Additional Mechanical Filtration?

[Louie]

Hi All,

My current setup is maintaining water quality well, but I'm having to flush my Easy Pod at least twice a week and my bead filter once a week to stop them clogging up. I generally put three water changes through the pod during a flush, and the backwash on the bead filter uses a huge amount of water. And then of course it takes a couple of hours to re-fill the pond through a two cartridge filter.
The pod seems to be the main culprit. Whilst it does the job fairly well, it soon gets full whilst the fish are feeding heavily, and this results in reduced flow which leads to the clogging in the bead filter. No, I can't afford a Nexus Easy! Pond size is 2400 gallons (11 000litres)
I'd like to put something in place in front of the Pod, but have restricted space. I can't put anything in after the pump because I don't want to cut the flow rate down. So it's got to be gravity fed and capable of handling around 7000 litres an hour.
I was thinking that either a sieve or a home made static K1 vortex would be the obvious choice but would like advice first. Since the Pod is acting as a static K1 filter anyway, would there be any point in putting in another one?
Current setup is: Gravity fed Pod into Badu Top 8 pump. This then feeds the bead filter which in turn returns the water via a TMC 30 and an Elecro 3 Kw heater. Picture shows it quite well. Yeah.....it needs tidying up!!
There's also a skimmer line feeding an Aquamax 8000 into a Fismate pressurised filter thingy. Soon to be replaced with a fluidised K1 filter fed by a Sequence 13000. (If i ever get round to it!)
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Cheers,
Louie

Must get those cables sorted! :)

filters1.jpg (111.86 KiB) Viewed 9793 times

[vippymini]

i know you have little space to fit everything in and are also conserned with flow rates. so i would start by removing all the flexy pipe and plumbing it with a larger bore solid pipe. then save some money on your eleccy bill and ditch that pump for one that doesnt cost £250.00 per year to run. with the money your saving on eleccy then buy a compact seive and fit it in front of the pod,

then replumb your skimmer line with better filtration and include the UV in this line instead of the main filter line.

can you not build a small extention on the shed to get more space for extra filtration?

[boogatee]

seems like the pod is doing an excellent job at capturing the waste ... you could use a sieve as suggested by Vippy, but then you'd have to be prepared to clean the sieve daily. The clearer the water, the more that’s being trapped in the filter and therefore the more cleaning required.

You could also try feeding less or try a different food...... but I think you're just encountering one of the inconveniences of small compact filters - they require a lot of cleaning

[Louie]

I'm afraid the option of using a cheaper pump won't work Vippy! The Sequence 13 000 didn't have the balls to pump through the bead filter which is why I've now got it available as a spare for the skimmer. To give you an idea of the flow loss, the Sequence was putting out just 3600 lites an hour through the return. So it was turning over the total pond volume just once every three hours or so. Whilst the Badu is a lot more expensive to run it's shoving out around 6500 litres an hour despite having to run the gauntlet of the bead filter. And given the limited space, the bead filter is a must. And it does it's job as a biological filter very well. Even on a "lets be genorous and treat them" day I've never seen the nitrite go above 0.25. And the huge water changes soon sort that out!
Do people normally put the UV on the skimmer then? It would certainly up the flow rate if I took it off. And it would reduce the flow rate on the skimmer line if I chose to use the Sequence. 13000 litres an hour seems rather a lot for a skimmer on an 11000 litre pond!!
I like the look of some of the home made mechanical filters though, and if I thought I could make one (or two in sequence?) that would do the job better than the Pod then I could use the Pod on the skimmer?
And the reason I haven't used solid pipe is simply because one of the kids (3 boys) would step on it and break it within a week....Guaranteed!! Now..... When they've left home!
Louie

[Louie]

Thanks Boogatee,
I think you're probably spot on. But whilst I can quite happily cope with multiple water changes and filter flushes at the moment, I'm kinda thinking about getting it sorted out so that when I'm older (about a year!) I don't have to do so much!!
Love the fish, don't mind spending the money (Well......some of it!) but would like half an hour every now and again to just sit and watch them!!