HOME MADE BUCKET SAND FILTERS: how to get soap out of water

.....With a sand filter. The design for these filters I am building mini-style inside of tofu buckets comes from www.slowsandfilter.org.  There will be one under the bathroom drain to re-use bath water to wash clothes, one under the washing machine to re-use water for washing stuff in that pull out utility sink outside, and one under the kitchen sink drain.

 3/4" hose barb to female threaded =>hose bibb shut-off => 1/2" PEX=> bulk head union=> 3/4" male

 3/4" male in the bulk head union

 screen meets 3/4" male with a pipe clamp. BOOM! water gets through, sand does not get through

 200 mesh stainless steel screen. I bought a lot of this material from a soy milk company years ago to make clothes out of.. and the scraps seemed so useful I have not thrown them out.. and I am glad I didn't.

 1 1/4 hole in a pizza sauce bucket

 inlet

 inside inlet

 inside oulet

One for the kitchen and one for the washing machine

These are pictures taken from a year ago when I was building the first version of these filters, whch I sued for testing water quality, and refining the design.
 

 funny enough, the lot at the trailer site is covered in pure local granite gravel, which I read in koi pond articles is the perfect gravel to use at the bottom on sand filters because it has a lot of surface area for bacteria to culture on. So, I just swept some up and sifted out the big rocks.

 Tracy really was a huge help holding the CPVC so i could cut the short lengths.

supplies

 the top baffle

 the bottom baffle

 a set of baffles dry fitted together

 the buckets with the baffles, the gravel and the sand

Here are the baffles with the holes drilled in them. The top baffle has holes in the bottom, to the water will flow down, yeah, and the bottom baffle has holes in the sides so water will flow through and not get covered by gravel and will be less likely to get clogged.

Here is the top baffle installed in the lid, with an O ring on each side of the fitting... all it needs now is a vent hole.Here is the bottom baffle installed in the bucket with O rings of each side of the fitting.Cover the bottom baffle with gravel,

fill it up the rest of the way with sand... put the lid on....
and here is the sand filter ready to be joined to the plumbing that will connect it to the drain from above and the holding tank from below.