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  1. #1
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Nexus Biofiltration to turn your thinking upside down!

    I am baffled by some advice I've been given, but want you to read this with an open mind as initially I thought the advice defied logic, but maybe its my logic that is wrong!

    I'm terrible at keeping posts short and to the point, so apologies in advance if I fail.

    My Nexus 220 was brand new with the supplied 50 litres of K1and has been running since April. Gravity fed from 7,000 litre pond, 10,000LPH pump, 8 small to medium Koi being fed 16 grams of food per day across 3 feeds (22 grams per day at Weekends). Pond temps have been over 20C for at least the last 6 Weeks, and were 16C to 20C prior.

    Ammonia spike occurred and went back to zero around 12 Weeks ago.

    Since then I've tested nitrite every single day and had a constant nitrite reading varying between 0.25ppm and 0.5ppm. Each time Nitrite hits 0.5ppm (every 2 to 3 days) ammonia levels also rise simultaneously to around 0.25ppm and I carry out a 10% water change. I also added 2KG of mature Alfagrog from another system and it hasn't made any difference, nor has adding numerous Pure Pond Bombs.

    I have also been battling fines and have tried various modifications/additions to the Nexus to help eliminate them with moderate success, but I gave up as it was too labour intensive.

    I've kept fish for over 25 years and have never had a tank or pond take more than 4 Weeks to mature to the point of zero Ammonia/Nitrite readings, although I've never previously owned a filter with the bio capacity of the Nexus.

    So, I wrote to EA posing the above issues and was baffled by the responses. Maybe I need to totally change the way I think or I've been misinformed. Before making your mind up, think about my set-up and whether there could be logic to what EA have said. The emails are long and include a lot of sales jargon so I've tried to bullet point the parts that are directly appropriate to my questions.


    1) The Fines issue.
    What EA said:

    Just sit back and wait. Enzymes and biofilms {which take time to develop} are sticky so will aid mechanical filtration - that is the magic with Nexus - nature aids mechanical filtration. Micro delivers unrivalled mechanical filtration and is 100% proven. You would be amazed {by real life tests that have proven this}.


    2) The ongoing Nitrite levels
    What EA said:

    Your Nitrite levels are down to lack of load. You only have a few fish and are feeding them very little.
    The surface area on the media both in the Eazy and in the outer ring is massive when compared to the load and what biofilm there is will be spread very thinly. I would remove media from the outer ring down to about 25 litres, so that the media has sufficient load compared to surface area to form a robust biofilm. Don’t add any more bacteria as you will have millions more than you need.
    Stop changing the water and continue to feed your fish.



    The points that confuse me most are as follows:

    If there is a constant Nitrite reading then there's plenty of nitrites sloshing around all the K1. Can removing K1 really help get nitrites down quicker? Just not logical to me.

    If I don't change water (remember, only doing 10% every 2 to 3 days) the Nitrite and Ammonia levels keep increasing and the fish show symptoms which I hate seeing. I'm now being told to keep feeding and stop changing water. I think I can see the logic here which is to flood the filter with Ammonia/Nitrites to help it mature, but I don't think killing the fish in the process is the right answer. My thinking would be that if there is a food supply for nitrifying bacteria then they will increase in quantity.... I can't see how increasing the food supply will make them increase in quantity any faster, or will it?

    The point he made about unrivalled mechanical filtration (and he did say Nexus are in more demand than drums in the same paragraph) and waiting for the sticky biofilm to grow and sort out the fines kind of has some logic if it were true. Is it true?

    He also kindly sent me a "scientific paper" proving Nexus are better than any other type of filtration especially for removal of Nitrates. The paper had been pasted into word and doesn't include any names etc, it looks more like a journal article than a scientific paper, but maybe they don't have permission to share the actual paper assuming it exists.

    Any thoughts?

