Polygeyser vs Alpha 1 and Pump recommendations

[mynamy1]

Is this a half water garden pond & half koi pond? The gallonage is 6K plus, yet must have 2 BD to service due to length. Not a good KOI pond to keep females into +30" size. But there is nothing wrong with keeping smaller males?

Is it possible to build a shalow garden pond with plant (to keep wife happy) that cascades into a deep koi pond? The variation is endless but people in this board are into koi pond only. MA Le

[mitten]

Quote: Originally Posted by mynamy1 The variation is endless but people in this board are into koi pond only. MA Le

I'll say that MA Le has underemphasized. It is the people of the world that are into deep koi ponds with well thought out filtration, easy to maintain, and with a vision of durable long term beauty and enjoyment.

Remember that biofiltration is pretty easy to accomplish, and to get done well, if mechanical filtration is excellent. That makes the settlement chambers the heart of your pond. I'll say that passive settlement is ideal but others will argue that screens and static (flushable!) filters are much more complete in their methods of eliminating solids before fouling the bio media.

Plants contribute little to filtering and can add messiness. It is easy to find accounts of taking plants out of a pond, like it is easy to find stories of getting out the rocks. Dump the wife.

[CBRS2K]

Quote: Originally Posted by moikoi my chamber foot print is 10.5 X 6.5 X 4 ft deep it contains three 450 gal chambers. can you make your chamber 6 X 8 X 6 ft deep ?

Hi moikoi,

I'm trying to avoid having to go too far down to accomodate the filtration for the following reasons:

• I'm close to a fence, and I think set back rules will limit me as to how far down I can go (I think that I am limited to about 3', which would put the filtration pit about 4' below pond level).
• Deep filtration bins would seem to be a major pain to have to clean

While having to deal with my jetlag, the other night, I thought about this problem and came up with a possible alternate solution. It's amazing what you can think up, when you can't sleep. My alternate solution was to go "up" instead of "down".

In my original design, I had my filtration area inset into the pond. It looked pretty good "on paper" but when I layed the outlines out in the yard, the filter wall protruded too far into the pond and the proportions just didn't look right. In addition, I lost a lot of water volume and swim area for the fish.

My alternate solution is to see if I can cantilever a trickle tower system (perhaps 48" x 16" x 36") over the back wall of the pond. I'd be height limited to 36" due to CC&Rs and HOA rules. The TT would not replace the submerged gravity feed bio bins that I had mentioned earlier, but rather augment them. I'll have to look at what it would take to make something like this happen. If it's too cost prohibative, I'll have to go back to the drawing board.

[CBRS2K]

Quote: Originally Posted by mynamy1 Is this a half water garden pond & half koi pond? The gallonage is 6K plus, yet must have 2 BD to service due to length. Not a good KOI pond to keep females into +30" size. But there is nothing wrong with keeping smaller males? Is it possible to build a shalow garden pond with plant (to keep wife happy) that cascades into a deep koi pond? The variation is endless but people in this board are into koi pond only. MA Le

Hi MA Le,

Actually it's about 85% Koi Pond, 10% Filtration, and 5% Water Garden. The plants are meant to be ornamental more than anything else. I do realize that they will also help with nitrate consumption, which I consider a side benefit. All of the plants will be placed on the top 10" to 12" of the settlement/pre-filtration chambers. I'm thinking that about 5' of the settlement chamber run will be purely gravity. Beyond that, I am thinking about inserting a series of Matala mats of varying densities to finish the mechanical filtration portion and begin the biological segment of the system. It is the additional biological filtration capacity that I am wrestling with, as there are a lot of factors to take into consideration. One of my main considerations is "ease of maintenance" along with overall system efficiency and (of course) cost.

Being able to grow koi to 30"+ is a desire, but NOT a must. And I don't plan on buying fish of that size, any time soon. I would be happy with fish in the 20"-30" size range, but not too thrilled if the fish were limited to 8"-10" in size, due to poor design considerations on my part.

I had thought about going deeper, closer to the center of the pond, but I had heard that there is "clear" water and there is "CLEAR" water. I was told that unless my water was crystal clear at all times, it starts to get al little difficult to see fish (clearly) beyond 4 to 5 feet of depth. I decided that I would opt to favor a design that would allow me to enjoy my pond as oppose to becoming a slave to it. As such many of the chambers are sloped in design with built-in cleanout values. I'm hoping that these features will minimize the amount of effort to maintain a reasonably clear, koi hospitable environment.

