Bakki and Installation

[tomc]

Following on from my "bakki and noise" thread, I thought it worthwhile asking you knowledgable folk about the installation.

Currently: 5,200 gallon pond - fed by two bottom drains to a single filter system (yes, not the best design but space restrictions at the time). Drains go to settlement chamber with Answer in place, then biological chambers of K1 then J/Mat then wet BHM, to then flow back to pond via various returns. I also have a trickle tower which is fed from the BHM chamber and returns to the K1 chamber (so on a loop). There's a seperate skimmer system.

My primary idea is to feed the new bakki shower directly from the settlement chamber. This would mean I would feed the bakki unfiltered water (which in itself seems a debate) and would increase my bottom drain pull to something more in specification with two drains. Of course, a lot of what would have settled out will now go to the bakki shower. I never quite got my heads around physics on head loss: would doing this cause the settlement chamber level to drop via head loss?

The alternative is to leave the bottom drains untouched and replumb the skimmer. Skimmer return is 2 feet down so take this as the input line for the bakki showers and pump from this. Refeed skimmer return via one of the other pond returns. Again unfiltered water but in this case the existing settlement chamber would remain a settlement chamber.

Thoughts appreciated. Tom

[MikeM]

Tom: I cannot answer your question. I do not know if your settlement chamber is big enough to handle the flow and still operate as a settlement chamber. The best settlement rate occurs in quiet water.

I run my Bakki off a skimmer. I am pleased with it. Leaves and algae gunk are caught before getting to the leaf basket on the pump. Be sure your skimmer is wide enough to handle the volume before you go that route.

[junglegeorge12]

The way Momotaro recommends is directly from a bottom drain. Pulling from a skimmer you lose some of the benefit you are paying for, although it will still have a significant impact. They do have some ponds that run from a bottom drain to a vortex to the shower. So you could pull either straight from a bottom drain or from your settlement.

How it will affect your settlement depends on the rate of flow and the size of it. You could possibly feed it from one tube coming from the bottomd rain line, and another coming from the settlement, that would give you the ability to control the flow rate through your settlement chamber, and give you the benefit of settling out at least some of the water going to the shower.

The other thought is in relation to your bottom drains, are they hooked together so you c an pull evenly from them or are they piped seperately all the way?

Maybe if you could post a small diagram of your system and your piping it would help us to have a clearer picture of what you have.

Either way, to me, the worst option would be to skimmer feed. I think you will see a noticable difference in energy level and overall health of your koi from using the shower vs immersed BH.

[tomc]

Unfortunately, the drains join beneath the pond. There was a real space restriction in my filter area to get two 4" lines brought up. So there's 1 x 4" line coming up from the filter room floor. Attached is (a crude) diagram of that section.

The first thing it does is split again - with a line going to a sump so I can pull the bottom drains at will. The socket here is actually multi-portal and has potential connections for 4 x 2" pipes (sealed today). So I guess this is actually gong to turn out to be the best solution - drill out one (or two) of these socket(s) and utilise these? I keep my existing settlement system intact but get the extra draw from the bottom drains via the showers, I think. Thanks for asking for the diagram - it made me think about what is potentially there.

[junglegeorge12]

What pump (how many gph) will you be putting over the showers? The recommended would be 10,000-15,000 gph for your setup I think. So I think you might need to just install a 4" tee in that line before the settlement, or if that isn't possible, after it. I doubt even 4- 2" lines will be enough.

How many gph is your current setup running? You may need to pull more for the current setup needs from the skimmers, and use the bottom drains to put what you need over the showers, and any left over through your current setup. That is how I personally would approach it in your situation.