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  1. #1
    Senior Member Rank = Gosai Brandlin's Avatar
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    Arrow So whats with the nexus?

    Am new here, so forgive me if i am missing something....

    I've read a lot of threads praising the nexus range of filters - they seem to be the defacto 'standard'

    I've read more threads with people complaining about them, and listing all the things they had to modify to to 'get them to work properly'

    Sorry but if i've splashed that much cash on a product and it doesnt do what it says on the tin - it gets a bad rep and goes back.

    Looking at the nexus design from an engineering perspective i think most of the development money went on overly complex aesthetic shapes requiring significant tooling investment. Most of what i can see seems to be designed to "look good" and appeal to buyers as "shiny" without a great deal of understanding of fluid mechanics both in the water and the air. (i'm a mechanical engineer, my specialty isn't fluids but i know a fair bit)

    So, to those of you who rate them, can you tell me what i'm missing? sell me the idea!

    And I'm going to need more convincing than 'market leading' or 'koi keeping is expensive, you have to spend money' - i'd like to understand specifically why these things are popular please

    Thanks

    Alan aka Brandlin...



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  3. #2
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    If you actually bought one and saw the size of the thing, you could well decide sending it back was not a realistic option

    I’m personally not a fan of static plastic media to collect solids, because it is prone to rapidly blocking, tracking, and letting fines through. I used an Eazy Pod followed by large bio chamber on my last pond, and even upgraded it to Micro K1 to try to improve the ‘fines’ leakage- but whilst that did improve water clarity, it also left me backwashing it every single day which got old rather quickly.

    For the above reasons I would not recommed anyone went for a Nexus for a koi pond, unless they have massive budget restraints and/or a lack of experience on how to set up filters. I think ease of installation and the dream of the all-in-one solution is what attracts people to them. They can also be hidden with the top not much above pond water level if required.

    Personally I think the 4” input entering vertically from below is pain- you have problems fitting a decent ball valve beneath that without a large dent in the filter house floor or some extra 90s added which is not ideal.

    Setting up sieves, drums, beads, showers, bio chambers etc. requires a bit more expertise which is offputting to koi newbies. Nexus filters used to be a lot better when they had the ‘answer’ in the centre- thats what the design was based around. It was kind of like a mini drum/sieve hybrid and was much more mechanically effective. EA had to ditch the Answer because the third party pump that powered them kept packing in and costing them a fortune in warranty repairs.

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  5. #3
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    Oh and another th8ng I forgot to say:

    Pond turnover rates. Nexus have quite a low max flow rate which means you’re either stuck with a really slow pond turnover rate or having to buy 2 or more of them.

    If youre building a big pond then this is a big issue. I personally think its important to be able to turn a pond over in less than an hour. You dont necessarily have to run things that fast all the time, but the potential to is very helpful. That would limit your pond size to to less than 2000 gallons with a Nexus unfortunately.

    If you decided to add a Bakki shower at a later date you might be looking to put over 20,000 lph over it. You can’t do that following a Nexus.

  6. #4
    Senior Member Rank = Grand Champion andikoi's Avatar
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    i used to run a bay filter then a sieve and bead and to be honest since i got the nexus ive not looked back,yes low turnover is an issue for some,also fines are an issue and always have been with the nexus,but i return over a small crystal bio shower and it works fine for me,ive never had gin clear water and to be honest it doesnt bother me,i can see my bd at 6ft clear enough and koi are happy,my perams are always good and i dont get my hands wet,if you want massive turnover and huge amounts of water bashing a shower thern a nexus isnt for you,you need a drum filter,if you want ease of use and fitting then a nexus is good,but you need something after for the fines,andi

  7. #5
    Big point here; they're expensive because Koi keeping is not THAT popular. They don't sell in vast numbers, and are produced in the UK, so costs are higher per unit.

  8. #6
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion john1's Avatar
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    Hi Alan [ Brandlin ], Firstly where are you in N Wales?
    I have had the nexus 300 for a number of years but now changed to a drum,must admit i liked the 300 though it is a big lump and it worked well for me but fines wasnt very good and the air ring was hopeless so used air stones instead.

    You can pick up the nexus fairly cheap now but showers are the way to go now and as Feline said they need a lot of flow and the nexus cant do enough flow.
    John

  9. #7
    Senior Member Rank = Gosai Brandlin's Avatar
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    Thanks for the replies guys.

