Thread: Water Purifiers / Dechlorinators - Info & Ideas

I get that but here’s the thing, 30-40 years ago people kept koi very successfully in semi natural ponds with plenty of plants, relied on rain water off the garden to keep em full etc and never did water changes, never had a trickle in, basically never needed any sort of dechlorination as they never used tap water, so what’s changed? not the fish that’s for sure.

30/ 40 years ago there were more mortalities for sure in koi ponds , but in my experience the koikeepers who do everything wrong get the right results so are they wrong

I remember my parents pond when I was a kid so probably nearer 50 years ago, I remember thinking where are the fish because we could never see them in the murky water, if I remember right they only cleaned it out maybe once or twice a year and within a week or 2 it was back to being a murky puddle again, the fish lived for years though so who knows, maybe they were more hardy back then , but I must add I do very much prefer the gin clear water you get from modern filtration etc

I actually work in the water industry but only as a driver/crane operator, the next time I’m on a clean water site I’m going to make some enquiries, tap water after all, is basically rain water that’s been through a cleansing process, see if I can find out what that process is and why the water out of the tap has a far higher ph etc, I know it goes through carbon filters as a last stage purifier on some sites.
surely there’s got to be a way of harvesting free water and putting it through a similar process on a very small scale so it’s fit for the pond?

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Our water expert here is Manky Sanke.

With my extremely limited knowledge of water, but a lifetime of keeping Koi, my thoughts are:

There are a lot more chemicals, metals and particularly pesticides in water now than there were 30+ years ago. All the run-off from farms and factories has to end up somewhere.

I have used rain water for pond water changes before, overall I would say it had a positive effect in my circumstances because I was in an extremely hard water area so the pH reduction was welcomed and I only needed minimal tap water to maintain KH levels. Japanese mudpond water is void of KH / GH but the water volume is so vast compared the volume of fish pH crashes are few and far between, whereas in our home ponds with high stock and heavy feeding pH crashes are relatively common and often result in fish deaths.

My 10" jumbo 3 stage purifier (as per the first 2 posts) handles water flowing at 7-9 litres per minute without chlorine getting through.

I'm always shocked at the colour of the pre-filer when I change it every 8-18k litres. This is doesn't come close to the worst I've seen, but as I have a photo to hand.....





And finally, as I've mentioned earlier in the thread..... my daughter only drinks bottle water and when I gave her a glass that had been through the 3 stage dechlorinator she could not tell the difference vs bottled water. When I gave her straight tap water she knew straight away.

Originally Posted by Alburglar

A bore hole is about £6000 last time I checked.

But totally free if you’ve got a fibreglass garage roof ��

Im only a mile away from M1 i do wonder what the rain water would be like with a mixture of exhaust gases in it.
Im going same as RS and fitting the treble 20" from finerfilters.
the M1 at sheffield is a 60mph zone cant remember the actual % of air pollution it has reduced.
Not to mention the amount of money its made in speeding fines.
keith

I’m not sure I would use rain run off from a fibreglass roof. Is it sealed in the same way as pond glass?

Originally Posted by big h

I’m not sure I would use rain run off from a fibreglass roof. Is it sealed in the same way as pond glass?

it is exactly the same but of no benefit if the waters not good enough for the pond, I have an issue with the down pipe at the back which disappears into a concrete path, seems this doesn’t go anywhere and water finds its way into the top end of my garage so looks like a couple of water butts for watering the garden or a rain pod and tie it into my waste to get rid of it which perhaps is not a bad idea.

Originally Posted by rolo

Im only a mile away from M1 i do wonder what the rain water would be like with a mixture of exhaust gases in it.
Im going same as RS and fitting the treble 20" from finerfilters.
the M1 at sheffield is a 60mph zone cant remember the actual % of air pollution it has reduced.
Not to mention the amount of money its made in speeding fines.
keith

Of course, as a petrol head I would have increased the speed limit to reduce pollution

With a100 mile an hour limit all those fumes would get blown away from the area

And here i am thinking your the sensible one.its a right money making machine if your driving north it's all down hill the amount of vehicles that go flying past me is amazing including next door neighbour cost him £100.
Not seen a post from AJ since i got back from jollies hope all is well with him and family.

keith

Great thread, very informative.

Quick question... my local water supplier uses stupidly high chlorine levels (no chloramine or issues with metals etc, thankfully). I don't want to endlessly treat the pond water (trickle fill), and I'm trying to deal with it as best I can via my big blue.

Is there any particular type of carbon / bone char I can use that's better at dealing with chlorine than others? Or should I be looking at trying to put an Activated Carbon Block Cartridge after my big blue?

This is the style I currently have, if it makes a difference: Resin Vessel 36" x 8" Big BLUE | Finch Filtration