Wastewater trickle tower(s) controlling and grooming cross-reference to related application

A wastewater treatment apparatus, comprising:

• a plurality of trickle towers, each tower containing one or more cells, and each cell containing a plurality of vertically extending strands of biomedia;
• said towers being interconnectable to enable the wastewater to pass through them in sequence;
• valves associated with said towers for changing said sequence;
• and
• means, responsive to changes in weight of and connected to at least a part of the biomedia in at least one of said cells, for sensing increase in weight of said at least a part due to biogrowth forming thereon, and for causing operation of at least one of said valves to change said sequence when a predetermined weight increase is sensed.

A wastewater treatment apparatus, comprising:

• a trickle tower having a support structure;
• strands of biomedia suspended from said structure, wastewater when being treated passing down said strands of biomedia;
• and
• means for sensing increase in growth of biomass on at least a portion of said biomedia.

A method of treating wastewater, comprising the steps of:

• introducing a supply of wastewater into a first trickle tower containing biomedia and circulating this wastewater therethrough, the wastewater passing down through the biomedia and becoming partially treated;
• after a time, passing the wastewater to a second trickle tower containing biomedia and circulating the wastewater therethrough to further treat the wastewater;
• allowing biogrowth to build on the biomedia in said trickle towers;
• sensing change in weight of at least a part of the biomedia in said first trickle tower due to the increase in biogrowth;
• and
• upon said change reaching a predetermined value, switching the sequence of flow of the wastewater through the trickle towers by introducing the supply of wastewater into the second trickle tower for the first partial treatment thereof.

A method of treating wastewater, comprising the steps of:

• passing wastewater sequentially through a plurality of trickle towers, the wastewater to be treated being introduced at one tower and the fully treated wastewater exiting at another tower;
• monitoring the growth of biogrowth in the towers;
• and
• when the monitored growth of biogrowth in any particular tower reaches a predetermined value, switching the sequence in which the wastewater passes through the plurality of trickle towers to cause the fully treated wastewater to exit the plurality of trickle towers at this particular tower.