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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I would suggest one improvement to the system might be to replace the cloggable geotextile with a choker sand layer using coarse sand 0.5 to 2mm particle size. Also this would allow for the aquatic plants to have deeper (and cooler water) root growth zone. A geotextile layer under the aggregate would be helpful to restrict root growth from clogging up the outlet pipe. Amazing and inspiring off-grid system, congratulations!

Wow it’s so clean and beautiful! This is fantastic! I’d never heard of an organic pool before!

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.

I feel like Justin could easily turn this natural pool system into a very successful business.

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.

I am so glad to see that you're back showing organic pools. I hope you keep doing more videos thank you so much

Amazing. A lot of work and very intensive, but extremely impressive. Thank you all for making the effort to share all of this!

You're absolutely correct... I have never seen a *_natural_* pool like that. Good thing too because I like nature.

I absolutely adore that plant wall you have in the background in some shots. Beautiful mix of colors.

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.

That's amazing, the power of bubbles and plants!!

What a beautiful natural pool as well as property I might add. Love the set up and the garden wall 💚🩵. Thank you for sharing.

I love when people take ingenuity to the next level,and your patience to figure out the nuances is outstanding!

One's gotta admire your resilience. I would have thrown the towel very early. Pool ended being amazing. Hats off

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

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

This is a fantastic project. I can't thank you enough for sharing.

Absolutely incredible. And inspiring. Thank you for sharing.

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.

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!

Justin has done a amazing job with our pool shell . I’m looking forward to seeing the finished project in person .

Amazing build . Love the organic filters. Thank you for sharing.

Phenomenal application! Thank you so much for sharing this. It feels like the next evolution!

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.

This is probalbly the most comprehensive video wrt Natural Pools. Love it. Solves the challenges that would be faced in India.

Build this on an industrial scale, many people would LOVE to buy this! Amazing

"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 is stunning! I like the idea of a natural pool except for "stuff" in the swimming water. But you've 'solved' that issue.

Absolutely amazing result! If I ever do a pool, this approach will definitely be on the top of my list.

So inspiring. Thank you for sharing your adventure. Be well.

It's amazing to see your work evolve into that wonderful pool. You should be extremely proud.

Congratulations to all involved! This looks fantastic and I really enjoyed hearing about the challenges and the solutions too.

Glad it worked it so well. Great work, lovely pool!

Thank you for sharing this amazingly inspiring info. I hope to build something similar for my family sometime in the future.

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.

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...

This was really cool to watch and learn about. THANK YOU ALL!

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!

Amazing work! Happy to have found this video, currently learning about sustainable living.

Absolutely Fabulous! Thanks for sharing.

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!

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!

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 really neat! i enjoyed learning about all the challenges you overcame to make this happen. Very worth it, it seems!

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'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.

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 one of the best natural pool I have seen

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!

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,

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.

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.

This isn't where I expected to spend my time today. How amazing and interesting, thanks for sharing.

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.

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…

This is amazing!

This is fantastic. I love seeing people working with nature. i would love to know more about that plant wall in the back. As far as i understand, australia environment is like my local texas one so it should work here.

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.

I love the playground behind the pool. Could you share few details about it as well?

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!

Amazing, Thank you both. This is the first time I knew about such pools, Amazing.

That's amazing. The water is so clear and I love that they use rainwater to keep it filled.

Any concerns on water borne pathogens? Normally I thought salt or chemicals would help to prevent these. Maybe only bad for kids swallowing small bits of water

Amazing - well done justin and david!

This is AWESOME !!!!

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.

How sensitive are these systems to chemical contaminents like sunscreens and other chemical that may be present on the body?

I never know this was even a possibility. Amazing amazing work!

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.

Very cool but my question is: how do the plants react to sun screen that gets in the water over time?

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

Great! Thanks for sharing this. I will share it further!

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!

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.

Loving the hydroponic system in the background.i can see how the natural pool idea evolved.its not too different from aquaponics system.

Thank you! I def will be doing this to my natural pool/ pond this year. Its like having a huge fish tank the same way it gets filtered out.

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

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

This amazing. Don’t know if I need the pool, but I love the idea for water usage. Full ecosystem off grid. Very nice! 👍🏻

Fantastic. Love every bit of your information. Good on you mate.

Great clarity considering the plants have not yet really established. In a few years that filter will look like a jungle!

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.

Well thank goodness, there’s been new developments in pool cleaning technology. This has got to be state of the art, even though it appears fairly straightforward and could’ve been used a long time ago! It certainly appears to be much cheaper to run than standard chlorine pool, although set up costs look greater; there is a lot of plumbing on those 20 boxes. I’m a huge Australia native fan, In fact, I sell native seed, but Sometimes I make exceptions for true beauties, and what an ideal opportunity to put in some beautiful, bright and colourful Louisiana Iris; 20 colours for 20 boxes. Fantastic! Thanks very much for this video. That pool owner guy did a great job of explaining the system.

This is quite something, thank you for sharing this!

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.

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?

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.

this is great! thanks for sharing!!

Super configuration, thanks for sharing.

Does Justin have any social pages where he posts updates on the system?

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.

Wow! Amazing set up.

Awesome work Justin and family. We are about to embark on a similar journey over in Mudgee. Plan to go clay-lined due to our inherent soil type on property. Will let you know how it goes cheers Luke

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.