own way.
So inspiring. Thank you for sharing your adventure. Be well.
Hi Justin - thank you so much for sharing what you have done - it was really informative and you must be delighted with the result. I wondered how you worked out the number of IBCs you needed to achieve the level of filtration - or did you try and get a % of water volume in IBCs vs Pool? I'm trying to work out how much I might need! Thanks
I based it on David’s principles - approx 1:1 based on surface area (not volume of water).
Absolutely amazing result! If I ever do a pool, this approach will definitely be on the top of my list.
A decade ago I had a plant filtered aquarium, been wanting to do this at pool scale ever since. I have a hillside, I think I would do one pump to the uppermost tank, then gravity fed down a cascade of containers.
THe ibc setup is mostly like an interior fish tank. good idea. Also, the old fishtanks also used to have a air bubble type of pump, the difference is that the fishtanks had at the bottom a kind of plastic mesh and the aggregate sitting on top of it, can perfectly be done in an IBC too if needed. Thanks for sharing, great job!
Does Justin have any social pages where he posts updates on the system?
I thought this should be doabæ!!! I'm so glad somebody could do it! 😍😍😍
I'm super stoked with this pool and video.
David, first of all I'm a fan and I'd like to build a pool, but I'm wondering about a natural pool, I have some concerns - about parasites, bacteria, say a bird brings in an amoeba or. some harmful pathogens into such a water system.. can it thrive in chlorine free water? do you have any experience, knowledge? what you think? Take care.
there is no way to sterilize the water without damaging the bacteria and plants that do the filtering, also as a result of the clean chemical free water backswimmers and pond skaters may be attracted to feed on insects that land up in the water but these are no problem at all. My brother had a number of very large koi fish in his crystal clear pool which he would swim with.
@@ecomandurban7183 If you set a UV light on the water going into the bubble pump you'll sterilise the water with no residue. With the number of water changes they've got going, the water in the swimming area would be reliably sterilised, and it wouldn't affect the planted area at all.
Loving the hydroponic system in the background.i can see how the natural pool idea evolved.its not too different from aquaponics system.
I would have been a little hesitant to add the Azolla you have in the IBC's. Are you concerned about its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen? It may outcompete other plants but much of it's nitrogen is sourced atmospherically rather than from the water column so it's role in water filtration may be minimal.
In saying that, the ability to grow different plants in different units is interesting. Perhaps if your nitrogen is under control but your phosphorus is creeping up, colonising an IBC or two with Azolla may be effective.
Great results so far. How can we watch this system progress and mature into the future?
I can't see this working over the course a year. Plants die /environment changes. Overgrowth leads to a crash.
@@TheRainHarvesterin a natural pool, part of the maintenance is to remove dead and extra plants.
Must be the ultimate "tip of the hat" to have someone else build your design on the other side of the world... I'm sending this to my wife :) Thx!
So amazing! Question, about the plant filter IBC planting zone would those be an issue for mosquitoes/etc breeding? Or is the water moving enough on the top? Or something else?
Amazing - well done justin and david!
Great clarity considering the plants have not yet really established. In a few years that filter will look like a jungle!
Glad it worked it so well. Great work, lovely pool!
That's amazing. The water is so clear and I love that they use rainwater to keep it filled.
Absolutely incredible. And inspiring. Thank you for sharing.
This is very much in accordance with the organic filtration systems I was working on for my aquaria in the 90s and 00s.
I wish I could claim some sort of originality, but my designs were all based on the research carried out by other aquarists before me.
Very interesting to see this system being used on a grand scale.
One of the things that became important for my systems was the use of floating plants, as their roots take contaminants directly out of the water.. Fortunately, every bio zone has floating plants, but you do need to be very aware of not using invasive species as these can get you into really big trouble with departments of agriculture.
For those unaware, for these purposes a floating plant is one whose roots are waterborne, but the leaves are out of the water. In tests, probably the very best plant was the water hyacinth (Pontederia/Eichornia crassipes) but this is a native to the Americas and, because it is so invasive, it is illegal to use it anywhere else.
In Africa, Pistia Stratiotes (water lettuce) works very well, and in Europe we have Duckweed..
Emergent plants are extremely useful, but you can't just drop them in the water.
One problem with floating plants is that they tend to be too effective, and can quickly remove all nutrients from the water, and in so doing, you can quickly have an invasion of them, and then they die off because they've not got nutrients left in the water.
Emergent plants are not nearly as efficient, but can more easily reach an equilibrium. These are plants which have their roots in the substrate and the leaves coming out of the water. From my experiences, I found a combination of emergent and floating plants to be an ideal combination.
BTW, that's a lovely pool/system.
Amazing build . Love the organic filters. Thank you for sharing.
Now that biochar is starting to be made on an industrial level I imagine it would make an ideal layer for filtration.
I haven't watched all the videos pertaining to this but some way to easily remove algae and sediment would be awesome addition to gardens/compost.
How about an aquaponic system that has aquatic life that keeps the containers clean with the ability to insert veggies directly into these containers as u see in aquaponic systems. The idea would be not to overstock your system that can create an ammonia problem.
Again a balanced system that along with keeping the tanks clean, also gives u fresh food.
@@Blue1Sapphire what you're talking about sounds like eutopia...balance with nature instead of fighting it.
@@Blue1Sapphire Adding fish means adding animal-based residue to the system that the plants then have to remove - and fish can be carrying zoonotic pathogens. You can do it, but you need a much bigger bio area, and you really need to sanitise the water before it reenters your swimming area.
The goal of this system is to strip all the nutrients out of the water, so any veges you try to grow would have to tolerate that. Lots of water and sunlight, but zero NPK or anything else they want that can't be obtained from the occasional shed human skin cell floating past.
Wow, very impressive! Thank you for sharing this :-)
Don't drink from it.
It's better than a normal pool because it also acts as a water reservoir but you should still at least boil that water before drinking.
This is a fantastic project. I can't thank you enough for sharing.
Its an interesting story and cool that they faced and beat the challenges they had. I'm not a fan of the turquoise looking water though. Too similar to chlorinated pools. It is the very wild-ness of the natural pool that you build David, that is compelling to me. I want to see the bugs flying around, I want to see the plant growth almost overwhelming it. That to me, is a natural pool.
Hello. This is a brilliant video. Congrats to Justin and his family for this amazing project,
i would like to know if Justin has a youtube channel or a video with his amazing of the grid journey. Regards
Very impressive project, but I much prefer your actually natural looking swim pond David. So much extra work and infrastructure on Justin's approach, but I much favor having nature itself do as much of the work as possible. This looks more like a factory than anything to do with nature to me.
That’s very clever a modern out look on a natural pond / pool