bakki towers

[Griff]

added note
The shower concept has an advantage of using different types of media - good place to put some oyster shells !!!!

[Gene]

I ran a lava rock "shower tower" for three years in a tank containing 600 gallons of water. I used a 1200 gph Pondmaster submersible pump mounted 8" off the bottom of the tank with 1-1/2 inch pipe running from the pump up through 5 commercial grade plastic drip saucers. Four of the saucers were 21" in diameter and 2" deep and each contained 1/2 cubic feet of lava rock. The top saucer was used for water disbursement. Three of the saucers had 3/8" holes drilled in the bottom and the last one had the holes around the outside edge only. I had excellent water quality with heavy fish loads for the entire three years.

I tore it down and traded the lava rock in two of the saucers for bio balls and ran it that way for another 3 years. It still performed well.

[dick benbow]

Griff,Gene


Thank-you both for added details.

Griff -Sounds like you are advanced with your system, yet you saw appreciable improvement over what was being done already. I think that speaks to readers who are not using this method and who are hesitating
because of cost. They need to come to terms with the method.

Gene-it sounds from your experience that the method works for you.

to me, the next step for the both of you is to try the new BH media and see what you notice
in the way of improvement. with both of your long experience, this would be a good test. I also understand that if in your mind your system is not broken, you don't have to fix it.

was just hopeful collectively that we could come up with something definitive that said yes I use BH and it made a difference over other media. I don't think koi keepers are questioning the method anymore!

[stickdog]

Question for SMG... I know this probally has been asked before but i'm not going to read 29 pages of stuff, are you pumping straight from the bottom of the ponds or are you using any settlement or pre filter first? Do you get any fines on the bottom ? how much algae is growing on the sides of the tanks? thanks for any answers

ED

[B.Scott]

Standing in for Shiro as I believe she is out getting her bottom bumped riding horses...
If I'm not mistaken both showers are fed directly from the bottom. In one of her last posts she states "Where is all the crap that should be on the bottom gone to?"
I take it she can find no solids!

B.Scott

[Griff]

The problem with the BH house is the cost ! It would cost me several grand to have enough BH media to test it - until I see some very strong evidence - I,ll stick to lava rock---- bio balls .
Gene deserves a little credit -in that he has been running this concept for 6 years now - has always promoted it,s benifits --- his design has worked very well for him and others that have used it -----
The bottom line is that the fish love it !!!!!!

[Gene]

This year I went back to all lava rock and this time I'm using the natural lava rock. The first three years I used the steel mill clinker lava rock. Over the past six years I've set up other tanks with the same type tower filtration with different media and also different methods for delivering the water to the media.

The original lava rock shower ran for three years with the same lava rock. I would do a 10% water change each week by pumping it out with a sump pump. When I tore it down after the third year I noticed that some of the lava rock had eroded from golf ball size down to pea size due to the high flow rate. That won't be a problem with BH media but for the cost difference I just can't justify using it.

I've set up many configurations of these type filters and I have another smaller tank that has given me great service. It is a 300 gallon Rubber Maid tank that I increased the size of the bottom drain from 1-1/4 inch to 2" that gravity fed to a 30 gallon barrel. The inlet of the barrel was 1/3 up from the bottom and I used a saucer drilled with holes above the inlet to leave a settling area. The barrel has a bottom drain to dump the solids. Above the pan I used some filter media for mechanical filtration and placed a Pondmaster submersible 950 gph pump. I used a 1-1/2" pipe from the pump that ran up through a hole I drilled in the center of the lid. The pipe runs up to about 7’ and has a 90 degree elbow and feeds four 40" long 4" pieces of ABS pipe filled with bio balls. Of all the different types of filters I've tried these two are the most efficient.

I'm in the process of setting up five more 1000 gallon tanks and I'll be using a combination of the two types of filters. I'm using 55 gallon plastic drums for the mechanical filtration with a 1200 gph Pondmaster pump feeding two crates containing 2 cubic feet of lava rock each.

[dick benbow]

Thanks to the both of you for your thoughts and great details!

The technique is valid, no doubt. I quess because of cost, the BH will have to remain a mystery until such time as "daddy warbucks" expends some of his hard earned cash!

daddy....or should that be Mr Warbucks ( sir)...can you come to our rescue?


I'd use the old expression "gee, I wish I was born rich instead of good lookin';

But someone would remind me that I've been passed over ( no offense) on BOTH counts! (LOL)

[Mike T]

I guess the little guy (in pond size only) has to come to your rescue...One of the advantages of having a little pond, (900 gals) is that it doesn't cost much to do these experiments...

I installed Steve Castel's blue shower bins using 20 kilos of BH, the perscribed amount for 1000 gals about a month ago...It's being fed directly from a Savio skimmer/filter after the mat, so water should be relatively clean...Turnover is only 1.1/hr but also do a 10% daily water change with 7.5ph, KH of 3dH and no contaminents, water...

Ammonia and Nitrites are at zero with an ORP in the range of 325-350... Just purchased a Nitrate kit so will start monitoring that this afternoon.

Will be moving the BH media from the 4th (last) bin into the top three to make room for crushed coral to try and raise the KH to 5.5 dH...

Fish load, which will be reduced by building a new pond, is currenly 3, 15-18" and 4, 22-27" koi...

My hope is that the showers will never have to be cleaned...Call me a dreamer...

Aloha! Mike

[dick benbow]

Mike,
Aloha, and thanks for the information. It's nice to see you posting here! keep it up!!
Prior to the installation of your BH, what would you attribute to it's addition. what was your pond doing before and now after. Do You have enough confidence in the stuff to run it exclusively?
Mahalo