bakki towers

[l113892]

I have a pond(8' show tank) that I stock with small fish and feed pretty heavy. I keep the tank under plastic to keep the water temperature above 80. The water stayed green until I returned from a week in Myrtle Beach. The water was crystal clear when I returned and though I'm back to feeding heavy I cannot get the water to go green again.

There are a lot of variables and right now the BS has a lot of anedotal information going one way and the other.

Mike Pfeffer

[Maurice]

MikeM, I’ve seen many a pond run without a UV, but these are ponds which are several years old, certainly not new like this one.
If you reread my post you will note that my new pond is well under filtered as time has not allowed me to connect filtration to the 4 bottom drains, all it has for now is one filter system sat on the side of the pond being fed by a couple of submersibles. The pond when complete will have 5 separate filter systems, each larger than the one that is running the pond at the moment.
I think you’re looking in the wrong direction for the reason why the pond has cleared so quickly and completely.

Shiro, the pond ‘was’ heated by being connected to the big girls pond inside and water circulated between the two. At that time it was heated to 24c = 75f, but within a couple of weeks of running the water went green and this started upsetting the big girls with it’s PH swing, so I turned off the connection and since has been unheated. The water once cooled has stayed fairly constant around 61f-63f.
It has run this way for 2 1/2 months, in that time the water has gone greener and greener. I put on the trickle tower, pumping at a higher rate than would be the norm, within hours I had foam, it’s still there, but the water has slowly cleared.
Inside on the male’s pond with the shower running, I get very little to no foam, but this system is well established.

[MikeM]

Maurice: There have been a great number of positive experiences with Bakki Showers & Bacteria House, and it could well be that the addition of BS/BH is what got you pass the greenwater stage. The positive result with a low volume of media may indicate how much surface area fresh BH exposes to the water. But, I do not buy the far-infra red rays puffery. So, I return to the idea that it was your pond getting thru the initial cycling stage that eliminated the greenwater. The BH may have materially contributed to the resolution. It would be interesting if you had ammonia readings before & after BS/BH set up.

BTW, those are great looking kohaku youngsters you've raised up. The new pond may fill up quickly if you get many more like that!

[shiromujigirl]

According to Roark, Savannah's and my horribly memorable esters of ETOH tests in Brettville, the BH DiD do something to the ETOHs', it softened them. But we did brilliantly rule out, impaired as we were, the FIR with the plastic wrap tests, please review. Myself.... never again!

[Bob Winkler]

I have a question about Bakki Shower, and TT's for that matter, setup. It seems that many have come to the conclusion that it is important to have some type of filter/settlement chamber prior to the TT/BS. I may have missed it, but is the source water better from the bottom drain, or skimmer. If one has the choice of one or the other.

The reason I ask, is the new pond we are building will have some 6 bottom drains and 3 skimmers. My original plan was to have the 3 skimmers go by 4" to 3 vortex' and then all 3 to a BS type TT. With the 6 BD's each having their own nexus, the primary purpose and goal of the TT is degassing, nitrate removal, and perhaps some bit of filtration. The TT will then gravity feed to a waterfall.

So....from the BD or the Skimmers or some of both? and why? TIA

PS. Looking forward to seeing any of you at the Chicago show this weekend.

[MikeM]

SMG: I've brought this grandaddy of Bakki Showers threads back to the top so you can give us a status report on your experiment. ....Pleaaaase??

P.S. .... We need to get you internet access at your job in the wilderness. Been missing your insights.

[ranskye]

i would say that you can put the filter where you like, as long as the water going in is clean of particulate matter. to me it seems like a trickle tower, water droplets in at the top over media, water and air runs over a substrate that holds bacteria. so it aerates and strips carbon dioxide - degasses.
the bacteria convert the wastes via ammonia cycle to nitrite and nitrate, ph will usually become lower as it uses up calciums.
if you found that the oxygen was lacking in your water because you had it splashing away somewhere hidden and not directly on the pond then you would aerate it again. thats all. it shouldnt make a difference. the thing to be rememebered is that water should be mechanically filtered of its waste particles before sending it to a biological filter or it clogs and loses its surface area for bacteria.
im not trying to sell the things but stainless is good because nothing sticks to it as with plastics. i dont see any figures on its surface area per sq meter of the media though...i think this should be advertised.

[ranskye]

one more thing, algae lives on sunlight, water and nutrient.
water also contains carbon dioxide in various amounts, degassing removes some of this. algae love carbon dioxide for growth. so that removal of co2 can slow the growth.
it also may be temperature of the water that discourages algae growth or light intensity.
mainly what feeds plants after sunlight and co2 is the nitrates etc.
this enters through feeding- food waste and by product of fish metabolism.

in an unconverted form of ammonia, some plants can use it, though mainly they use the nitrate in large amounts which is an end product of bilogical filtration, plants and algae dont just live on ammonia,nitrite or nitrate.
there are other things that will build up over time.
correct me if im wrong but this biological filter would not remove nitrates!

what removes nitrates from the system is ussually algae, floating plants or water exchange, especially in heavily loaded systems (i guess much higher than the systems you guys are talking) water exchange is used to deal with the end product.
even though it may be less toxic to fish after sending through a bio filter it is still not wanted in the sytem in building quantities.
you can remove it as a gas, the smelly stuff but this requires a dead chamber or expensive gear.

[ranskye]

basic design should remove heavy settlables gently so not to break up into finer matter, it should remove this from the water altogether.
still there is fine particles called suspended solids. remove it also. fine micron mesh ussually does the job well. id say go down to atleast 200 micron or smaller.
once you do this the nutrient load is so much smaller. bacteria media is expensive and you should never clog it.

[ranskye]

benifits should not be lost, marks right. if water does get to saturation level at about 8mg oxygen per litre, depending on temperature and salinity and height above sea level haha. (theres charts out there if you want to know.)
it can only get reduced if something uses it up, not by traveling through a clean pipe.
i think the concern is that there could be even more earation going on if it falls thru trickle and hits the stale pond water, turn up the flow rate ever so slightly will beat this concern.

still id go so far to say that when a healthy flow of falling water hits the water in a pond directly below a trickle tower that the water below the trickle that may get disturbed up so as to make contact to the atmosphere is so close to being saturated or atleast of equal oxygen content to the water falling through the bakki that it doesnt make a slight enough difference. hmmmmmmmmm.