How many times a week should you flush your settling chamber?

[Akinosan]

How many times a week should you flush your settling chamber?

[MikeM]

As often as you can.

[erwinsan]

Well... how often do you flush your toilet ? But seriously, I've heard a best practice of once in the morning and again in the evening during the hot summer months.

[MikeM]

Akinosan: If I could dump all settlement multiple times per day, I would. I cannot. So, I dump settlement once per day, unless required to be away from home past 9pm or so...then just not up to doing it. On weekends, all mechanical filtration stages are cleaned, vortex is emptied and lines to vortex are opened to flush them. Amazing amount of stuff settles in all lines, so I try to flush all as best I can weekly. What I should do, but do not, is weekly discharge from an isolated drain line that goes direct from bottom drain to waste discharge on my bead filter. I simply forget it is there! But the stale water in that drain line is putrid, anaerobic water...smells sulphuric. It should be flushed regularly. Knowing that water is in contact with the pond water, even if only down in the drain, upsets me every time I realize I've forgotten it again.

[Steve Nguyen]

weekly in summer months. haven't done it in past 6 wks due little feeding during winter months.

Steve

Quote: Originally Posted by Akinosan How many times a week should you flush your settling chamber?

[luke frisbee]

after every couple of pounds of food....don't forget the pond is 50,000 galllons (+or-)

EDIT TO ADD MORE STUFF....in the Summer I feed about 4-6 lbs....now I am fasting them so they get about .5 lb a day

[KoiCop]

In summer I flush the vortex every day; in winter, every two to three days.

[Birdman]

I have three different filters I back flush. I do one on Monday, one on Wed., and the 3rd on Friday. All total I am dumping about 1,000 gal weekly from a 17,000 gal pond.

[aquitori]

I have seen people just vacuum the waste out of the settling instead of dumping all that water. It sounds like a good thing, if your settling chamber is built right then "settling" of waste can be vacuumed safely with out disturbing it.

[Steve Nguyen]

Tony,

totally agreed. this is the exact what settling design to do. it's designed for easy waste removal with little water waste. I have a self-made settling tank with bottom drain so I can remove the waste as often as I want with 3 to 5 gallons of water used each time. I have dedicated pump for this purpose and worked out really well. it's as simple as open the ball valve and turn on the pump.

Steve

Quote: Originally Posted by aquitori I have seen people just vacuum the waste out of the settling instead of dumping all that water. It sounds like a good thing, if your settling chamber is built right then "settling" of waste can be vacuumed safely with out disturbing it.