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  1. #1

    Black Box vs Multi Bay

    Hi guys,

    We started a pond project last summer but ran into some issues. It's more like a typical American style of pond i.e rocks on shelves and in ground/blended into the garden with decorative gravel etc around the outside rather than a formal looking above ground pond.

    We are in the process of revamping it and doing it again, but we have two filters. No bottom drain. We have a Kockney Koi large black box which is currently running out temporary pool with the Koi in and we bought a largish multi bay from a dealer in October which hasn't been used yet.

    The black box has a UV and about five different foams with flocur in the bottom. Seems to have been doing a good job on our 500 gallon pop up pool and hasn't needed cleaning too often with lightish feeding. I've read people say that these boxes clog up and need cleaning every day but I haven't found this the case.

    The Multi Bay is four bays (no vortex) and is brushes, then jap matting cartridges, and two bays of Alpha Grog. It's been a very stressful time trying to get everything dug out and set up, and I don't particularly want to mess about adding a vortex or changing the media to different media.

    The pond with be about 2000-3000 gallons (depending on final size) and oval shaped with depth around 3ft in deepest and about 18" in shallow area and it's surface area is pretty big i.e around 16ft long and 12ft wide.

    Filter will be pump fed. If you had to pick one, I am guessing the Multi Bay would do the job, it seems like the less hassle! I have no experience of this filter. Will is keep the pond relatively clear? Should I run both, or the multibay all the time and also the black box through the spring/summer only as well well? or just the multibay?

    Just trying to figure out the best option for keeping the water clear (doesn't have to be gin clear) and the bio filtration at the right level. At this point I am thinking the multi bay as the best option and possibly the black box running through the spring/summer as extra oxygenation as the return will be splashing into the pond.



  2. #2
    how about using the black box as a pre filter before the multi bay, you can never have too much filtration, and it will keep your multi bay nice and clean.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by familyman View Post
    how about using the black box as a pre filter before the multi bay, you can never have too much filtration, and it will keep your multi bay nice and clean.
    Think that's too complicated to get it all linked up mate because the outlet on the box is a certain size and all the fittings have been solvent cemented in both filters.

    But I could definitely have both filters. Black Box one side of pond hooked up to a pump and multi bay a different side of pond hooked up to another pump. I've found the black box pretty decent so far using it on my temp set-up for six month but I just didn't know if it would be worth it with the multi-bay. If the multi bay is doing it's job I didn't know if there would be a point of that black box as well if the multi bay is doing all the work. Considering I've got both, maybe using them both is the way to go!

    Cheers.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion Ajm's Avatar
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    Could you not run multibay on pond and black box on a skimmer . As that's what I am thinking about on mine

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  5. #5
    Senior Member Rank = Grand Champion andikoi's Avatar
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    first thing is i would get rid of the shelves and just go 3ft deep all over,shelves are nice for heron to stand on and things to climb in and out of pond with a fish,or make it smaller but a foot deeper,dont put rocks in as they give places for nasty stuff to hide and rot,and for koi to scrape themselves on,back to filters,i would just run both,put an even gap between pumps so they pull all the muck in,andi

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by andikoi View Post
    first thing is i would get rid of the shelves and just go 3ft deep all over,shelves are nice for heron to stand on and things to climb in and out of pond with a fish,or make it smaller but a foot deeper,dont put rocks in as they give places for nasty stuff to hide and rot,and for koi to scrape themselves on,back to filters,i would just run both,put an even gap between pumps so they pull all the muck in,andi
    Totally agree, the second thing I would do is that if you are revamping, see if there is any chance at all that you can add a bottom drain, a pump will just break up all the waste and it becomes more difficult to filter out using physical filtration.

 

 

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