Pond turnover and efficacy of Porous Media Showers (poey got me to do it)

[luke frisbee]

Quote: Originally Posted by poey hi when i had the single shower running on the old pond(2000gals)when i first installed it the turn over was around 100%as this was the output of the pump i was using on the old filter system,at this turn over all the water params where good but the water clarity was poor. i then upgraded the pump to take the turnover to around 150% the water clarity improved greatly.from this i would conclude that the increased flow over the showers must pound what ever solids go through the shower into smaller pieces to enable the bacteria to consume the waste,be removed by the water changes? cheers Dave.

OK this ol boy is gonna tell those that spout about the rate of turnover in terms of the pond (ie 1.5 times).
There is no merit in the action going on in the Porous media shower in relation to pond turnover...the merit is occurring IN the dang pond...ya got that? That is why the amount of water moved is given in relation to POND turnover.....Hopefully you can figure this out with me.
Ya see. if a pond turns over faster then even more dense (ie specific gravity) particles will be carried with the water movement and too the PMS.
thereby keeping the pond cleaner by getting a greater percentage of the denser particulate to the PMS and to the PMS Faster (therby giving the denser particualte less time to dissolve into the water and become something negative and harder to deal with.

Ya see as a kid I hung around the grad students at Auburn (when it was fun) and learned about just how much (actually "little") water movement was needed to keep negatively bouyant particles afloat in the water columns... specifically how fast a current was needed to keep Striper eggs afloat long enough for them to hatch out. Unlike Koi, a Striper's eggs pretty much die if they rest on a surface. They need to lightly bob along within the water column to remain viable...but that was 30 years ago so that theory might be passe...but the science of how little current is needed to keep slightly negative (alot of koi pooh?) moving towards the PMS's quickly hasn't changed. The pooh is held aloft and doesn't fall apart before it gets to the PMS, it and all of its terrible by-products (which could also fertilize multiple algaes?) get sucked up and then broken down to much less toxic (and less usable fertilizers) components.

So there it is. My Opinion on why a "pond turnover" rate and not the gph through the Porous media shower, is the reference given by those that make and advocate PMS's.
Some parts are wrong, but I THINK the main reason why a "POND TURNOVER RATE" is central to the efficacy of PMS's is reasonable, and probable.

[luke frisbee]

OH!

Poey got me to think more about it by his post up top.....you see if you increase the turnover from 1x to 1.5x oyu have in effect increased the speed the water is moving in your pond by 50%...this is probably HUGE in realtion to the ability of the pond water to keep negatively particulate created by koi "afloat", and there by get it to your Sewage plant instead of letting it fall to the pond floor and eventually make it there.