Trickle Towers

[Erns]

I want to add a few trickle towers to my system. I need some more nitrate filtration and I want to fill two of the 4 I plan to install with oyster shells to buffer the ph. Bakki shower is not an option due to the location of my filter room. I can make them 1.2m tall and the pipe I plan to use is about 380mm in diameter. Is there any tips on the best way to build these? I've read that you have to add some airstones at the bottom to make it efffective. Any advise welcome and please I don't want to hear anything about bakki showers vs Trickle towers etc. That seems to be a horrific topic on this forum. So just some constuction tips please without going into too much detail why it works. If it works, its works, we don't need to understand why all the time.

[Eugeneg]

[quote=Erns;78857]I want to add a few trickle towers to my system. I need some more nitrate filtration

The best way to get rid of Nitrate is by water changes or plants . In my indoor greenhouse I have a channel of water running by the pond fed by my skimmer in which on top of grids are grasses . The plants remove nitrate and the roots are great filtration media . One koi farmer in Japan has a gravel bed and grows his tomatoes in it.
Since your pond is beautifully finshed and a very moderate climate I would do this outside .
Regards
Eugene

[dick benbow]

Hi ERNS....what a beautiful pond! and how nice to have someone posting here from S. Africa.......

I've used trickle towers most of my koi life ( close to 30 yrs now) and the short and sweet of it is.....don't trust a revolving bar to distribute the water
unless you can visually see that it is working ( not covered) I prefer drip plates. You want a minimum drop of the water to be 4 foot and yes it makes a big difference to have air induced at the bottom to flow up against the trickling water. I suggest you consider drilling vent holes for escape under the drip pan along the sides. With mine I had them constructed of plexi-glass so I could see what what going on inside. I too have my pond indoors and my trickle towers are in a special additional room off the pond with plumbing return into the pond. As long as this room is well vented I have little moisture concerns, yet it is protected from possible inclement weather....I've had my best luck with media as 1 inch diameter bio balls of drip rod construction. All that void space just seems to heighten it's ability to function.....

[Erns]

Hey Dick

I've got a 11 feet trickle tower in my system at the moment. It's working fine as my nitrates are between 20 - 30ppm (and I feed two pounds of food a day!) but I want to get it down to below 10ppm. I also want to add oyster shells to buffer my ph. As you can see on the pic of my filtration the only way to do it is to add bakki shower or the trickle towers. Did the costing and the trickle towers came out tops. I plan to install 4 of them 4 feet in length as they fit under the stand that has the two vortexes with K1 media. I also know trickle towers are a proven method of filtration that has stood the test of time. So I plan to use a circular spray bar at the top. A circular air tube at the botom and a mesh screen tray about 2" high from the bottom to rest the media on. I'll probable fill them all with oyster shells as they make good bio media and are fairly cheap over here.

[dick benbow]

besure and let us know how your new addition works out and what your thoughts are. The spray bar makes me nervous still as in many filters i checked that weren't working up to expectation I would discover they were stationary and not circulating, that's why I recommended site avail or drip
trays which i eventually went to myself. Don't be afraid to post some pics of your progress...all the best.....

[RayJordan]

Here is a link to an article I wrote on my diy trickle tower project. I agree with dick that a drip plate design is more dependable.

http://www.texaskoi.com/Articles/Koi...yourselfTT.htm