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  1. #1

    Draco2 drop in flow rate

    I see it’s rated for only 11500 per hour but i was planning on having atleast 20,000 going through my nexus.

    Will there be any issues with fines if I have 20,000 lph going through the drum?

    Baring in mind everything is massively over rated for my size pond I think.

    Pond will be 1.8m wide x 4m long 1.6m Deep 11500l
    I have a nexus 220 max filled with micro k1
    Aerated bottom drain, wide mouth skimmer
    EVO110 UV

    Plan was to have 20,000 lph pulled through bottom drain/skimmer into the drum , through nexus then UV and to two long 150cm steel water falls


    Last edited by Steve9814; 15-05-2020 at 07:23 AM.

  2. #2
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Kyusai Scamp's Avatar
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    Hi the Nexus 220 has a recommended max flow rate of 10000 lph? If you run double this through the Nexus you may have insufficient dwell time for the bacteria, but also drain the bio side, as the water has to flow through kiss points at the bottom of the Nexus..that said perhaps there is someone out there has tried it and comment..cheers

  3. #3
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion freddyboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve9814 View Post
    I see it’s rated for only 11500 per hour but i was planning on having atleast 20,000 going through my nexus.

    Will there be any issues with fines if I have 20,000 lph going through the drum?

    Baring in mind everything is massively over rated for my size pond I think.

    Pond will be 1.8m wide x 4m long 1.6m Deep 11500l
    I have a nexus 220 max filled with micro k1
    Aerated bottom drain, wide mouth skimmer
    EVO110 UV

    Plan was to have 20,000 lph pulled through bottom drain/skimmer into the drum , through nexus then UV and to two long 150cm steel water falls
    Hello mate. I have a nexus 320 with drop in draco drum to 30000lph ea pump. a UV ea 55. And then to a bakki shower. 320lts of k1 and helx media.

    My skimmer is on a seperate line to 15000lph pump. 55cwatt UV to mid returns
    For circulation.

    And my water is crystal clear no fines.
    I was planning on 20000lph running for flow. On 5000gallon pond.

    The problem I found when I ran it at 30000
    Then 20000lph was it's to much flow.
    Also no dwell time. For media in nexus.
    Also no dwell time in UVs. So I backed the
    Pump off to 12000lph to 13000 lph.
    And that is now brilliant. Works great on my setup.

    How did you plan on getting skimmer and
    Bottom drain into a drop in drum.
    They only have one entry point lol. Only way I can think of is if you put a t before the drum. With ball valves on.
    Or have I read your plan wrong lol

    Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

  4. #4
    Sorry for confusion.

    This is what I’m thinking of doing.

    Is it a bad idea?

    Sorry for bad drawing was done in 5 mins just now with a kid hanging from my leg


  5. #5
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion john1's Avatar
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    Hi Steve, I think 20000 would be too much.

    You have the nexus have you allready bought the drop in Draco?
    If not I would sell the nexus and go for Draco 25 if you want that flow that's what I did.

    Or use two pumps to get the return flow,one on the nexus and a separate one on the skimmer.
    John

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  7. #6
    I already bought them unfortunately. Draco is in the mail today.

    If I put a separate pump on the skimmer wouldnt I have the same issue of the pump chopping up the debris and returning dirty water to my pond?

    The draco 25 does bio filtration too?

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  9. #7
    I guess first of all I need to know exactly what flow I need.


    I have bought two stainless steel waterfalls 150cm wide.

    I want a nice 3m long film of water flowing down the back wall of my pond. I’ve seen videos of these waterfalls and like how they seem to just slash into the pond like a knife through butter you can hear the water but it’s subtle.

    How much flow would I need for these?

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  11. #8
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Hi.
    I didn't read the whole thread as I'm meant to be working

    I have a drop in Draco 2.

    At a flow of 20k lph you need to have the pond water level and float sensor at quite a precise level otherwise the drum will rotate too many times and go into safe mode (switch off).

    Once you get those precise levels just right you will find the drum cleaning every 1-5 minutes on warm sunny days. But sooner or later something will go wrong, a large amount of waste getting sucked through over a short period, or a bit of evaporation reducing the pond water level by a few mm, and the drum will stop.

    Ignoring the water bill for a moment, I found the maximum reliable flow rate to be around 12500 lph which has the drum cleaning every 6-12 minutes in the summer.

    The best all round flow rate is around 11,000 lph which has it cleaning every 15 - 30 minutes on cloudy days, and 12 to 20 minutes on sunny summer days.

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  13. #9
    I appreciate your reply .

    I was planning on having a trickle overflow anyway on my pond.

    So unless the drum wastes maybe 700l a day are you saying I should be ok with 20,000 lph?

  14. #10
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve9814 View Post
    I already bought them unfortunately. Draco is in the mail today.

    If I put a separate pump on the skimmer wouldnt I have the same issue of the pump chopping up the debris and returning dirty water to my pond?

    The draco 25 does bio filtration too?
    The origin and draco ranges are drop in for various systems. They don’t have bio but are designed to drop in - that can be a bio system that has chamber at the front for the drum (need to separate or the media may stick to or damage the mesh).

    The solum range is standalone in it’s own chamber. That doesn’t have a bio. I have the solum 16 and matching standard bio.
    You can use any wras water tank after as a bio with some modification.

    If it’s internet purchase you can return up to 14days by law.

