board cruising

[dick benbow]

In checking out conversations in other boards, one that i thought had merit was one about filter size. initially some of the concern was about surface area but then the discussion went to cubic feet.
One thing I think that is important is what media is being used and how it is being used. More and more the modern media has a smaller and smaller footprint. The key for me is air....k-1, trickle filters, J-mat that is heavily oxygenated.
Back in the good olde days, the rule of thumb was a quarter of your pond's surface area needed to be designated for filter. Back then we used peagravel
and the argument was for up or down water movement.
Later , as we progressed, filter focus was on dwell rate or the time the food was exposed to the bacteria. one of the "thous shalt nots" was ripping the food past the bacteria so fast they didn't have a chance to consume it...
Now the concern is about how many times we turn the pond thru the filter.
I know there are many of our readers who will be building new ponds this spring or adjusting their present one.....what experience, theory or practical application would you recommend as a good 'rule of thumb'......also is it better to put all your eggs in one basket or does different methods and media
give the keeper a slight edge on a diverse biofilm...oh and does it matter if the filter is exposed to the light of day? Whew!!! lots to digest here!

[Gail]

It does get mind boggling doesn't it? I take bits and pieces from everyone and then try to make all of them fit into one picture. Not an easy task. THere are some very experienced folks out there with so much knowledge having tried most methods.and then there are the Mavericks who are so very talented with their DIY projects! These are the ones I watch as far as building tips etc...

[dick benbow]

presently I'm running bakki shower exposed to the sunlight, and japanese
filter media heavily oxugenated from way below the media in covered (dark)
vortex filters upflows ( 3 ) I also run a small portion thru a trickle filter of bio balls.
It is definetely over kill for my koi but since i use my pond as an educational facility for visitors, it's fun to have more than one going at anyone time. Don't laught but I have half as much water into filters as the volumn of the pond.

[mitten]

Dick-

I'm finishing the pond in the greenhouse and I believe I've settled on these filtration paths- bottom drains to vortexes, empty of course, to aerated mat chambers, to 5 foot tall towers of lava rock. So, yes this media is entirely heavily aerated. Also, media will be housed in covered, opaque containers, except the top tray, though I don't believe dark is all that neccessary.

It happens to be about 16 Cu. Ft. per 3600g at 3000gph.

Mickey the windowman

[Brutuscz]

I think it is wrong to make generalizations about filter size relative to pond size. There are simply too many variable factors (fish size, temperature, #of fish, amount of food...etc) After 27 years of fishkeeping, I have found several things that make sense and work. Put on the filtration you think is appropriate...and measure your water regularly. If the ammonia and nitrite are high (after cycling)....guess what...you need more filtration!!! My last pond was 7,000 gal. I started with a 150gal waterfall filter....it worked fine when I had a few small fish. Then, as they grew(and I bought more fish)..suddenly the ammonia and nitrite were not zero anymore. I added another 50 gallon sand filter(filled with springflow)...and again, all was well. Then..more size, more fish...added a 275gallon side flow filter. Again..all was well. My point is your filtration should be dynamic...add more if needed(..or reduce fish load). Manufacturers recommendations mean little...to say it's made for 5,000gal...well, 20koi, 30koi or 50koi? I put my stock in testing my water and adapting as needed!!! I follow the same formula with fish tanks as well. This method cannot help but be successful.

[dick benbow]

Mickey, I think your gonna be surprised and happy with the results you get with your 5 ft trickle tower.....

Brutuscz, I think so many water keepers test like cracy at first and then slide into a pattern of not testing....and your absolutely right, as the load grows so does the need to test and increase filtration. I think a weekly test for water parameters, tho seemingly boring can be your first line of defense.

BTW my vortex filters are bottom drained each day. The filter (250 gals) is not drained completely, just enough to see it start to run clean, poof there's a slug of dirt and then back to clean again. I figured with all the money i spent to get an engineered vortex, I was gonna get rid of any accumulation
daily. I am entering into my third year with the bakki. It's always clean and never accumulates and I break a filter media from time to time and smell and you can never smell anything "fishy". I have the older style media and that surprises me....

[koiczar]

My thoughts - for what it's worth

If your building a pond,you should really decide on your desired MAXIMUM fish load FIRST. If you want say, 10 very large koi (over 26") then design your filtration for that maximum load. But, always make it so that you can add to it if your desired load changes.A combination of filter styles can allow for flexibility without breaking the bank. It should also be able to be augmented without serious disruption to the pond or the existing filters as much as possible. How about this combination - Vortex - to bead filter - to showers? Sound like a plan? Maybe it will work for most!? Good subject to mull over during these cold dark months with not much else to do.

Mike

[Birdman]

Ya know, koi and pigeons arn't really that different. The key to healthy birds is max ventilation with out drafts. I think the key to healthy koi is max oxygen, fluid bed ot TT with out so much flow as to wash the bacteria away. Then we can move on to water clairity, mech filters. I guess in a perfect world you would have some of all, like Dick. If you cant go with a TT then I think a fluid bed would be next best. But then how much air? Dick and I just had a conversation about one of my fluid bed filters and both thought there was to much air, boiling the media to much. So we drilled a bleed hole and it looks much better now.
One thing I think we can agree on, the less efficiant the filter, the bigger in size it needs to be. There are koi keepers running nothing bt baki showers for huge ponds and fish loads because of how well they work.. Dr Conrad loves the lava rock TTs. I'm going for fluid beds because I don't want some ugly TT sitting over my pond.
There are many roads to Rome I guess.

[mitten]

All tanks here are valved and dumped daily. All chambers run open, nonpressurized, and heavily aerated. The new towers will be my largest and I am looking forward to their effect on filtration. I am also thinking they will be a good backdrop in my greenhouse pond, partially screening the filter pit, not an eyesore at all. But I'm kind of an industrial guy.

I agree that formulas can be misleading and may mean little, so I try to always vary the approaches I use and the media, always using "more than I think neccessary." Well, I guess I don't vary my approaches all that much. Give me "valved and dumped daily. All chambers run open, nonpressurized, and heavily aerated" like I said.

Right now it is not planned to use K1 on this pond's filtration. Though I love it and find it easy and effective, my water is so hard that the K1 gets caked up and stops floating, no matter how much air. If I pull the media and set it aside in a tub it cleans itself up in a week or two and I can put it back. Doesn't seem to be the most high tech way to go about things, and media sitting in the bottom of a tank bugs me, so I am back to using spaced, aerated mats.

Mickey the windowman

[MikeM]

I really can't say that any one type of filter or media is better than another, but I do think each has its own merits and promotes different mixes of microbes. I use several types of filtration in the hope that the diversity produces a biofilm mix that can withstand a wide range of stresses. More important in my mind is simply having a lot of filtration. In my old pond I turned over the pond volume every 45 minutes. When the current pond was built, I went for that same turnover rate with gentle returns. Moving water with the heightened exposure to the atmosphere is healthier water.