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  1. #1
    Member Rank = Tosai Rays Pond's Avatar
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    Large Filter design. PICs.

    This is my current set up. Next year I plan to completely rebuild my pond including the filtration.

    I plan to do a monster filter system and try something different.

    I recently acquired 3 RTF 5500 filter bays and I am planning to remove everything within them and try my own design. The
    first chamber will be used for mechanical filtration.


    Any ideas or recommendations will be greatly appreciated.


    Do you guys think this will work?. Or I am just bonkers...















  2. #2

  3. #3
    I like these types of filters built not bought.
    I'd swap the jap mat and alfagrog round but thats just me and probably won't make any overall difference in performance tbh.

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  5. #4
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion Ajm's Avatar
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    Could you not make last chamber a k1/ helx13 moving bed

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  6. #5
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion Ajm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ajm View Post
    Could you not make last chamber a k1/ helx13 moving bed

    Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk
    Sorry just looked on computer and seen airstone I'll go sit back in the corner

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    Freddyboy the legend

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  8. #6
    Senior Member Rank = Rokusai Simon Fish's Avatar
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    Agree swap the alfa grog and jap matt.
    Is there anything before this?
    Vortex, brushes, drum??

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  10. #7
    Member Rank = Tosai Rays Pond's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Simon Fish View Post
    Agree swap the alfa grog and jap matt.
    Is there anything before this?
    Vortex, brushes, drum??

    Nothing before. Will have a drain flush on each chamber. Was also thinking of having static K1 in chamber 1

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  12. #8
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion Ajm's Avatar
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    Maintenance is going to be a bugger to scope all that k1 out when mat needs cleaning

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    Freddyboy the legend

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    Johnathan

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  14. #9
    Senior Member Rank = Rokusai Simon Fish's Avatar
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    First filter will be clogged in a short time.
    You could fill the first with brushes.
    Better to get a drum, sieve or vortex first.

    Or redesign the 200 micron sheet, you have it horizontal,
    Look at the design of a sieve, the mesh sheet is on a sort of 45° angle with a curve. Easiest to get one second hand.

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  16. #10
    As well as swapping the grog for the matting id pop a small drain in the base of chambers 2&3 so you can clear the sediment every now and again without having to empty them.
    This way the only reall maintenance regime you'll be on with frequently will be cleaning the course, medium, and fine.

    Edit - Ignore me you've detailed this in your first post doh!
    Last edited by Solvent Cement; 02-11-2019 at 11:17 AM.

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  18. #11
    Member Rank = Tosai Rays Pond's Avatar
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    Thanks Solvent, Simon and AJM for your comments and input...

    The reason for trying a flat sieve tray in chamber 1 is I made one in my top chamber of the Bakki and it works well. Not perfect but catches a lot of large particles before hitting the biological media. I undertand your idea of using the jap matting in chamber one as it will be easier to drain flush when cleaning and the grog will be more suited for the biological process.. The filter has drains in all 3 bays

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  20. #12
    Senior Member Rank = Rokusai Simon Fish's Avatar
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    I saw your pictures in the other post.
    You never said how big the fish are.

    As the fish grow the feeding goes up and so does the amount of waste, best to have as the first thing something that is self cleaning or easy to flush out, with limited chance of getting blocked.

  21. #13
    Member Rank = Tosai Rays Pond's Avatar
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    Only small fish now but once I get the pond rebuilt I will be adding largee fish.

    Version 2


  22. #14
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion Ajm's Avatar
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    This diy build uses static and moving bed and is a really good filter have a read and may be pick up a few pointers ?? When trace was on here she would have helped no end

    https://www.koiforum.uk/water-...54-...y-easypod.html

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  23. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Rays Pond View Post
    Only small fish now but once I get the pond rebuilt I will be adding largee fish.

    Version 2

    This way your water wont pass through chambers 2&3.
    It will simply pass across the top.

  24. #16
    Senior Member Rank = Rokusai Simon Fish's Avatar
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    The first bay needs to be only mechanical and easy to flush out, with no air.
    Then start on the biological filtration.