    John - I'm in Flint.

    Sounds like the nexus isn't for me. I wasn't remotely impressed with the product that i saw in the shop (although it wasn't running). I may be a newbie to Koi, but I am planning on doing this once.

    A number of the comments here confirm issues with things i can see just looking at the prodcut and you have added a couple more. The whole "It comes in one easy package just plug and go" feature seems to be about the only positive that I can see and even that doesn't seem ideal with the location of the input.

    I think I shall save my money and build a couple of static/moving filters for a fraction of the cost and enjoy that build process.

    If anyone stll has a great argument to sway me i'd love to hear it!


    Alan
    Last edited by Brandlin; 16-05-2018 at 11:28 AM.

  10. #8
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Mature Champion AdamKoi78's Avatar
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    I've owned a nexus 320 for a few years now as part of my filtration on my 7000+ gallon pond.

    I think they are a good filter at the price point.

    Sure if you can afford to go down the drum and separate bio filter route then go for it.

    If you can't I think a nexus 200 or 300 series filter are well worth considering especially second hand.

    I know some people bang on about fines and the static media getting blocked. My personal experience is if your maintenance is good most of these aren't really issues.

    I also think people don't use a powerful enough air pump for the air ring's and media.

    No filter systems are perfect but I like the design of the nexus. Let's face it most of the nexus alternatives use brushes and who wants to put their hands in fish shit on a regular basis.

    I took my 320 to bits a few weeks ago removing all the 300 litres of k1 expecting to find the feet of the chamber deep in crap. Lucky hardly anything which I attribute maintenance and a decent air pump.

    They aren't perfect but they are pretty good if your expectations are reasonable.

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  12. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Brandlin View Post
    Am new here, so forgive me if i am missing something....

    I've read a lot of threads praising the nexus range of filters - they seem to be the defacto 'standard'

    I've read more threads with people complaining about them, and listing all the things they had to modify to to 'get them to work properly'

    Sorry but if i've splashed that much cash on a product and it doesnt do what it says on the tin - it gets a bad rep and goes back.

    Looking at the nexus design from an engineering perspective i think most of the development money went on overly complex aesthetic shapes requiring significant tooling investment. Most of what i can see seems to be designed to "look good" and appeal to buyers as "shiny" without a great deal of understanding of fluid mechanics both in the water and the air. (i'm a mechanical engineer, my specialty isn't fluids but i know a fair bit)

    So, to those of you who rate them, can you tell me what i'm missing? sell me the idea!

    And I'm going to need more convincing than 'market leading' or 'koi keeping is expensive, you have to spend money' - i'd like to understand specifically why these things are popular please

    Thanks

    Alan aka Brandlin...
    My five cents:
    1. I got to Nexus as probably a lot of others - EA has very good marketing and testimonials on the web - and it is fair to say, that it is easy to clean - and overall appealing package - not performing to its max pond volume size advertised - max 2/3 of it really - my humble opinion and experience with 220 version of it.

    2. It is ready to go out of the box w/o much tweaking needed and appeals to human lazy nature - two valves is all whats needed to clean it...

    3. Once I started to learn a lot from this and other forums - as I got tired of cleaning Nexus 2-3x per week in season - with frequent week-long out of country business trips I needed longer cleaning intervals as despite such easy cleaning of it nobody in our family volunteered for it in my absence so I discovered RDF - affordable AEM Easy drum I have from fall 2016 - very happy with it.

    4. After having installed RDF all what is left from Nexus is just expensive moving bed filter taking a lot of space in filter shed - so I sold it for 60% of purchase value and still for fraction of its selling price quadruppled my biofilter capacity with DIY set of filters - Anoxic unplanted fiter, four shower filters and denitrifying trickle filter combo - all of this within the same shed size - while increasing turnover from 1x per 2hrs down to 1x per 0.75h on our 24.000L pond....

    Bottom line - for average pond owner who does no want too much to mess around it is easy solution, but forum like this provides plenty of great suggestions for very well working DIY filters avg guy can easily do by himself - so I guess what I am trying to say is that I understand well why someone likes it and does not look any further what other options are - off course Nexus limits max flow to about 10.000L/h - so suitable only for small ponds in reality.
    Last edited by milaz; 19-05-2018 at 08:12 AM.
    You get what you pay for - or better - what you make yourself.

 

 

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