  15. #11
    Nexus has been opened and the cost of returning it and the hassle specially at the moment since I’m supposed to be shielding my family isn’t really making that a possibility.

    But from all the research I did previously the nexus 220 and the drop in draco 2 and the evo110 should be way more than enough to keep my pond crystal clear unless I’m missing something?

    My only issue is not having the flow required for my two long waterfalls

  16. #12
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve9814 View Post
    I appreciate your reply .

    I was planning on having a trickle overflow anyway on my pond.

    So unless the drum wastes maybe 700l a day are you saying I should be ok with 20,000 lph?
    No, it wont be ok.

    You'll get away with it at night time and in cooler months, but the waste produced in summer at 20k lph will have the drum cleaning so often that it will eventually register it as a fault and cut out.

    Even if you can get the drum to only clean every 5 minutes at that flow rate that is still 12-15 litres per hour of water going to waste (300+ litres per day).

    Also the flow will be too fast for the bio dwell time and might be too fast for the UV to do its job properly. (It is rated for 25000 lph but I think this will still be too fast to do its job properly).

    I think your waterfalls will still work reasonably well at 11-12,000 litre per hour.

    Alternatively split the waterfalls into 2 and have a separate pump sending unfiltered water over one of the waterfalls. With your set up the unfiltered water should still be clean enough not to mess up the waterfall.

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  18. #13
    Ok if you think the waterfall will work at 12000 lph - 6000 lph each then I will just do that.

    I just read on the sales page that a 90cm waterfall needs 9000 lph and I have 300cm of waterfall

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  20. #14
    Alternatively I don’t want to use two pumps as I want to keep each waterfall as even as possible so they don’t look different.

    Could I put a tee on the pump inlet one going to nexus one to skimmer? So the 20,000 lph flow is split 10,000 each way?

    I’d actually prefer it this way as atleast my skimmer is getting a good 10,000lph pulled through it.

    If I have the gravity skimmer and teed with drain into nexus my skimmer and drain only get 5000 each
    Last edited by Steve9814; 15-05-2020 at 10:02 AM.

  21. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve9814 View Post
    Alternatively I don’t want to use two pumps as I want to keep each waterfall as even as possible so they don’t look different.

    Could I put a tee on the pump inlet one going to nexus one to skimmer? So the 20,000 lph flow is split 10,000 each way?

    I’d actually prefer it this way as atleast my skimmer is getting a good 10,000lph pulled through it.

    If I have the gravity skimmer and teed with drain into nexus my skimmer and drain only get 5000 each
    I'm not sure what you mean about the Tee on the pump inlet, as the pump is after the gravity fed Nexus, so anything going through the pump has to have gone through the Nexus first. Probably I've misunderstood.

    Not sure if that's correct about skimmer/drain getting 5000 each. I've not got a proper skimmer but I made something up similar to your drawing but using a 2" pipe a couple of mm below the surface as a skimmer. At least 90% of the flow still came through the bottom drain and only a tiny flow from the overflow pipe.

    I think all you can do is get the whole thing set up and play around with it till you get the desired effect. Its very difficult to accurately guess how it will all work because of factors such as head height etc.

    You might even find that due to head height of the waterfalls you can run the pump at full speed, but you won't be getting 20k lph through it.

    Very difficult to estimate, so I think you'll just have to play around and be conscious that you may need a 2nd pump to fully achieve what you want.

    I know you said you didn't want a 2nd pump, but another solution would be to run the skimmer line separately to an Eazy Pod and pump from that to the waterfall as well.

  22. #16
    The pump is the varipump 30,000lph but I’m considering just running one waterfall then and keeping the flow rate at 12000 lph.

    Would 12000 lph split between the bottom drain and the skimmer be enough though? I just want to make sure there is enough waterflow at the drain and skimmer so all debris is caught

  23. #17
    Senior Member Rank = Kyusai Sim's Avatar
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    Yes think if it was me I would run as Fred suggests and run two pumps.
    You can get the bio and drum running and the skimmer with the uv.
    you could make a manifold up running both into it before going over the blade or if the blades have reservoirs you could join them with tank connectors to balance them.
    easier way would be two variable pumps and just match the flow with the speed

  24. #18
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion freddyboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by john1 View Post
    Hi Steve, I think 20000 would be too much.

    You have the nexus have you allready bought the drop in Draco?
    If not I would sell the nexus and go for Draco 25 if you want that flow that's what I did.

    Or use two pumps to get the return flow,one on the nexus and a separate one on the skimmer.
    Agree john that's how mine is setup. 2 seperate lines. Bd to nexus and skimmer to mid returns. I was trying to explain this.
    The draco will handle it. But the 220 nexus wont. I put 20000 flow on a nexus 320. And that started to empty drain. The nexus.
    And that's just with bottom drain.
    Fred

    Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

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  26. #19
    Does anyone here think 2 of the 150cm blades for a pond 4m long 1.8m wide is too much?

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  28. #20
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion freddyboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve9814 View Post
    I already bought them unfortunately. Draco is in the mail today.

    If I put a separate pump on the skimmer wouldnt I have the same issue of the pump chopping up the debris and returning dirty water to my pond?

    The draco 25 does bio filtration too?
    I run my skimmer into ultra sieve and back to mid returns.
    You could get a sieve as mechanical filter and run to a shower
    With it's own pump. Run your showers between 10000 to 13000lph. My shower runs great at that flow rate
    Blow picture up you can see the flow.
    Out the shower at far end.

    Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

 
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