  25. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Simon Fish View Post
    The first bay needs to be only mechanical and easy to flush out, with no air.
    Then start on the biological filtration.

    The air stone in bay 1 will only be used when flushing to agitate the K1

  26. #18

  27. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Ajm View Post
    Maintenance is going to be a bugger to scope all that k1 out when mat needs cleaning
    I agree with Ajm, that cleaning maintenance is the biggest issue with multichamber filters. Because of this, if you can't afford an RDF (they're still not cheap, in 2019), then a sieve, to prefilter solids out of the system, prior to the multichamber biofilter, might be a good option, although it does tend to have the downside of losing head/water-height (unless it's a criel sieve, which doesn't lose head, but also tends to keep solids suspended in the water, which isn't ideal).

    I would urge you to steer clear of brush filters (AKA 'burstenfilters' in Germany), as they turn you into a slave, because (if you seriously care about the health of your fish) they need thoroughly flushing every single day, which gets to be a total PITA. Brush filters do trap waste particles, but the waste is still able to decay & pollute the water until you remove the brushes & manually flush them. Bizarrely, they still seem to be popular in Germany, even though the German koi scene know the benefits of RDFs & EBFs.

    A parabolic sieve (such as an 'Ultra Sieve III) is so much easier to quickly clean, & even when it's dirty, it doesn't keep the sieved solids 100% exposed to the water.

    Alternatively, just like a brush filter, a criel sieve allows sieved solids to decay & pollute the water until you remove it & manually flush it & the chamber beneath it, but the difference is that it is vastly quicker & easier to flush a criel sieve than numerous seperate brushes.

    I see you're considering a horizontally-mounted 'sieve tray'. If employed in an upflowing settlement chamber, this could work as well as a criel sieve, but with the same caveats: it, & the chamber, must be cleaned at least once a day (& more frequently than that during heavy summer feeding), if you are to avoid potential health issues for the fish. If one considers how many times per day an RDF flushes its mesh, then this necessity for frequent maintenance becomes more obvious. This is another reason why parabolic sieves are a more effective type of sieve - in addition to not keeping trapped waste fully immersed in the water flow, they also don't impede the flow of water as much as a clogged horizontal or criel-type sieve panel. You wouldn't want your filter chamber overflowing!

    If you can't afford a parabolic sieve, then the vastly larger surface area of a static K1 chamber is likely to allow better water flow when loaded with waste solids, than a sieve panel can.



    Quote Originally Posted by Rays Pond View Post
    Was also thinking of having static K1 in chamber 1
    Do you mean purely for bio-filtration, or also for mechanical filtration (removal of solid particles)? If you mean the latter, then yes, this is another legitimate option for solids removal, as can be seen from commercial examples like the EA Eazypod, EA Nexus filters, & the Spierings. As you may already realise, these include a static bed of K1 or Hel-X 13, which has an air-pump periodically switched-on, in order to agitate the K1 & encourage any trapped solids to fall down to the bottom of the chamber, after which the air can be switched off & water released from the bottom of the chamber, to carry sediment to the sewer. The periodic switching-on of the aeration can be done manually or on a timer, but it generally tends to be manually, since one needs to expel the agitated solids from the filter chamber, after the aeration has expelled it from the pieces of biomedia, & few people are willing to go to the trouble of implementing a solenoid-controlled waste gate & it can be tricky to judge how long a solenoid waste gate should be left open, without the hobbyist witnessing solids being eliminated & the water then running clear. It can be done, though, & Evolution Aqua have recently offered an automation option for the flushing of their Nexus filters:

    https://evolutionaqua.com/nexus-automatic

    Personally, I feel EA filters are overpriced, but that's just my opinion.


    ________________________________________________

    Without going into an excessively long description, I'll instead offer you some videos so you can see for yourself what the various options look like:

    ________________________________________________

    AquaForte Ultra Sieve III (parabolic sieve - it's call parabolic because of the parabola-shaped curve of the sieve, which allows waste to accumulate lower down the sieve whilst water can mostly pass through the sieve without fully touching the trapped waste):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12j2DnrINZA

    One downside, quite literally, of this type of sieve, is that the water 'falls' down the sieve mesh, & exits the bottom of the filter, so you'd need to take account of this loss of head, in the way you rig the sieve to the rest of your filtration - it might be necessary to install a pump to bring the water high enough to suit your multi-chamber filter, depending on how the sieve is situated in relation to the chambers.

