question for Duncan

[carlejo]

Duncan, with all the talk of BHM, RO, etc, what do you think is the best way to filter a pond ?
eg, keeping all parameters spot on and an environment where the koi will thrive and want to feed with as little contaminants/waste in the pond as possible ?

[Gazza]

Hi Carl,

I bet I know what he will say

A couple of big vortexes and one with an easy and some jap matting in the other.

[Duncan]

Hi

A couple of big vortexes and one with an easy and some jap matting in the other.


No mate seriously if I can put my captain sensible hat on a minute, this hobby is expensive enough with out spending mega money on fancy stuff but, if done right £ for £ and surface area to grow bugs on, your never gonna beat Japanese matting not in a million years.

Medias come and go and there always will but Japanese matting is still here to stay and the reason why is simple the material and the concept of the updraft free flowing system coupled to the massive surface area means it simply cannot be beat

Mine has been running now untouched since late 2000 it never misses a beat I clean it one per year which is a non event takes around 2 hours to do it right, the media has never been out in all this time

I have a 6ft deep by 4ft dia vortex with centre extraction through an eazy this goes into two 42” dia 48” deep vortices with 12 “ deep matting cartridges if had a choice I would decrease the matting to 9-10 “ deep its enough

I have a huge 9000 lph sump pump in the bottom of each matting chamber attached to 40 mm flexy pipe which come sup through one of the voids in each matting cartridge , so although I have 2” bottom drain pipes I never ever use them in anger

I simply open the btm drains but turn on the pump and empty the whole chamber in around 5 minutes I swill down the matting with water from the prime settlement vortex and pump again till clear job done, I can do all this before I’ve drunk a cup of coffee

The system is bullet proof, I never see ammonia nor nitrite, I could bomb this thing every day for a month with PP and still not see ammonia or nitrite its rock solid.. but I have to say people have to learn to stop messing around with chemicals and trust in the system what ever that system may be or you will never ever get to this point .

But Gazza will tell you I have 4ft of fish in 6 ft of water and my fish have to swim in formation to get around, my stocking level is that high

Like I say, media comes and goes but I have seen nothing as yet to make me move from my J matting and vortex’s

If I was to change I would probably go for a shower of some kind the only thing that would stop me is the fact in the winter it would chill the water without some serious heating or placing the shower in a sealed cabinet and blowing hot air in, either way it’s a serious on cost, where as submerged heating is much simpler and with covers you not blowing £ notes out the top

[Gazza]

Hi Carl,

Yes i can back Duncan up and i am sure that i have in the past seen more fish in Duncan's water than fish and this is one of the reasons i now have a little giggle when i hear people saying you need 500 or 1000gls per fish as i know that if you have enough "good" filtration and keep on top of it in a well designed system then you fish will thrive and not need massive amount of water per person.

Just to prove this i have grown on more than one fish in my little (just under 500gln) tank and at one time had 25 fish in there and all grew on well no problem at all

[StuW]

Just to back up Gazzas last point I have got 1.6m worth of fish in 80 gallons which are growing fast. This is run off a homemade shower put together by Emmaandaj. Massive filtration is the answer every time .

[Brockp]

Hi Duncan;

You have an enviable set up but I think you forgot to mention the constant stream or was it torrent of RO running through system 24/7.

I am glad somebody else has confessed to having a lot of fish in a small space. I have this year for the first time a properly heated (21 - 22) growing on tank of 200 gals. Thought I would just overwinter a few (2 or 3) of my best young fish in the warm to see. Long and the short of it one way or another, helping friends out a "acquiring" some lovely little fish I now have 15 fish growing by the day that would bite your hand if you put it in the water.

The secret, the shower I was going to put on my pond in the spring is now running on this pond..... nice mature shower and nice healthy fish. I am also running lots of air and top up evaporation with RO water..... no problem with any parameters, just a rather damp conservatory and a big feed bill.

Peter

[carlejo]

Thanks guys.

Right my turn.

I have a 36" vortex as main settlement from BD, central exit to next chamber has filter wool to catch fines, it's changed every 2-3 days........ the next vortex is 24" diam with 80 ltrs K1 to catch any remaining fines.

Bio stage (Nitritech 911 system, I converted the first 2 x vortices to take aerated K1)

First bio is a 30" diameter vortex with 130 ltrs heavily aerated K1(I could actually get about 180 ltrs into it if needed), then second bio is another vortex setup exactly the same. Third bio is also a 30" diameter vortex and it was left empty last year. The Reason it was left empty was that I was toying with the idea of also convering it to aerated K1.

After my problems of last June I decided to put the matting catridges back into last chamber as they were just sat there, redundant. Now when I bought system there was a cartridge in each of the last chambers and the first vortex was empty(that's how previous user had this set up)

When I got pond up and running again last year I decided to put BOTH matting cartridges in last chamber, one stacked on top of other and heavily aerated. One cartridge is 12" deep and the other 14" deep.......... is it ok to run last chamber like this, or would I be better off taking one cartidge out ?
thanks
Carl

[Gazza]

Hi Peter,

I don't think Duncan puts massive amounts of water through the pond in reality just the way that RO works.As you have probably seen when running RO you don't really get a big output on the product side of an RO unit (unless a massive industrial one) so although there are many of us running RO one of the reasons people run them 24/7 is because due to the low output its needed to run that long to change enough water or top up.

Carl,

Duncan will probably be best with this but if the cartridges are to big they could impact on each other and i think having air coming up through the matting can also have an impact and having air on the top of the matting can be more efficient but hopefully Duncan will help explain it better

[Duncan]

hi Carl

i see several things at odds with each other here but may i ask how big is you pond and what is your flow rate?

dunc

[carlejo]

Duncan pond inc filters is 4200g.......pump is a sequence 11000, 2450 gph, probably 2000 gph after bends, etc

What do you see that's not quite right ?

[StuW]

Just to back up Gazzas last point I have got 1.6m worth of fish in 80 gallons which are growing fast. This is run off a homemade shower put together by Emmaandaj. Massive filtration is the answer every time .

Thats 1.6 metres not £ 1.6million
And how many inches of fish per foot squared is it "meant" to be

[eds]

And how many inches of fish per foot squared is it "meant" to be

I know I've read recommended stocking rates of 1 fish per 500g, but that's realloy for those looking at getting show fish as close to a metre as possible. I have to say in my new pond I'm going to try really hard to keep the stocking rate to about 1 fish per 250g.

[Duncan]

hi Carl

well at your present flow rate you 3 ft vortex is not big enough which is why you probably have cloth in it as a trap , and you next static K1 is not really being at its most effective where it is it could be better imployed elsewhere

so i would move the static K1 into the prime vortex in the form of an eazy

then move everything back one then finally split the last matting chamber up so each cartridge can have its own chamber

so you static K1 mover back into the prime vortex and then everything shuffles long one but the one Japanes matting cartridge stays where it is while the one on top goes in the now newly emtpy one

that if i ahve understood your configuration

dunc

[carlejo]

Cheers Duncan

here's some pics

http://www.koivista.com/gallery/2697/koi-things

if you look at pics of filters the picture labelled 3 is the first section directly from BD, the 2 is second and 1 is last
don't know if that helps you more ?
cheers
Carl

[Duncan]

hi Carl

thats a hell of a luxury 5 vortices great oportunity here

i stand by what i said i would put an eazy with your staic in the prime then move the two fluidised chambers back each creating an empty chamber prior to the last chamber in this one i would place one of the stacked Japanese matting cartridges as these wont work as well stacked or that deep the bets depth for these to work and not start staking crud is 102-12" no more

i enjoyed looking at that nice one!