bakki with bio balls

[tewa]

Dick

No prolem will let you guys know how its going probably the most exciting bit is to see whether we can find similar growth rates here in Australia when using exactly the same kind of water, food and filtration.

Bob
Right now I don't have a spare pond but I might later on, one thing I did discover about the bioballs when I took it out was that there were a lot of fish waste, large chunks stuck inside the bioball and if you put it in submerged water they would come out. This was evident in every shelf, which could be a reason for why the nitrites were still hanging around as the fish waste just wasn't broken down into smaller pieces fast enough for the bacteria to consume.

I took out the bacteria house yesterday to have a look at whether the same thing was occuring. There were only large pieces on the very top of the first layer of bacteria house in the first shelf, there was no large chunks in the other shelves. This leads me to believe that the type of surface is very important, if no settlement was to be used and fed from bottom drain the media that must be used has to have a very rough and rugged surface.

those who have bacteria house will all attest that if the skin was to graze the media very lightly that you would feel the sharpness of the coral like media. This along with fish waste being soft and the shearing forces of large water volume flow would grind the fish waste to smaller pieces.

This is why i strongly believe that if to be used in an outdoor system that leaves and other debri must be taken out by something before dirty water is pumped over the showers. Fish waste is the same whether indoor or outdoor pond. I also believe that this is where the system can be abused and seen as a fraud and that it does not work. When the hobbyist overfeeds beyond the shower capacity (bottom drain fed pond) then they are bound to hit a boundary where the digestive system of the koi cannot digest the amount of food consume. This leads to a lot of fish waste in the actual water itself before it even gets to the showers. At this point onlookers will only see that the water clarity is bad and that there is a lot of fish waste and thus the system doesn't work. At this point one thing to do is to increase the turnover rate so that the fish waste does get to the shower and not stay in the pond that long but there is only so much filtration whether it be biofiltration or mechanical (which I consider in bacteria house instance to be the breaking down of fish waste to smaller particles at the top shelf) if people overfeed pass the filtration capacity with inadequate turnover rates then the unbroken down fish waste would travel back into the pond as small particles and effect water clarity.

That is why daisuke told me that they would turnover their pond volume 2 to 3 times and use 300kg of bacteria house for their ten tonne pond. Simply because of the extreme stocking rate and also feeding rate.

tewa

[GazKoi]

Hi Tewa

I find your posts very interesting in how you seem to be trying and documenting how you are testing your system.

I think you are correct about the turnover rate as i have read about how the turnover rate can be increased i think it is just down to koi keepers forgetting some of the old rules and trying new stuff with new technology and see where it takes us.

I am currently building a new pond but unfortunately will not have bakki shower but will be using some BHM. The new system will have the provision to actually pull the water through the system much faster than normal so i can see what happens.

Keep up the good posts and thanks.

Gazza.

[ranskye]

hey guys!!!! exactly!! before you part with your cash, what is the difference between a plastic bioball with good surface area and a BH.
is it made of something else???? i dont understand the science being used just yet.
if it is made of something else other than something for the bacterias to cling to then what is it and what is its surface area.
are these experiments done in the same conditions under the same loads? there are so many variables it is not funny and as such hard to draw hard conclusions on comparisons.
where is the proven product information? apart from beautiful big fish from big ponds.

[dick benbow]

The most important factor in this kind of filtration is known as void space or where water oxygen, food and bacteria can mix. I'm partial to the drip rod style of bio balls. encased in a tower with air pushing up from the bottom and rising up out the vent holes in the top under the drip tray, i don't think there is a better system. That said I'm running a BH/3 tray and have for awhile now.
When i move the koi outside this spring in about 3 months I will turn off my Bakki
and run the blue j-mat in 3 vortexes only.I erected the system only for the knowledge and the ability to comment on it from personal experience in my classes. I believe that it works well but honestly feel there are other ways to get the same results with less expense.

to me filtration is like an old car. if part of the ownership is the fun of tinkering with it, then a do it yourself filter system is great. If however you want a turn key system and not have to mess with it as much, it may cost you more but
maybe time is money and worth it to you. one thing i have learned over the years is that you're furthur ahead to be over filtered and i like to run several different syles and media types in a filter system than to have all my eggs in one basket ( so to speak ).