    AquaForte Sieve Filters - AquaForte Reliable and Innovative (Swimming) Pond Products
    ________________________________________________

    Criel sieves (these are examples of airlift-pumped systems - please ignore all of that configuration, since it's not relevant to your pond - just focus upon the diagonally-mounted 'criel' sieves, which are permanently immersed/submerged in the water:

    https://youtu.be/d0yL485-wlk?t=196
    https://youtu.be/lDLn6hfMr1o?t=263
    ________________________________________________

    Spierings:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jk8OxB8V8s


    Evolution Aqua Eazypod:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgo2I9WLXFY


    Evolution Aqua 220/330:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-zW0asvkgI
    ________________________________________________

    Quote Originally Posted by Solvent Cement View Post
    ...I'd pop a small drain in the base of chambers 2&3 so you can clear the sediment every now and again without having to empty them. Edit - Ignore me you've detailed this in your first post doh!
    Quote Originally Posted by Rays Pond View Post
    Nothing before. Will have a drain flush on each chamber.
    It was a legitimate point to highlight, & I agree. Here's a nice example of a chamber being drained for cleaning, in the way you've both described:

    https://youtu.be/KxKbxlVm8aA?t=690

    Please note the incorporation of a small section of transparent tube, to make it easy to see when all the waste has left the chamber. This can save you a lot of unnecessary water wastage during flushing.
    ________________________________________________



    In terms of how you arrange each of the 3 chambers, I'll assume that (for now) you will be relying on chamber 1 to remove solid particles from the water. IF you can't afford an RDF & IF you can't afford a parabolic sieve, then it would be logical to use static K1 (with manual aeration to agitate it) in chamber 1, primarily for filtering solids (although it will grow some useable biofilm), then have continually-aerated K1 in chamber 2 for efficient nitrification (conversion of ammonia to nitrate), & then static K1 / Hel-X 13, or japmat in chamber 3, with very minimal aeration (or it can be zero aeration, if you have some aeration in the pond itself), to encourage reduction of nitrate in chamber 3. For this reason, it's logical to have the highly-aerated nitrification stage in chamber 2, & some degree of attempted de-nitrification subsequently occuring in much less oxygen, in chamber 3. Flushing particles from chambers 2 & 3 to sewer once per week would be wise practice.

    It is possible to use pummice &/or alfagrog in a chamber, but I would gently suggest that these medias are not best-suited for use in chambers. They don't have the benefit of movement in comparison to a manually-aerated or a continually-aerated K1 chamber. Pummice &/or alfagrog can be kept in a static or a continually aerated chamber AFTER removal of solid particles, but they are liable to be relatively inefficient for that application because nothing is flushing the surfaces to keep them clean, so biofilm & mulm can build up on their surfaces, over time, potentially making them less efficient; especially pummice, which is a highly porous material, that, owing to the tiny size of the pores, is especially vulnerable to clogging. I would suggest that alfagrog is better used in showers than continually immersed in chambers, & that pummice is a risky media to use in a pond system, regardless of the type of filter it is used in, because, as I have described, its tiny pores may eventually become clogged with biofilm &/or mulm (even in a shower).
    www.koiforum.uk/water-treatment-protein-skimmers-filtration/24331-static-vs-moving-bed-filter-post307530.html#post307530
    Please understand that I'm not saying you can't use pummice or alfagrog in your chambers - I'm just pointing out some shortcomings for you to seriously consider.

    Furthermore, none of what I've said in this post is absolute 100% concrete 'fact'. It is my opinions, and others may have different opinions that conflict with mine, so please use your own discernment in drawing your own conclusions. At the very least, I hope what I've said will stimulate your thinking.
    Last edited by MustBeSomethingInTheWater; 05-11-2019 at 02:00 PM.

  28. #20
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion Ajm's Avatar
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    Very good write up mate thank you for that

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    Freddyboy the legend

    "we are water keepers first"

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