I have been searching for some replacement difusion air hose for my DIY moving bed filters. Several years ago I modified two of my vortex filter chambers into moving bed filters using kaldenes media. Orginally I used four large airstones in each chamber but I was very unhappy with the movement of the media. I tried several different types of difusion hose but wasn't happy with the lack of action if felt the media needed to get maximum results. So I bought two air ring assemblies in Japan. These were very high quality units with bases made of molded fiberglas weighted to hold the air rings on the bottom. Also had a price tag to match. They worked quite well and have for several years. Recently I noticed the rolling action of the media had diminished. I pulled the air rings out of the filters and found that our hard water had deposited lime into the hose material and after taking them apart and soaking the hose in muriatic acid solution for several hours I got only moderate improvement. So I started looking for a source of high grade aeration difusion hose to replace the limed coated hose I had.
Strange how we can discover the stuff we need for our ponds. I was talking to Chris Mills at Internation Filter Systems about a filter donation for our San Antonio show in October. IFS is the newly oganized company based in San Antonio that is the manufacturer for the orginal bubble bead and new poly geyser filters. Working with Dr. Ron Malone at LSU they are making some really impressive filter systems with a new focus on large aquaculture and major zoos and aquariums. Some of the filters are huge. While I was there UPS delivered a sample of a aeration difusion hose for a new product they are developing. I was shown several samples of difuser hose including the very best one they have found so far. It looked about the right diameter (3/4 in.) to work with my air rings. It was supposed to produce tiny very uniform bubbles at a large delivery rate per ft. Cost was a reasonable $2.25 a foot so I bought enough to replace the hose on my air rings.
Took a photo of the media "rolling" with the orginal air ring hose as a comparison. After replacing one air ring hose in one of the chambers I found that almost all the air (200 lpm) was now coming out of the ring with the replacement hose and only a trickle was coming out of the orginal limed over hose. After the second air ring hose was replaced the amount of "rolling" action in both moving bed chambers was significantly stronger than ever. The after photo does not show how really significant the rolling action had improved. One other modification I made was to push some additional hose into the base rings to add additional lenght to the replacement ring. This changed the shape of the hose ring from round to square. I also drilled 1-1/4 holes into the air ring base as I found some media and gunk had gotten trapped under the base.
If you are also looking for some of this very high performance aeration hose go to the Internation Filter Solution website at
IFSolutions.us - quality aquatic filtration equipment and information or call 830-914-4404.
P.S. For those of you coming to the Texas Koi & Fancy Goldfish Show Oct. 13-14 - IFS donated a 7cf poly geyser bead filter for one of our special raffles - retail value $2,750.
09-08-2007
Thanks for posting the link.
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