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  1. #1
    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai GadgetBazza's Avatar
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    Question Shower layout query

    I’m still making plans for my pond build next year. I’m looking at the filter room and layout and one of the things I wanted to do was add a shower. But I was wondering about the layout. When I’ve seen them they are always stacked either 3 or 4 trays high. Apart from the obvious plumbing differences is there any reason why they can’t be in two stacks of two trays?



  2. #2
    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai Handy Kenny's Avatar
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    One of the reasons that showers seem to work is the water is crashing from one layer to the next. You would be doing away with one "crash" by having 2 and 2 . So there would be no physical reason but it could be less effective.

    Kenny

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  4. #3
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Mature Champion pip895's Avatar
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    Showers are pump fed and gravity return to the pond as a rule. If you have two stacks then presumably you would only have half the water going through the media or else how would you feed the water from one to the other?
    6000g in ground koi pond
    +3000g lily/Anoxic pond attached
    29 koi (40 to 65cm)
    Bottom drain, Mid water & Skimmer to Drum
    JBR boichamber->Blue eco 500 pump ->below surface return.
    Blue Eco 240 -> Large MB -> Waterfall -> Planted Anoxic pond (25 baskets)

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  6. #4
    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai GadgetBazza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pip895 View Post
    Showers are pump fed and gravity return to the pond as a rule. If you have two stacks then presumably you would only have half the water going through the media or else how would you feed the water from one to the other?
    Hi Pip,

    I think that's probably the answer I was looking for. You're quite right, I would effectively be passing half of the water over half of the shower capacity. I would be pumping the water over 2 towers and gravity returning as per normal, but the water would only pass over 2 tiers in any one circulation of pond water.

    I see from your signature that you have a similar setup to what I am planning with an anoxic pond also. In my plans, I have a small water course running to the anoxic pond and then to the main pond. But I may reconsider this and split the returns as you have indicated, with a return to the anoxic pond which could be fed from the showers and simply have a pump feeding the water course which doesn't need to be on all the time.

    My query over height was that I was thinking about pumping the water over the shower and then have that gravity feed the water course meaning that the shower was getting located higher up all the time. I want to locate the shower in the pump room, at this rate, with drums located at the pond water level and a shower above the start of the waterfall, the pump room is getting very tall!

    Cheers
    Barry

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    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Mature Champion pip895's Avatar
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    I have been having issues with trace ammonia despite over 500ltrs of K1/micro K1 in the circuit.
    75kg of grog has just been added + I am changing the pipework to allow a better turnover. Next on the list if all that doesn't work is a shower.

    If I had to go that way and I hope I don't, it would be pumped from and returned to my bio chamber in the filter shed using a dedicated pump - might that work for you?
    You could also gravity feed back into the drum I suppose.
    Last edited by pip895; 22-10-2018 at 03:41 PM.
    6000g in ground koi pond
    +3000g lily/Anoxic pond attached
    29 koi (40 to 65cm)
    Bottom drain, Mid water & Skimmer to Drum
    JBR boichamber->Blue eco 500 pump ->below surface return.
    Blue Eco 240 -> Large MB -> Waterfall -> Planted Anoxic pond (25 baskets)

  8. #6
    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai GadgetBazza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pip895 View Post
    If I had to go that way and I hope I don't, it would be pumped from and returned to my bio chamber in the filter shed using a dedicated pump - might that work for you?
    Do you know what, I saw a combi drum / moving bed bio filter with a shower stacked on top of the bio section at the South East Koi show the other week and I thought that was fairly neat (although I'll likely have separate drum / bio). Don't know why I didn't think of that.

    Cheers!

