Simply Koi and More Koi

Hi All,

Been a busy day installing my new shower-why on earth i didnt spend a bank holiday monday in the pub like normal people i dont know! Its been a very wet, cold and smelly day Anyway big thanks for Stu who came over and helped out

Ive been looking to simplify my 500 gallon growing on pond filters for a while. I wanted to use a shower with some kind of prefilter. Unfortunately with a 2inch bottom drain im unable to gravity feed to a prefilter before pumping over a shower so my options are very limited. I looked at the pressurised filters and vortex's but everyone who uses them have given very bad feed back. I first tried mounting a sieve before the filter (up on a shelf) but found it clogged very quickly and was totally impractical to clean due to not being accessable.

Sieve Before shower.

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ure073.jpg[/img]

I removed this and was somewhat stumped! Whilst at the holland show i saw smething that gave me an idea, after many restless nights pondering on the idea i started to build a shower based around one of Bob showers but with a built in prefilter.

Shower built from plywood

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... rad001.jpg[/img]

Bottom of prefilter-sloping to waste drain (filled with concrete)

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... rad003.jpg[/img]

Shower tiers

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... rad004.jpg[/img]

Prefilter

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... rad006.jpg[/img]

Tiers

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... rad005.jpg[/img]

Bob kindly fibreglassed the shower for me-what a fantastic job he has done! Think Bob wishes he'd said no, but he had said he likes a challenge!

Grill fitted over waste with air ring

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver042.jpg[/img]

4 Inch spray bar fitted with tank connector

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver043.jpg[/img]

Glass fitted

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver044.jpg[/img]

New pipe work pumped straight from bottom drain

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver031.jpg[/img]

Shower up and running

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver030.jpg[/img]

Static k1 being fluidised for cleaning

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver034.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver033.jpg[/img]

Touch wood all seems to be working fine at the moment

Andy

Hi Andy
Hope that works out for you it does look a cracking design..well done

BRILLIANT IDEA.

That's fantastic! Brillliant idea and love the way you can see how much dirt is in there through the glass! You might just need an algae magnet to keep it clean!

Hi Andy,

i know Bob said it was fun doing this one and it will be interesting to see how it performs.

That's one of the best things I've seen on here, very impressed.....I particularly like the way you've made the static K1 viewable so you can really see when it needs a clean and how clean it is when it's been done!!
I don't know if I've missed this bit, how does the K1 not go into next chamber(shower area), what's stopping it ?
cheers
Carl

hi
fantastic m8 and some nice fiberglassing Bob i predict that some UK manufacture will see this and have the first one for sale for £895 by the start of next season
regards
lee
Hey bob how about you getting in there first and makeing a few quid for pond running costs just an idea m8

Lee,

You might have noticed that Gazza said this was 'fun' to do, well he missed out all the swear words and I'm sure I never mentioned Fun. Nightmare came to mind and it took and actual age to fibreglass all that Andy had made and get it looking pretty good.

It's a bit like those showers I 'used' to make, takes far longer than any profit I made, bit of a labour of love really

VERY Impressive! I can see a lot of Koi-Questers sitting down and planning to use a similar design. Hope you don't have too much planned over summer Bob!
Are you using proper BHM in the shower?

Louie

Hi All

Gazza-"Fun" wasn't what Bob said to me!

Carl-I have used a Stainless steel 4 inch Strainer on the other side of the tank connector

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver036.jpg[/img]

Lee-£895 i recon you'd have to double that to get Bob to do that again

Bob-Really great job-i cant even begin to understand how hard it must of been. What with this and the qt (lots of fiddly bits ) I doubt you will say yes next time! I promise next time it will be a 6000 gallon pond with lots of flat walls and lots of room! Thanks again Mate

Louie-im using the blagdon ceramic media i had in my old shower-i will be upgrading to bhm when funds allow. Ive actually really over filled the tiers (this shower is smaller than Bob's ones-will remove some media at the weekend to get the water crashing through!

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver037.jpg[/img]

Regards Andy

Hi,

I kept checking the shower all yesterday and a couple of times in the night as i was worried it might block up and over flow. Was up an hour early to check and everything look ok, infact left it til i got home from work. Heres some pics of it being cleaned-quite a bit of muck came out which is good (did stir up a lot of muck yesterday when messing around and couldnt see the fish by the end of the day) The water is cleaner than ive ever seen it-however i am still running the gravity fed filter for the time being as well and i had backed the feeding right off for the last week as i knew i would be messing around with the filters and was worried about the water parameters.

Being fluidised

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... r030-1.jpg[/img]

Muck flushed away

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... r031-1.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/emma ... ver032.jpg[/img]

Andy