Due to popular demand here is an entry about our chemical free swimming pool.
Instead of pouring chemicals in to poison every living thing, (including the swimmers) we use natural methods to filter and clean the water. As a result we have a beautiful water garden which is an environmental positive instead of a dead body of water that has to be constantly maintained to stop it from coming to life. A natural system provides habitat for frogs, dragonflies and many other creatures (but not Mossies.) Our daughters can observe the life cycles of plants, frogs and insects while being spared the asthma and other side effects of swimming in chlorine.
This method is becoming quite common in Europe but hasn't really taken off yet here in Australia. Of course the swimming pool industry is not very keen on promoting it because they can't make much money out of pools that don't require expensive chemicals and machinery.
The water is completely clear as there is not enough nutrient left in the water for algae to grow.
A small low voltage pump from Creative Pumps runs on less energy than a light bulb and keeps the water circulating 24 hours a day. The water is drawn out of the Southern end of the pool and pumped up into a series of three ponds before returning to the North end of the pool via a waterfall. Normally pool pumps are the biggest energy consuming appliance in houses with a swimming pool so we save a lot of energy as well.
We have a bed of reeds in the main pool as well. The reeds are used by CSIRO to turn sewerage into drinking water so they can easily keep pool water clean. Our reeds and rushes were donated by Australian Wetlands they are planted in beds of Zeolite which was also kindly donated.
Pond number one
Pond number two
Water overflows into second pond
Some new plants acclimatising
The pool fence is covered in flowering vines, this one is a banana passionfruit
The exisiting Monsteria is much happier now that it can dangle it's roots in fresh water
Pond number three
The waterfall at the Northern end of the pool
3 comments:
I love the pool. I am curious, could you put goldfish in a pool like that or would it upset the balance of things?
Hi Karen,
You certainly could put goldfish in or Koi or other kinds of fish. We don't have fish because we want to provide a habitat for our local frogs and fish would eat all the tadpoles.
wow, Jake. such a tremendous idea.
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