  9. #7
    So, the supplier of that is an advocate of “slow through the bio to give adequate dwell time” so to pump a fast flowing shower back through the bio side or drag water fast enough through the bio to make the shower work as it should (in theory) seems like a contradiction to me.
    Probably works just fine though lol


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Mature Champion pip895's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigcarpchaser View Post
    So, the supplier of that is an advocate of “slow through the bio to give adequate dwell time” so to pump a fast flowing shower back through the bio side or drag water fast enough through the bio to make the shower work as it should (in theory) seems like a contradiction to me.
    Probably works just fine though lol
    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    You could have a higher flow through the shower than is going through the bio in this configuration though, rather than running the two in series as is more normal. The water is taken from the bio and returned to it so makes no difference to the dwell time except by marginally increasing the effective capacity of the bio chamber.
    6000g in ground koi pond
    +3000g lily/Anoxic pond attached
    29 koi (40 to 65cm)
    Bottom drain, Mid water & Skimmer to Drum
    JBR boichamber->Blue eco 500 pump ->below surface return.
    Blue Eco 240 -> Large MB -> Waterfall -> Planted Anoxic pond (25 baskets)

  11. #9
    Senior Member Rank = Yonsai Liam77's Avatar
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    I’ve got to wait till next year to see how mine is going to work out but I went for this setup just because I didn’t want the noise in my garden and I’m hoping it might make a bit of a difference with winter coming up as I can still run it through till spring
    Attached Images Attached Images

  12. #10
    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai GadgetBazza's Avatar
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    That's the make of unit (Evolve) I saw at the South East Koi Show.

    I guess the only difference with placing the shower over the bio versus placing it above the pond return (waterfall etc), is that two pumps will be required, one to circulate the shower and one to return to the pond.

    On the flip side, I like the idea of not having to put my water down the water fall in winter, so maybe shower over bio which will be fed with a pump that doesn't have to deal with much head plus another pump to deal with the return to the pond which can have diverter valves for the water fall / mid returns on the pond. Or alternatively pump over show, pump to mid returns, and waterfall pump only enabled when we are in the garden so that we aren't wasting power running water over the fall when no-one is there to see it???

  13. #11
    Senior Member Rank = Yonsai Liam77's Avatar
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    I think a waterfall does the same kind of thing as a shower but without the bio side. I believe it can gas off nitrogen and obviously adds a bit of aeration to the water. What size pond are you having? How many bottom drains and how many returns? I have 2 returns on my system. The longer run back to the pond has its own dedicated pump and the shorter run has been split to go over the shower and as a pond return. You can kind of simplify and possibly increase efficiency by using a submersible pump on the drums clean side and pump from there to the shower making your dry pumps purely pond returns, even splitting one over a waterfall if you want

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    Senior Member Rank = Nanasai GadgetBazza's Avatar
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    Hi Liam,

    The more I think about it and the potential locations of plant room vs pond etc, the more having the shower in the plant room makes sense, rather than trying to have the shower gravity feeding the waterfall. I think I must have been focused on reducing the number of pumps, but thinking about the size of pond, I'm going to have multiple pumps anyway.

    Pond size (on paper) is currently around 20,000 gallons, I'm looking for ways to reduce this potentially, but converting some of the pond to an anoxic pond at a slightly higher level (and shallower) than the main pond that will spill into the main pond.

    At this stage I'm thinking about having 4 bottom drains, 2-4 skimmers into 2 drums and moving bed, with shower and then back to pond. Thinking that I might plumb the two drums into 1 large moving bed chamber, and then putting a shower over this, so that a) in case of any one drum failure, we still have all the bio capacity albeit at a potentially lower flow rate. Also, I would only need 1 pump to lift water over the shower although I need to consider the size of the shower and the volume of water that needs to go over it.

    I can then have two pumped returns to the pond and as you say, split one or both off to the waterfall with valves to control flow as appropriate.

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  16. #13
    Senior Member Rank = Yonsai Liam77's Avatar
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    Sounds good mate, it’s quite a lot to take in when your trying to map it all out. If it gets to busy then just use a pump in the drum water to go straight over the shower. Doesn’t have to be to big and saves on plumbing and connectors. Good luck, that’s a big pond you have going on

  17. #14
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    I think on a pond that size realistically you need to be looking at more than one shower!

    I have my shower in the filter room, it's a double width Bakki with the twin 4" spigot tray at the bottom to returns to the pond via 2 x 4" pipes.

    The trouble with having your shower over the moving bed filter is you would need to double up on the high flow rate pumping. The water goes round in a circle when pumped over a shower over the filter so doesn't contribute to pond turnover rate at all. To turn over 20,000 gallons in less than 2 hours you are going to need some hefty pumping power.

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