    In the meantime, my water parameters are currently as follows and fish appetites are down and I'm seeing the odd flash which I guess is Ammonia related:

    Ammonia 0.25ppm (This usually goes back to zero by itself in a day or 2)
    Nitrites 0.5ppm (Other than the first spike back in early May, I've never let nitrites go beyond this level - normally do water changes)
    Nitrates 20ppm (This surprised me as they were 60+ppm a few days ago)
    KH 11 drops
    GH 13 drops

    Do I take EA's advice and just carry on feeding and stop changing water for a while?
    What about if Nitrites go even higher? Maybe they wont, I've not allowed them to previously other than the initial spike when first cycling.
    What if Ammonia goes even higher? Again, I've not allowed it to before, either through water changes or reducing food. Fish don't look great at 0.25 so I'm not keen on letting it rise further.



  2. #2
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Nanasai blue harbour's Avatar
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    Nexus Biofiltration to turn your thinking upside down!

    This all sounds like complete rollocks to me!

    I’ve got a nexus 220, which now has a Draco drum instead of the easy, and my experiences of this filter are that it (well the k1 media) got hold of the ammonia “fairly” quickly, but as for the nitrite - we’ll all I can say is it never truly got hold of that in the 18months of me running the k1 media (I had some k1 i’d been using in a diy moving bed filter prior to me getting the nexus!), I was really struggling with a constant nitrite reading that wouldn’t go! I added a cheap jbr shower after seeing a video of a guy who explained that plastic media is good for ammonia, but not good for nitrite/nitrate, and that ceramic type media’s were what you wanted (bought some pumice stone and grog for the shower), and within 3 weeks my nitrite was unreadable and my nitrates were MUCH lower too!

    As for the nexus being good at controlling fines, then that strikes me as bs too, you could see how many of the fine particles the easy was letting through! It wasn’t until I pulled out the easy and plopped in a Draco drum that my fines issue ever really got better to a point where I can say I’m happy enough for now with the results I’m getting, but truth be told I’m now biding my time until I can swap out the nexus/Draco unit and go for a standalone drum with separate bio chamber and I’ll be upping the size of my shower too.

    Ea’s advice just seems wrong to me, I can understand needing to give the filter time to mature n all that, but there’s the welfare of your fish to consider in all this too!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  4. #3
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Nanasai blue harbour's Avatar
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    Oh yes- the part about micro (I’m assuming by that they’re referring to the micro k1 in the easy!) being unrivalled mechanical filtration - or whatever they say is absolute bulls***!!

    If that was the case then surely my adding a Draco would have made things worse clarity wise, but it didn’t - it made things SIGNIFICANTLY better!!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  6. #4
    I had the nexus for years, swapped to a profidrum and the difference in fines is night and day.


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  8. #5
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Sansai The fin's Avatar
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    I also had a Nexus for years, dealt with ammonia and nitrites well after initial seeding period but always had 80 ppm+ nitrate readings, fines were noticeable too.

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  10. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Tashyface View Post
    I had the nexus for years, swapped to a profidrum and the difference in fines is night and day.


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    Same here!.

    Ray.

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  12. #7
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    So the EA rep said a lot more than what I quoted above and made some claims that I felt were a little far fetched.

    One claim is of a Nexus filtering a pond with 80 fish feeding on 1.2 Kilos of food a day and there's no nitrite readings and the Nexus is also removing Nitrates.

    Nonetheless I decided to follow his advice just to see what happens and removed half the K1 leaving 25 litres and I've carried on feeding as normal and stopped water changes.

    So far this is day 2 and nitrites are between 0.5ppm and 1ppm.
    Ammonia is somewhere between zero and 0.2ppm.

    Fish appetites have reduced, they seem a little lethargic, but a couple had clamped fins so I added salt to 0.1% to manage the nitrites, as advised by EA.

    I'll follow this through exactly to their instructions and see what happens.

  13. #8
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Nanasai blue harbour's Avatar
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    Can you get a written guarantee from the fella you spoke to that they’ll replace your fish if they start dying from excessive ammonia or nitrites from you following there advice!?Nexus Biofiltration to turn your thinking upside down!

    This all seems well dodgy to me, but I guess we’ll soon see if there full of it!!


