Hi everyone
I'm very new to keeping koi and would like some advice . I have a 2000 gallon pond that is pump fed to 2 pressure filters( I know big mistake) they are both 30000 ltr ones tho.i went down this route so I could send the water to the waterfall. I have had the pond since sept and have about 20 koi from 6 inches to 22 inches. I have had the cycle and now he ammonia is zero and nirite is zero, so not to bad so far What I what to know is there something I can put before the pressure filters to take out the biggest muck so I don't have to clean the pressure filter sponges quite so often. Also I want to get a 3rd pressure filter and fill it with k1 media so I have much more room for feeding well later on. I hope this makes sense to someone, any advice would be really appreciated
You will always struggle with pump fed pressure filters due to the difficulty of removing fines from the water before it gets to the sponges or cleaning them if you don't.
There are koi keepers who are happy with pump fed filters but I don't know of any who have pump fed pressure filters. If there are, perhaps they could help - anyone?
If you don't want to replace the filters, which I suspect are new, or fit something expensive before them, possibly the simplest thing you could use is filter floss/wool like the one on the link below. You could lay it on top of the foam and rinse it under tap for as long as that is practical or simply throw it away.
I have to say,, i have not known anyone to live with pressure filters for long.
As you are finding, they need cleaning pretty much every day or they will block up, and things only get worse with time.
Syd's right in maybe trying some filter wool, but sooner rather than later you might have to consider a change of filtration.
If you decide to go down that route, post as much detail about the pond and I'm sure someone can suggest something suitable and not so high mantainance.
Sorry if my post sounds a bit negative.
I think I might have to go and get one of the 4 bay filter types but do you think I could run the pressure filters before that so it helps a bit and I don't feel I've wasted a complete load of money on them
Sorry to P on the fireworks of someone so new to the hobby but these filters look brilliant in garden centres or glossy magazines and, as you have found so quickly, they aren't easy to maintain.
If you fit them before a more suitable filter, another way of looking at that would be to say that you would be fitting another filter after the existing ones. Looking at it that way, you can see that you would still have the same problem, these filters would still catch all the waste and the debris and would still be as difficult to clean.
I can't think of anything you could do with them without either removing the foam or covering it with filter wool and delay the day when you make the ulimate decision to replace them with something more suitable to koi keeping.
Do you have a link to the manufacturer's diagram of what's inside them? It may be possible to dump the foam and use them as extra biological filtration or a brush chamber. Don't get too hopeful yet, if these are the first filters in line, they will still collect most of the debris so there will still be the problem of keeping them clean but there may be something you could do with them so that you don't feel you have totally wasted your money.
I thought having 2 would be more than enough but it annoys me now that they say these can cope with mainly koi at 20,000 ltrs each when they obviously can't . My pond is 10,000 ltr . They have 24w uv bulb incorporated so it would be good to use them in a new filter system if only for that.they are not like the fishmate pressurised filters that don't have a large biological area , these do but the cleaning function is a waste of time. I like what you say about using them as more biological filtration but I take it this would have to be at the start of a new filter system and not at the end ?
I had hoped there was more to these filters than that. If you removed the foam, what you would effectively have is a bin containing some biolgical media with the inlet and outlet at the top. What will happen is that any silt that gets in there and which isn't removed by the foam that you've just taken out will settle to the bottom.
It will soon build up, become anaerobic (no oxygen) and become a breeding ground for all sorts of bad bacteria. Some bacteria will produce a poisonous gas called hydrogen sulphide which, dissolved in water is ten times more toxic than chlorine so it will poison the good bacteria that is trying to colonise the media above it and it also has a nasty effect on fish. For anyone interested in how it affects koi, the details are below.
Other bacteria that will breed in rotting silt will take any opportunity to infect fish if they are disturbed from their silt home so that they are released into the water flowing back to the pond.
Apart from the silt problem there is no reason why the empty filter couldn't be used as a extra chamber but you would have to ensure that it was regularly emptied and cleaned and this could very well become just as annoying as having to clean the foam.
