The Origin of Bakki Showers?

[HenryC]

Last weekend I needed to do some re-work on my Bakki shower. After seeing Mike's photos, I figured I would clean out my bacteria house media while I was at it. My shower has been in operation for 18 months. Below is a photo of the media from my top tray after it had all been thoroughly shaken in the water. I figured it would be the dirtiest but found that it quite clean. Also, the bottom tray that collects the water and gravity feeds it back to the pond had very little build up in it. I am wondering if the difference between Mike's shower and mine is that Mike's is fed from one of his skimmers and mine is fed by a mid-level pick-up. I am guessing the mid-level pick-up pulls in much less solid matter than a skimmer.

Thoughts?

[MCA]

Have either of you thought about using the bottom tray to hold crush oyster shells? Maybe you have much harder water that up here in GA. My water had gh and kh below 100. So I figured the bottom tray might be a good place for some chcken scratch with a screen on the exit bulkhead to keep the scratch from going into the pond.

[farne230]

Good idea. You can use as many trays as you wish and they may contain what ever you like, you are only limited by space, support and your emagination. Regarding using the bottom tray to screen out large items, this would pose a problem for maintenance. This style of BS uses stacked trays and it would take more effort then I want to use to clean this tray out. One attraction was that BS did not need to be cleaned due to the high flow and force of water. It counted on some material passing through into the pond and back through the system over and over again at a higher frequency to feed the bio. I believe as more folks use this system in combination with other filter systems, we will see improved design and placement. I will when I pursue my next pond construction.

[MikeM]

Good stuff, Henry..... Using a mid-level pick up might be the difference. Your pond is also very clean in general, with the screen enclosure preventing most external debris from ever getting to it. But, it doesn't seem to me either of those factors should make as much of a difference. Remind me... what is your estimated water flow per hour through your shower?


Maybe next week I'll have time to check out the top tray again to see what happens after a couple of months.

[HenryC]

MikeM - I have a 1/2HP Sequence pump on the shower. I estimate it is providing 6000gph.

MCA - our source water here in Orlando is 120ppm Alkalinity and 120ppm GH so we do not have any reason for Oyster shell.