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  15. #9
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by blue harbour View Post
    Can you get a written guarantee from the fella you spoke to that they’ll replace your fish if they start dying from excessive ammonia or nitrites from you following there advice!?Nexus Biofiltration to turn your thinking upside down!

    This all seems well dodgy to me, but I guess we’ll soon see if there full of it!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    I think it's the same fella people referred to on the "Nexus is best" thread.

    Obviously I wouldn't allow the fish to suffer. They have perked up a bit since the salt went in and I increased the air. Appetites seem low still when feeding pellets, but fed some mussels and they ate the lot.

    I'm actually hoping this works, even if only to restore a little faith in EA products as my EA UV had equal build quality to British Leyland cars from the 70s!

    Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

  16. #10
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Still following the EA reps instructions to the letter.

    Day 5 - Nitrites still reading 0.5ppm
    No partial water changes have been carried out.
    I haven't cleaned the Nexus out - Was previously doing it every 2 days which by default meant a partial water change.

    All Koi appear active and healthy. Appetites down a little on 3 of them but nothing of concern.

  17. #11
    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai Handy Kenny's Avatar
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    RS2000,

    I think in pond terms change happens slowly and given the correct conditions your Nexus will perform admirably, they wouldn't be able to sell so many if they didn't. One of our problems is we are always looking for the silver bullet, I know I was making too many many changes to things too quickly when I started out on my koi journey (panic!!) and stuff just didn't get a chance to settle down, mature, and start working properly. When I adopted a more "hands-off" approach I had more success. Maybe the EA rep is correct in some respects and given the right conditions maybe the 80 fish are doing just fine but how big is the pond (and the fish) and what else is going on in the pond set up.

    However I am not a Nexus fan but having experienced the work involved with a blue barrel system (as near as dammit to a Nexus) and a countinuing problem with fines I jumped into an RDF which I think was the best Koi decision I made. When I see the stuff that comes out of the RDF waste chute at this time of year I am glad to know that I am getting it out of the water. So filter setup No 4 is the one I have stuck with. My pond is no longer milky white when I put on the underwater lights at night and that only took a few days to improve from where I was. My biological part is taken care of with Anoxic filtration which again is "hands-off" and that maybe helped me understand more about the nitrogen cycle.

    Kenny

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  19. #12
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Good post Handy Kenny.

    Just frustrated that I haven't obtained a zero nitrite reading for the last 3 months.

    Funny thing is, had a nitrite spike very early on, this soon sorted itself out and I thought it was cycled.... then readings started creeping up again and as yet haven't gone away.

    Removing half the K1 has made no difference to any water parameters, up or down.

    When I first started out in the early 90's, with around 7 tanks and 3 ponds, I didn't know about cycling and was using box filters and pressure filters, yet never really had any problems, although stocking was always low. Had spawnings and fry every year! It was probably around 1996 when I started testing water and other than the first 2 to 4 weeks cycling a new system readings were always good.

    The only difference with this set-up is the Nexus, so its natural to blame that.

  20. #13
    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai Handy Kenny's Avatar
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    RS2000,

    Thanks just trying to be a bit helpful. Driving a car for us mere mortals is easy. Driving an F1 racing car is really difficult but there are huge benefits and I think this is where we try to get to. Just when you think you understand something you get a slap in the face. Will be watching this thread to see where you get to (quickly, hopefully).

    Kenny

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  22. #14
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Nanasai blue harbour's Avatar
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    Ill be amazed if you get anywhere quickly with getting hold of the nitrite, as I’m sure I’ve already said after 18months of running K1 I was still getting nitrite readings, it didn’t turn round for me until I added ceramic media into the mix via an added shower, then it soon disappeared, along with much lower nitrates too!

    Be interesting all the same to see how you go on.


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  23. #15
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    Was the K1 all brand new? It can take months to years to fully mature, but this is speeded up somewhat if you PP it beforehand to coat it all in a brown film of manganese dioxide which is easier for the bacteria to stick to than slippery new plastic.