[CBRS2K]

Quote: Originally Posted by mitten I'll say that MA Le has underemphasized. It is the people of the world that are into deep koi ponds with well thought out filtration, easy to maintain, and with a vision of durable long term beauty and enjoyment. Remember that biofiltration is pretty easy to accomplish, and to get done well, if mechanical filtration is excellent. That makes the settlement chambers the heart of your pond. I'll say that passive settlement is ideal but others will argue that screens and static (flushable!) filters are much more complete in their methods of eliminating solids before fouling the bio media. Plants contribute little to filtering and can add messiness. It is easy to find accounts of taking plants out of a pond, like it is easy to find stories of getting out the rocks. Dump the wife.

Hi Mickey,

Naw, the wife is a keeper. Afterall, she's putting up with my koi indulgance. I forgot to mention, in my reply to MA Le, that the pond is about as big as it can get, as we have very limited space to work with, without turning the entire backyard into a giant pond. The width of the pond bearly allows for walkways around it. There is a possibility to go wider, but then the proportions start to get out of wack and what little patches of land that is left would dissappear. Afterall, we've got to have some space to put a BBQ, sit and relax and enjoy our koi.

[mynamy1]

Hi Mitten, very well wrote and it sounds just like music to my ears. However please remember that in the CBRS2K's case he has little space for a big good passive settling. Also, lot of guys got jettison out of the house with only underware for the wife dumping activity!

CBRS2K, I just don't know how to help you in your planning. So why don't I offer a few fact? just merely to assist: (1) Plants reduce nitrate in a way then rotted and return the nitrate back to the water. If you decide to selectively trim them at certain time then your "ease of maintenance" goes to hell! (2) Most settling tank needs help in pushing the waste into the drain hole, regardless of sloping bottom. The bigger the tank (diameter) the more the severity of the problem. And your planned Matala interferes with this daily cleaning action. So much for the ease of maintenance? (3) Deep pond needs excellent mechanical to have the same clarity. That is true but others can do it why not you? Just think of many benefit of a deep pond. MA. Le

[koiczar]

CBRS2K

Ma Le makes a lot of very true and valid points here. You could get so much more water volume for the same size footprint by going deeper it's not even funny. If you reduced the overall size of your pond and went deeper to maintain gallonage, you could actually make room for secondary mechanical filtration. That's where the Matala comes into play. From there, pump it up to two sets of showers (one for each separate system) and voila! - now you're cookin'!! When Henry Culpepper built his new pond, he chronicled it here on bito for all to see. He made DIY showers that are really awesome without the heavy cost of some of the pre-made stainless steel units. There are many materials that can be used as media - lava rock, bio balls, striated filter mat (matala for example) just to name a few. As an example, a pond 10' x 20' by an average depth of 5.5' would yield a pond of 8250 gallons. Add your filter chambers, both settling and mechanical, and you're up over 9000 gallons total system. That's a slightly smaller pond with 50% more water volume. The depth is very beneficial in many ways. I would suggest using 120-160 watts of UV on the system - maybe 2-80watt units (one per system) and you'll have no problems with water clarity. The pond we just finished for a customer is 5.5' deep, 5250 gallons total system with 80 watts of UV. You can read a quarter on the bottom. I know 'cuz I had to fish one out that they dropped in on accident! LOL! BTW, it's all gravity fed chambers!

Mike

[moikoi]

Quote: Originally Posted by CBRS2K Hi MA Le, I had thought about going deeper, closer to the center of the pond, but I had heard that there is "clear" water and there is "CLEAR" water. I was told that unless my water was crystal clear at all times, it starts to get al little difficult to see fish (clearly) beyond 4 to 5 feet of depth. I decided that I would opt to favor a design that would allow me to enjoy my pond as oppose to becoming a slave to it. As such many of the chambers are sloped in design with built-in cleanout values. I'm hoping that these features will minimize the amount of effort to maintain a reasonably clear, koi hospitable environment.

not true. this is my BD at 8.5 ft deep.

[CBRS2K]

Quote: Originally Posted by mynamy1 CBRS2K, I just don't know how to help you in your planning. So why don't I offer a few fact? just merely to assist: (1) Plants reduce nitrate in a way then rotted and return the nitrate back to the water. If you decide to selectively trim them at certain time then your "ease of maintenance" goes to hell! (2) Most settling tank needs help in pushing the waste into the drain hole, regardless of sloping bottom. The bigger the tank (diameter) the more the severity of the problem. And your planned Matala interferes with this daily cleaning action. So much for the ease of maintenance? (3) Deep pond needs excellent mechanical to have the same clarity. That is true but others can do it why not you? Just think of many benefit of a deep pond. MA. Le

Hi MA. Le,

Actually facts are what I am after. Being new to this hobby, I am on the steep end of the learning curve. Some of the concepts and experiences that you and other experts on this board may take for granted are huge revelations for me. So, I appreciate the fact that you and the others are taking the time to help me in my quest to build my first pond.