As to whether it could go after a multibay, the answer is not really. If a multibay was pump fed and designed to run back to the pond by gravity and you put this filter in the return pipe work, even if it was empty there wouldn't be enough flow so the multibay would just overflow.
Hydrogen sulphide
Hydrogen sulphide is very toxic and the EPA recommends a maximum acceptable level of 0.002 ppm, which is one tenth the maximum acceptable level of chlorine. The oxygen carrying capacity of haemoglobin is affected so death by respiratory failure can occur very quickly preceded by erratic behaviour. Lesser, though still serious, health concerns are gill damage and stress causing suppression of the immune system leading to the susceptibility to attack by disease and ulcer causing bacteria or by parasites.
How often to you reckon I would need to clean the silt out? I think I'm going to have to change my filtration completely but what would you recommend at the most reasonable price. It's 2000 gallon pond no bottom drain , I don't mind having to clean filters regularly ( I'm a pig farmer so I don't mind all the muck) I just want something that is much more accessible to get to. Also after what you said about the silt and bad bacteria I don't want to constantly worry that the good bacteria is about to die off . Like I said before I'm looking at the kockney multi bay filters what do you think. My water parameters are all good at the moment but I don't want to wait for it to all go wrong , I'd rather act first. Thanks so much for your advice
Hi
I would recommend a Nexus200 old type if you can pick one up secondhand around £600,not too sure what your budgit is but there a good bit of kit,I have the Nexus 300 on my pond and there so easy to clean,to me thats so important in the Winter when it's hard to get outside.
I'd agree with Geoff on that. If you want trouble free maintenance, the Nexus range always seem to get good reports from their users. I prefer more of a hands on approach and I like tinkering and trying new ideas so I go with muti bays. It all depends on what you want from the hobby.
Instead of reading adverts where a manufacturer describes how wonderful their product is, one thing you could do is join a koi club where you can talk to people about their filters and ask how they find them in terms of being effective and the maintenance involved.
If you don't mind doing a bit of research and some DIY, you can play about with a multibay (if it is large enough) and get some very good results.
And these can be picked up quite cheap and easily.
Don't forget that you will need to take into account the new media you will probably need, as in std form they are generally not so good so can be improved no end with K1 etc.
Just a update, I decided in the end to go down the DIY route and built 2 filters , 1 holding 50l static k1 and the other fluid k1 holding 100l k1. They are both made out of food grade 240l plastic drums. The static one I have done the inner chamber with holes in . I must admit I'm really proud of my effort especially the static one. I just wanted to know do you think I should still run my 2 pressure filters as pre filters ( I know I will have to until the k1 matures) but do I keep them running with the sponges in or just the bio balls even when the k1 is ready. They have 24w built in uv so I want to for that reason alone.
Many thanks for your help so far
I know that you have just paid for these and naturally want to keep them but I can only repeat what I said in an earlier post.
"If you fit them before a more suitable filter, another way of looking at that would be to say that you would be fitting another filter after the existing ones. Looking at it that way, you can see that you would still have the same problem, these filters would still catch all the waste and the debris and would still be as difficult to clean."
That particularly applies if you keep the foam, because it would still continue to catch all the suspended solids and be just as difficult to clean in the future as they were in the past. You could remove the foam and just use the bioballs and UVs.
There would still be some settlement in the bottoms of the filters and, if you can cope with that, the bioballs will provide addition biological filtration which won't be necessary but is always desirable.
If the UVs have water flowing through them rather than being suspended above it then they won't in the optimum location because they perform better after any suspended solids in the water have been filtered out. They will need regular cleaning to remove any build-up of deposit on the glass cover or quartz sleeve. This is an operation that needs to be done carefully because quartz is delicate.
If you can cope with regularly checking and removing the settlement and any cleaning of the UVs that might be required then you can still use them if you wish.
Same set up i had on my old pond and they are a nuisance to clean partly because as with all pump fed filters the solids have been minced by the pump propeller before the filter has a chance to pick them out. As above if you don't want to replace them try filter floss on top of he foam prob with this is it will clog very quickly.