    If you had millions more bacteria than you actually need, you would have zero ammonia and nitrite

    They are claiming that in real workd tests the clarity is unrivalled. I think your real world test has literally disproved that theory. The last thing we want in a koi pond is solid waste sticking to stuff and remaining in the system. The aim of decent filtration is to physically remove particles from the water asap. One reason I am not a fan of static plastic to catch solids.

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  25. #16
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Gosai Mythril's Avatar
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    It just sounds like EA are in full damage control with the BS their waffling on about above to me. A drum will always be the best form of mechanical filtration and to think that static plastic media would be better at the removal process is bonkers. They will be kicking themselves for not taking on Tony's Draco Drum idea when he approach them sometime ago.

    I have an Aqua Source Combi 35 on my outside pond and it's crystal clear yet the QT at 5000l in the garage is running on a 220 and the fines are significantly more. EA will state you're running the pump to fast. I tested this method for two weeks. Utter rubbish was my findings. Fines still a major issue.

    *Feline: Check your PM's please, I've messaged you Nexus Biofiltration to turn your thinking upside down!

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  27. #17
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Hi Feline,

    Thanks for your post, I think you are spot on.

    The K1 was brand new - I thought the pond was fully cycled when I first learned about PPing the K1 so I didn't want to mess with it.

  28. #18
    just as an example as to how efficient mature k1 can be. I built an indoor grow on, so the system was all brand new, soon got on top of ammonia but was always getting low nitrite reading, so I popped 40 litres of very mature k1 in to the system, taken from my ponds filter. Very, very quickly the nitrite was gone, and all water tests after that were bang on, trouble is it seems to take a couple of years for k1 to reach this point.

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  30. #19
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by familyman View Post
    just as an example as to how efficient mature k1 can be. I built an indoor grow on, so the system was all brand new, soon got on top of ammonia but was always getting low nitrite reading, so I popped 40 litres of very mature k1 in to the system, taken from my ponds filter. Very, very quickly the nitrite was gone, and all water tests after that were bang on, trouble is it seems to take a couple of years for k1 to reach this point.
    Ha ha.... This is where it gets interesting. So far I've hidden most of the waffle EA emailed me in order to try and solve the actual nitrite problem, but I did ask why many owners claim on forums it can take 2 years for a Nexus to fully mature enough to deal with nitrites.

    This was the response I got:

    Do you really believe that Nexus will take two years to mature, and if so, why? Why not four years? Or eight, or one? I’ve tried to offer you the understanding behind biofilms. I could tell you now that you are right, Nexus takes two years to mature and the whole Nexus project has been a failure from start to finish, but I would be lying. I could tell you to take the Nexus back for a full refund as it is not fit for purpose as a pond filter, both mechanically and biologically, but then I would be lying too. I’ve only spent four years working with Nexus and K1, but I could stand up in a court of law and honestly testify that I’ve never known a Nexus take two years to mature and get rid of persistent Nitrite. And that gives me the conviction to keep battling with your doubts about our product.
    If you carry on feeding and didn’t change water I think that nitrite will peak and then start to drop within 48 hours.

    He then went on in another email to say that I must have set it up wrong to still be getting nitrite readings, same applies to anyone experiencing the same problem. He then asked me to send photos of the set-up (which I've not yet done) so his lab people good look them over.


    That email was 9 days ago, and its 8 days since I've followed his instructions to the letter...... Nitrite reading today... Still 0.5mg/l, exactly as it has been for Weeks and Weeks.
    Last edited by RS2OOO; 14-07-2018 at 12:36 AM.

  31. #20
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Nanasai blue harbour's Avatar
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    Nexus Biofiltration to turn your thinking upside down!

    I think he spat his dummy out there!!

    Does he really think that multiple people are so stupid/brain dead enough that non of them have been able to figure out how to correctly set up a nexus filter, and that’s why we’re having issues with nitrites, or unhappy with how our boggo standard nexus filters handle fines (even though the nexus is supposed to be a superior filter both biologically and mechanically!!), & I guess we’re all also wrong/misusing our nexus’s/K1 as we’re finding it takes ages for the media to mature too🤪


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