seller objective

Sell or license patent rights

product detail

GrazenFilter® is a patented, near-zero maintenance pond-pump prefilter. There’s nothing else like it in function and in market potential.

Humans don’t clean the GrazenFilter. Fish do.

GRAZENFILTER® DESCRIBED:

Fish need to eat. Pond owners need free-flowing pumps. The same debris that clogs pump intakes is packed with food for fish. GrazenFilter gives fish easy access to the debris (food), keeping pond pumps running unimpeded.

Other pre-filters address half the job. They prevent debris from fouling the pump using several approaches – filter cages, sponges, media buckets, to name a few. But, they don’t address the other half of the job – dealing with the debris once collected. It just sits and builds up until someone removes it. Then, the process repeats itself, quickly.

GrazenFilter, however, handles both debris filtering and debris reduction/removal with an elegant solution that’s nearly maintenance free. It employs a permeable barrier consisting of a single layer of stainless-steel screen. No additional debris capturing media is used. After the screen, the water’s next stop is the pump intake.

Attracted by the pump’s suction, debris, too large or complex to pass through the pump, lightly adheres across the screen giving fish and other creatures easy access to the nutrients it contains. The fish eat the debris, which is food to them, reopening surface area and allowing water to pass through.

As they graze, the fish act as nature's garbage disposals. They consume some of the debris and masticate the rest into smaller particles, spitting out a cloud of reduced debris that can pass harmlessly through the pump. Bacteria in the pond and in biological filtration systems downstream complete the breakdown of this reduced debris into harmless components.

GrazenFilter’s surface area is many times greater than the pump’s intake area, so the fish need only maintain a small fraction of open space. A properly sized GrazenFilter can be almost completely occluded yet still provide 100% of required flow area for a pond pump.

To increase the grazeable surface area, the current GrazenFilter prototype is slightly raised above the pond floor. This provides space for water to enter from the bottom, allows gravity to pull non-buoyant material to the floor, and gives fish enough room (two to four inches) to work underneath.

An important backup for the fish is a system of backwash cleaning jets located just under the surface of the GrazenFilter. This can be employed when the fish are less active (in winter, for example) or when there is so much debris in the pond that the fish can’t handle the workload.

The cleaning jets are powered by water supplied from a clean outside source or potentially from recirculated pond water. There’s no need to remove the GrazenFilter or wade into the pond to use the backwash. It also provides a very convenient way to add water to the pond.

VALUE PROPOSITION

Clogged pumps suck the fun out of pond ownership. Many pond owners give up on the hobby. And, when they complain, friends who considered building a pond take a pass. The pond industry loses both current and potential customers.

GrazenFilter® solves the pump maintenance problem by making debris filtration a standout design element – one that harnesses nature’s own workforce.

It’s not just about liters/hour, head lift, and power consumption. GrazenFilter adds “near zero maintenance” to the list of sales features, creating a unique market differentiator for pond pump manufacturers and a compelling benefit for pond owners.

BROAD IP PROTECTION:

GrazenFilter® IP has trademark and broad patent protection (including kit and method claims) in North America, Asia, and Europe, specifically:

• Belgium
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• Hong Kong
• India
• Japan
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Singapore
• United Kingdom
• United States

selling benefits

- Fish Do the Work: Fish keep the GrazenFilter® clean so pond owners don't have to.

- Dramatically Lower Maintenance: Instead of every few days or weeks, pond owners will likely never need to clean the GrazenFilter prefilter.

- It's Green: By employing fish to do what they do best, eat, the GrazenFilter works in harmony with nature, not in spite of it.

- Reduced Feeding Costs: GrazenFilter's thin mesh screens provide complete access for fish to graze on the natural food growing in the pond, reducing pre-made food costs.

- Cleaner Pond: With GrazenFilter, fish are the pond's tireless cleanup crew. Big debris doesn't just sit and decay, it's reduced by fish feeding action, breaking big pieces into smaller bits that can pass through the pump and on to biological filter systems downstream.

- Backup System: GrazenFilter's backwash system supplements fish cleaning activity during times when they may have difficulty keeping up with the debris load. This can happen during colder periods when fish activity is low or when it's time for an entire-pond cleaning.

- Refill System: The backwash also serves as a handy way to add water to a pond at any time.

competing products

There is nothing like the GrazenFilter® on the market. No one provides a pre-filter that's kept clean by the inhabitants of the pond.

However, there are countless less-effective ways of pre-filtering a pond pump. Separately or in combination prefiltering techniques include sponges, filter bags, pump cages, fibrous filtering media, porous rocks, to name a few. Pretty much anything that will let water pass through and keep big debris out can be used as a prefilter.

Pond pump manufacturers often include some type of pre-filter with their pumps. Without one, the pump will clog within minutes. These usually take the form of a small housing with openings surrounding the pump intake or larger housings that encase the entire pump. For the former, a sponge is often placed around the housing to provide more filtering capacity.

There are also numerous add-on prefilters provided by pump or third-party manufacturers. Also, some of the more adventurous pond owners make DIY prefilters out of milk crates, buckets with holes, and the like.These add more capability to the pre-filtering function giving pond owners a bit more time between cleaning intervals.

Examples include pumps and accessories provided by Atlantic Oase, Hozelock, Aquascape, Danner, Evolution Aqua, Blagdon, Laguna, Little Giant, Pontec, and many more.

Search Google and Amazon for "pond pump pre filter" to find hundreds of third-party pre-filters. Prices range from $8 for simple mesh bags to over $2,200 for high-end prefiltered pond pumps.

sales activity

While the product is listed for sale, our manufacturing capabilities don't allow them to be sold at a profit. Thus, we're looking for licensees and/or manufacturing partnerships to make marketable products at a commercially viable scale.

We can provide free prototypes to anyone who is seriously interested in working with us. The pricing listed on our website is more for trademark purposes than sales.

Please keep in mind that the information provided here is for prototype evaluation, prototype sales.

pricing/cost info

inventory in stock	In stock and available for sale
number of units	< 100
msrp	$$299 to $$299
manuf. lead time	1 week
estimated cost/unit	$$110 to $$160
minimum order quantity	1
location of warehouse	Nashville, TN

contact info

name	Steve Roche
email	steve@grazenfilter.com
phone	(615) 293-0814
entity type	Individual/Entrepreneur
company name
company url	https://grazenfilter.com
country	United States
city	Nashville
address	504 Park Center Ave
address 2
state	Tennessee
zip	37205