To clarify on some of the points that you raised:
1) Plant maintenance - I was thinking that the plants could line the sides for the settling chamber, so access to the bulk of the chamber would be open, without having to remove too many plants (perhaps just the larger ones, if we have any). I was also thinking that the pruning away of rotting material would be more of a seasonal exercise that could be linked to a scheduled maintenance (major cleanout) of the SC. If this assumption is incorrect, that would be good to know.

2) I was thinking that, due to the size of the SCs, simple minor cleanouts, via a quick opening of the flushout drain, would be sufficient to keep things reasonably clean between major cleanouts. A major cleanout would consist of either vacuuming the SC run (via a pond vac), or hook a pressurized nozzle to a pump exhaust port and "sweeping" the heavier debris toward the flushout drain. Since the SC is a straight run, I'm thinking that this should be a fairly simple task. I'm not sure what the schedule of a major cleanout would be, but I'm hoping for a reasonably long interval (annually?, semi-annual?, quarterly?)

3) The matala section that I was thinking of installing would be elevated, about 12" to 18" from the bottom of the SC, yet surround the transfer pipe to the bio filters. I was hoping that this would allow debris to flow to the flush out valve and still provide "decent" mechanical filtration.

If I end up using a pressurized filter set up, I was planning on using Black, Blue and Grey matala, using the latter to improve the mechanical filtration, occuring prior to the pressurized filter. However, if I am able to switch to a pure gravity flow system, I would limit the matala in the SC to Black and maybe Green, due to their claimed "easy of cleaning" characteristics, since there would be Blue and Grey matala in the biofilter chambers (and TTs if I can figure out how to situate them correctly). In this latter scenario, I was hoping that during major cleanouts I could "sweep" any debris towards the flush out drain with the matala in place, and pumps still running. Once the sweeping is complete, I could shut down the pump supporting the SC being cleaned, shake out the matala and wait for crud to settle (or spray off in a garden area) open the flush out valve to purge and replace matala when done.

Of course, these are assumptions that I am making with no "real world experience" to draw from. If any of these assumptions seem "far fetched" or just plain wrong, I'd like to know so that I can start to think about adjusting my plans accordingly.

Thanks again for all of your help.

[CBRS2K]

Hi Koiczar, MoiKoi, Mitten and Mynamy1,

Up until now, much of the people that I have talked to had indicated that 3' to 4' would be a minimum depth for koi, with deeper being preferable for higher stocking capacity. Some had also indicated that much beyond 5' and visibility (water clarity) starts to become an issue.

You all have provided me with sufficient information to reconsider my targetted depth specification.

Due to physical limitations, 7.5' is as wide as this pond can be and provide "adequate" access (about a 3' walkway) around the pond. If I push the average depth to about 5.5', using the same pond outline, I calculate the main pond volume to be just under 8000 gals. Adding the SC wings would bring pond volume to about 9000 gals (even though fish would not have access to this last 1000 gals).

When it comes to bio filtration I know that more is usually better. If I can not figure out how to make a gravity feed system work (given space and cost limitations), the pressurized units that I was considering seemed sufficiently sized to cover this larger capacity.

However, I would like to understand some "targets" to shoot for when designing a gravity system. Since space will be a premium, I would like to understand the minimum requirements to determine if this is an option that I can even consider.

In a pure gravity system, the SC's would still be in place; perhaps using black and green matala (as described above) to handle primary mechanical filtration. Secondary mechanical filtration and initial bio filtration would be accomplished via submerged matala filter bins, which would feed the pumps leading to the TTs.

I am wondering how large the submerged and TT systems should should be(total sq. ft. of surface area in each catagory). If another measurement of sizing is better, I'd be interested in knowing what it is.

Koiczar,

You mentioned the use of UV. If I can pull this alternate design off, the TT's would directly feed the falls; basically fall into the fall pool. Where would be the optimal placement of the UVs? If before the TTs, I'm worried that this would hinder the development of beneficial bacteria in the TTs. If after the TTs, I'm worried about space availability. One option for after the TT could be to place a "standard" UV fixture just over the fall collection pool (as this would be behind a wall) and place a mirror above and to the sides of the fixture to concentrate the light shining down into the pool. This could have the side benefit of providing additional exposure time to the UV radiation, as the water would be exposed to the UV while it was still in the fall pool, as opposed to the limited exposure flowing through the UV pipe housing. I know that the commerial set up increases intensity, due to proximity of water to the light source. I am wondering at what distance does the UV exposure start to significantly diminish.

Again, thank you all for your time, consideration and expertise.