Re: BHM - Why?
Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:10 am
Chris there is no science behind BHM however there is a lot of logic. but i dont think we will ever come to an accord on this subject
look forget the FIR (far infra red) thats just smoke, why they bought this into the equation in the first place is beyond me since most materials will give off FIR , this is just stored heat, so concentrate on the media
BHM, grog, pumice sintered glass etc has one major difference to *all* plastic media's and that is its supports an internal structure/ matrix that can be colonised by bacteria, but while this may seem a good thing, this can be a double edged sword
first plastic unless poorly maintained can only support anaerobic bacteria , in other words the normal bugs that convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate and nothing else really . where as porus media can support the same with the addition of bacteria that convert Nitrate to N2O and NO but here the two edged bit:
To do the latter BHM and sintered glass has to block to form anaerobic pockets, (this is how anoxic convertors work) lack of O2. this has two effects the first and obvious one is when it blocks you loose surface area for aerobic bacteria to live on and the not so obvious one is you may well be supporting pahtogenic bacteria in the anoxic area's ?
think about it, if you put grog or BHM in a submreged chamber its would quickly become coated in a fine dust of mulm this would very quickly become quite thick if not cleaned and with this comes the usual pathogenic problems and you would loose the advantage of the porous system of the grog, where as in a shower system this would be self cleaning but in a sort of controlled manner in so much as the tiny pores would block but not to the extent that you get a huge build up
IMHO plastic will never do this and visa versa but my question would be would you want it to? i have never been a fan of anoxic systems because of what they are potentially promoting i would rather stick to my tried and trusted
Now we come to nexus chambers these can't be compared because they just dont perform as intended they are well below par, so how much of what maurice reports is due entirly to the fact that nexus and not other convetional systems does not performs as it should and in fact this is the reason for his observations not because of a direct comparison with BHM or any other system
At the end of the day showers were designed not to be prefiltered, so all those running settlement prior to the shower while i dont blame them are not getting a true representation of the shower , if you go to mikeys you will see what i mean his water is crap for viewing fish
next if you are running showers with a constant loss RO system why would you need the shower ?
example: i run a 16 ton pond with conventional Japanese matting and an RO system kicking out 300 us gallons per day, my tds is circa 80ppm sometime lower, nitrate <20ppm this is not due to some mystical tricks of the filter its totally due to the fact i am runing 300us gallons per day through as system to waste , it would make little difference while running RO what i had for a filter. i could have hair crlers in there and get the same, becuase the sectret is donw to the amount of RO water racing through. so i say again IF you run RO why would you want to go to all the considerable expence of BHM and a shower when you could get the same from grog?
look forget the FIR (far infra red) thats just smoke, why they bought this into the equation in the first place is beyond me since most materials will give off FIR , this is just stored heat, so concentrate on the media
BHM, grog, pumice sintered glass etc has one major difference to *all* plastic media's and that is its supports an internal structure/ matrix that can be colonised by bacteria, but while this may seem a good thing, this can be a double edged sword
first plastic unless poorly maintained can only support anaerobic bacteria , in other words the normal bugs that convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate and nothing else really . where as porus media can support the same with the addition of bacteria that convert Nitrate to N2O and NO but here the two edged bit:
To do the latter BHM and sintered glass has to block to form anaerobic pockets, (this is how anoxic convertors work) lack of O2. this has two effects the first and obvious one is when it blocks you loose surface area for aerobic bacteria to live on and the not so obvious one is you may well be supporting pahtogenic bacteria in the anoxic area's ?
think about it, if you put grog or BHM in a submreged chamber its would quickly become coated in a fine dust of mulm this would very quickly become quite thick if not cleaned and with this comes the usual pathogenic problems and you would loose the advantage of the porous system of the grog, where as in a shower system this would be self cleaning but in a sort of controlled manner in so much as the tiny pores would block but not to the extent that you get a huge build up
IMHO plastic will never do this and visa versa but my question would be would you want it to? i have never been a fan of anoxic systems because of what they are potentially promoting i would rather stick to my tried and trusted
Now we come to nexus chambers these can't be compared because they just dont perform as intended they are well below par, so how much of what maurice reports is due entirly to the fact that nexus and not other convetional systems does not performs as it should and in fact this is the reason for his observations not because of a direct comparison with BHM or any other system
At the end of the day showers were designed not to be prefiltered, so all those running settlement prior to the shower while i dont blame them are not getting a true representation of the shower , if you go to mikeys you will see what i mean his water is crap for viewing fish
next if you are running showers with a constant loss RO system why would you need the shower ?
example: i run a 16 ton pond with conventional Japanese matting and an RO system kicking out 300 us gallons per day, my tds is circa 80ppm sometime lower, nitrate <20ppm this is not due to some mystical tricks of the filter its totally due to the fact i am runing 300us gallons per day through as system to waste , it would make little difference while running RO what i had for a filter. i could have hair crlers in there and get the same, becuase the sectret is donw to the amount of RO water racing through. so i say again IF you run RO why would you want to go to all the considerable expence of BHM and a shower when you could get the same from grog?
so i also run RO so are you saying i could stuff my shower with grog and the system will run the same as it does with the BHM 
its the total loss of the RO system thats the most dynamic factor here. If you have time, you can work out how much nitrogen you are producing by your current feeding rates , then taking it to extremes, if you assumed there is no filter at all on your pond ( nothing) , knowing the input of RO water to the volume of your pond you could if you wanted work out how much nitrogen you would expect to see in your pond in its various guises. im willing to bet with a constant loss it would not be that great, this is how comercial farms work and of course mud ponds of course you have paid for you BHM so you would be a nutter to dump it now after all that money!