I wish my koi kichi Bill would post here and honestly comment on me and my system. It'd be more believeable to hear it from him but he'd say I underfeed my koi, keep 1000 gallons for each one I have, have 3x more filtration than I need and run a trickle 24/7 while draining the collection vortexes once or twice a day. I am also working on RO water to bring my hardness down as well as my PH. I think he would use words like fanatical, over the edge etc.
( then ask him what he thinks of my koi's condition )< insert grin>

hope some of my ramblings may help

[ranskye]

a good point about the less expense for an as good a system.
ive seen a lot of biofilters, most of them are clogged with big food particles rotting away inside. its the dissolving water soluble stuff that the bacteria should be exposed to, so much expensive media gone to a waste as a mechanical filter and not biological..
my old teacher told me that some balls where not so good and showed me why. mostly had to do with usable surface combines with water flow over it.
then he showed me a blocked submerged system that rquired a back flush to remove all the crap.. this meant that it blocked up and got sick right up till servicing. sand, fluidised bed, towers are my favourate too, rotating drum bios are allright too.
check out the 40 micron rotating drum filter screens, thatll fix that problem or you can make one yourself. they are good and care free but cost a lot.
try out a small muckmover solids pump on the bottom of your vortex on a minute timer, alternatively use one of those automatic gate valves that open and close.
have it so it opens and the pressure in the tank pushes a quick shot up a pipe and out to your garden or a bucket, the hose end is equal or slightly higher than your running tank level and then theres no worry of a complete drain out. they really work beautifully coupled with a small float valve for replenishment.

[ranskye]

if that koi still whinges.. tell him to move out and find somewhere better.
i wish i had a RO, today i drank boiled water from the jug and it had rat poop in it. my mind went, oh no im gonna be sick tonight but im ok.

sometimes i wonder about ro's pulling all the essentials from water too.
like playing with the osmotic pressures within a fish by running them in too pure a water for too long.

years ago i wanted an ro, i was thinking oh ill get rid of the disease organisms, all those little pathogens.. then someone said the fish will die in that water..
then i was like ok ill be a chemist..put a bit of salt in there when im finished..

now ive found that a fish can be pretty happy as long as most things are within a decent range. theyve got an immune system, scales, slime. all that.
theyve always had to deal with extremes for short lengths of time. best to try stop the extremes and the lengths they endure them.

[Lam Nguyen]

It's been almost 4 years since this thread was last initiated and I just thought I would bring it to the forefront for further discussions. I am in the process of building a bakki shower using plastic crates and am looking for a media to go in the trays. Don't know why I am having so much difficulty with this decision, but am still contemplating between using the 3rd generation BHM versus 1" bioballs.

One thing I have learned about the BS is that it works best if the pond is turned over at least 1.5 times per hour. Some say that bioballs works just as well while others swear by BHM. I just want something that will work and that will further complement the two Nexus 300 and two j-brush filter chambers that I using right now. Any opinion on which media type I should use is much appreciated.

[MCA]

As I remember, the Clarity unit uses bioballs. It is a combo of foam fractionator and TT.

I think it is very hard to match the surface area of a porous material like bakki house or pumice...etc. with the solid surface of plastic media...in the same total volume.

[kntry]

I don't have any experience with BH media so I can't compare. I will tell you my experience with bio balls.

I just put up a 16x4' pool, 2 aerated BDs, DIY filtration. 2 banks of filters, 1 for each drain consisting of 1 static chamber and 2 moving beds each. This water goes to the shower which consists of 2 trays with a total of 9000 1" bioballs. Skimmer goes to DIY sand/gravel filter and back to pond.

I started the pond cycling with my 5 Omosako growouts for about a month. I added 6 girls, 25-28" and the water went green the next day and stayed that way for right at 2 months. It cleared almost over night last weekend. I have never been able to detect any ammonia, nitrites or nitrates in the pond throughout the cycle. I knew it was cycling though because my media was continually darkening from stark white to brown.

I haven't opened the shower to look at the bio balls. I think the key is to make sure the water entering the shower is as clean as possible before it gets there.

[KoiCop]

Hello Michael . . .

Here's a pic of the media that was shipped with our Clarity unit.

Their literature refers to them as 'bio-beads' but I think of them as 'bio-barrells.'