Changing japanese mat in multichambers filters wit K1 kaldness

[B.Scott]

Marco I placed a drum with static Kaldnes in the vortex itself. My second chamber used to have brushes as well but now holds fluid Kaldnes (kaldnes with air).

In case you missed it some picture of my conversion (bottom of page one)

http://www.koiquest.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=748

It's all a matter of of being able to adapt the vortex to take the drum. I did so by drilling a hole in my vortex and fitting a knife valve with a rubber ring. All you do is place the rubber in the hole and insert the valve with some lubricant. The hole is then water tight.






The water passing through is now quite clean. I do blow air through my J-mat to keep any detritus from setting there.
This would be a much better option than trying to put kaldnes in the second chamber if you ask me.

B.Scott

[marco]

Thanks Scott, I think I get it now. I just have to find a system to adapt my vortex to your system and find a drum of an old wash machine.
Thanks also to Mike M for the air pomp imformation.
I will you let know how it works later.
Marco

[teddy]

Hi Scott
what do you mean by placing kaldnes inside a separate unit within the vortex?
could you show me the pictiure?
if i'm not mistaken someone said that kaldnes work well in his vortex..

i plan to put 50 litre k1 in my vortex

rgds,
teddy

Quote: Originally Posted by B.Scott Marco, My conversion to static kaldnes is meant only as a filter for fine particles not as biofiltration. The Vortex you saw was never used with J-mat. It started out as a settlement with nothing in it and was later converted to house the Answer. I removed the Answer and first placed static kaldnes floating free in the vortex. This proved to be problematic and coarse waste was mixing into the Kaldnes and I was having trouble removing it. After placing the kaldnes inside a separate units within the vortex this problem was solved. Do you want fines separation of biofiltration? For separation of fines you want no movement of as little a possible. I placed a single brush in my vortex to prevent the water swirling about the containment vessel I do have a second chamber with fluidized Kaldnes. To do this it is absolutely necessary to be able to filter the coarse waste out of the water BEFORE in enters the fluid kaldnes. In the fluid kaldness bay you need to look at a few things. You must keep the Kaldness from entering the next chamber and you must prevent it from being flushed back to the previous one. The area where the water transfers to the next chamber must be quite large to prevent the kaldness from packing onto the device that retains it.. I.e. if the water is flowing with too much force the kaldness with stick to the screen and cause the next bay to be sucked down too low. This is another reason for prefiltration of coarse waste as this will do the same.. Last of all you need to pump air into the chamber beneath the Kaldnes to make it circulate and not float on the surface. The added air also aids nitrification. In a fluid set up you want vertical circulation. the water spinning doesn't matter one way or the other. It won't help but won't hurt either. B.Scott

[dick benbow]

I have enjoyed reading this thread as i'm sure others who are learning have.....If you desire to proceed with k-1, you certainly can....BUT....you might want to consider some other input about your current situation.

If i understand your situation your looking to replace your j-mat with k-i as a biological filter because your j-mat is collecting wastes and difficult to clean.
Correct?

Many moons ago when I started using j-mat I had the same problem. I wrote my buddies in the UK who sent pictures of what they were doing....vortexes,up flow, and air stones well below the media so that the entire filter surface looked like a jacuzzi. Not a spec of dirt...not only was the air making an aroebic condition, it wouldn't allow detrius to settle anywhere. So I went and copied their treatment of j-mat and i have not cleaned or had to for the last few years.

suggestion: try putting some serious airstones a foot below your media and really boiling your chamber so that nothing settles. Give it a month or so...if it does not work to your satisfaction your gonna need the air and stones to
keep your k-i moving anyway. My pond is designed to deposit all wastes into a main sump that i dump daily and this does help the filtration to start with. Because I have 3 upflow j-mat vortexes in a row, the waste from the filter bacteria is easily dealt with by the heavy aireation.

This refinement of my system and the addition of a 24/7 trickle of fresh declorinated water made a gigantic improvement to the wellbeing of my filter system and water keeping. perhaps you could give it a try.....

[B.Scott]

Dick,
I basically do exactly what you describe with regards to aeration. On the egg crate under the J-mat there are perforated tubes that pass air up through the J-mat keeping it relatively free of detritus. Plus the Static K1 means the water coming into the chamber will be much cleaner as well.

I might add that because of the nature of nitrification the matting will always be building up a layer of dead cells withing the matting even if the water entering was absolutely particle free. These will come loose to a greater of lesser extent every time you agitate the matting. So by not meants will you ever get it completely without maintainance. I still does need a good rinse every now and again.

Teddy, instead of reposting all the info, here is a link were you can read it as a whole. The problem I have seen with using the whole vortex is that it give the crap no place to settle before it mixes with the K1. This makes cleaning much harder. Also if you suffer from even a little bit of stringy algae, it cannot be washed out of the K1 and just gets caught up and rots. With an interal van (much like an EASY) the junk stays outside the K1 and can be flushed to waste.

http://www.koiquest.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=748

B.Scott

[KoiCop]

Quote: Originally Posted by dick benbow Many moons ago when I started using j-mat I had the same problem. I wrote my buddies in the UK who sent pictures of what they were doing....vortexes,up flow, and air stones well below the media so that the entire filter surface looked like a jacuzzi. Not a spec of dirt...not only was the air making an aroebic condition, it wouldn't allow detrius to settle anywhere. So I went and copied their treatment of j-mat and i have not cleaned or had to for the last few years.

We run an Ultima 6k beadfilter for mechanical filtration between the settlement vortex and the aerated upflow J-mat biofiltration tanks. We flush the settlement vortex and the Ultima daily -- and like you have no problem with the J-mat fouling.