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Thread: Ki media or look a like?
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26-01-2020, 09:31 PM #41
No worries bud
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Tom Koi Thanked / Liked this Post
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26-01-2020, 10:21 PM #42
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Tom Koi Thanked / Liked this Post
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26-01-2020, 11:17 PM #43
If they do what it says on the tin so to speak it'll be worth it, especially for combi's as their bio capacity is quite small. the profi combi 30 holds 125ltrs of K1, so the pond pads would massively increase the boi growth, 40ltrs would give around 300ltrs worth of bio growth and there'd still be room to add more, assuming I'm reading it right
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26-01-2020, 11:41 PM #44
I’d like to see the evidence of these claims myself if I were in the market for some media.
Lots of razzle dazzle out there to wade through but can’t find anything about this stuff. I’d be shouting from the rooftops if it was mine (and it was kosher) lol
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27-01-2020, 12:06 AM #45
TBf I would have to agree every media seems to have the same claim of being the best
Sent from my SM-G973F using TapatalkFreddyboy the legend
"we are water keepers first"
Johnathan
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27-01-2020, 01:22 AM #46
Apparently, it wasn't so much about favouring different bacteria but more about supposedly leaving quieter quiet zones for rotifers, etc. to thrive.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3PLUeD_JAg
It's a contentious assertion, but I suppose there might be a minor grain of truth in it, since the EA/Kaldnes Bio Chip design does create multiple individual 'chambers', rather than just the usual convoluted surface area common in media such as K1 and Hel-X 13. However, the newer Mutag-type Biochips will certainly provide equivalent quiet zones, and I'm sure there's no shortage of rotifers in any moving bed chamber, anyway, regardless of the bio media with which the chamber is populated.
Kaldness biochip.jpg
There were claims from some users that the EA/Kaldnes Bio Chip media didn't remain sufficiently buoyant to remain in suspension within the water, added to which, the large size of the discs made them rather less suited to small domestic moving bed chambers than to enormous industrial or aquaculture chambers, because large biochips tend to be more reluctant than small biochips, to freely circulate in a fluid motion within a small chamber. I suppose one could attempt to compensate for this by increasing the amount of aeration in the MBBR chamber.
The most similar media I've seen, to the discontinued EA/Kaldnes Bio Chip, is the Pond Wheely Chip, but I doubt it fluidises very well, not just because of its size, but also because of the 'paddles' moulded onto the side of the chips, which may stop the chips from smoothly brushing past one another:
Pond Wheely Chip 1200m2.jpg
Kaldnes offer a different type of biochip, but I haven't seen any mention of it in the koi hobby, as yet:
AnoxKaldnes? Z-MBBR | Veolia
# AnoxKaldness (Veolia) Z-MBBR (grid pattern).jpg
The following is a pic of this type of biochip, with full biofilm. The chip is designed so that the biofilm cannot grow any thicker than the optimum (you can understand why there is an optimum desirable biofilm thickness if you read the Mutag links, lower down this post - it has to do with adequate diffusion / penetration of oxygen into the biofilm, to favour desirable nitrifying bacteria). In other words, the biochips are constantly rubbing against one another, which removes any biofilm that tries to grow higher/thicker than the ridges of the grid pattern (or, in the case of the Mutag type biochips, any biofilm that tries to grow higher/thicker than the pores/voids in that type of biochip).
Here, you can see the fully-matured biofilm on these newer Kaldnes chips:
# AnoxKaldness (Veolia) Z-MBBR (grid pattern to control thickness of bacteria).jpg
Are Oase actually claiming these are new to the market? If so, it makes me shake my head at the way certain companies in the Koi industry have questionable scruples in the way they treat koi enthusiasts as mugs with no clue about the fact that so many products are nabbed from industrial processes and suppliers (and have often been in use in industry for many, many years), and resold in tiny quantities on the koi market, at fat profit margins. Crystal Bio is another example of this - it's fundamentally nothing more than generic sintered glass, from industrial processors.
Back to biochips, these are Mutag biochips:
Mutag BioChip (30mm version).jpgMutag paraboloid-shape-eng.jpg
Technology | Multi Umwelttechnologie AG
Application | Multi Umwelttechnologie AG
Mutag BioChip presentation and diffusion - YouTube
They're all basically the same product (although I have seen some variation in whether or not the edges of the biochips are protected with a harder plastic lip), in different colour variations (white, blue, black, charcoal-grey, green, etc.) and size variations (often 20mm-30mm), from industrial suppliers (invariably, Mutag, although other industrial companies might be making them if the patent has expired). Mutag will make them to whatever size & colour specification you ask them to, just as long as you can order enough to make it worth their while.
I don't know the entire manufacturing process, but I think I recall that the voids in this genre of biochips are made by reacting sodium bicarbonate (presumably with an acid - it might even be that the plastic formulation itself is inherently acidic, prior to the reaction process), and presumably added, during the brief reaction phase, to polyethylene plastic in the molten state.
MutagBioChipTM.jpg# N - E - W Updated version of green Eco Pondchip.jpgecopondchip-.jpgecopondchip-20-mm-x-1-mm.jpg
eco-pondchip.jpgMutag Biochip.jpgHel-x-flakes-weiss.jpgHel-x-flakes-schwarz.jpgBioActiv Pad.jpg
They have an impressive surface area, microscopically-speaking, but the downside to these media is that as well as requiring a decent mesh to prevent egress from the bio chamber (because the chips are so thin), they are so extremely lightweight that they can have a habit of accumulating at the outlet of the bio chamber, more than other medias do (especially during the biofilm maturation period, when, to make matters worse, they tend to be too buoyant). This issue is further compounded by the fact that their 'face' profile doesn't allow water through, unlike K1 or Hel-X, which allows water to fairly easily pass through it, regardless of the orientation of the media. However, a competently-designed moving bed filter should have the outlet well-diffused, so that water (and biomedia within it) does not track to one isolated area. An additional step one can take is to use BioChips only as a relatively small percentage of the biomedia employed in the moving bed filter, so that media such as K1, K1 micro, Hel-X 13, which do fluidise quite easily, can tame the bad habits of the BioChips.
Unfortunately, it is people with a small biochamber who are going to find these biochips most appealing, because they offer greater nitirification efficiency than other medias, in terms of surface area to support biofilm per volume of media. However, if you're someone who pushes a relatively high flowrate through a relatively small biochamber, then you're not really going to be playing to the strengths of Mutag-type biochips, as this kind of scenario may cause worse clumping around the outflow exit of the biochamber (I'm speaking of longterm usage, with fully mature biofilm - in the short term almost any biochamber, no matter how slow the flowrate, will experience some clumping with these biochips). Again, ensuring the outflow exit of the chamber is very diffused (lots of small holes, spread over a large area, rather than a small localised hotspot) will certainly help somewhat, and perhaps having that exit located below the surface may help a little.
Not trying to dissuade anyone from using them, but there are potential shortcomings that need to be taken account of, and if any Oase rep tries to tell you they're 'new', well... personally, I'd just laugh in his or her face and tell him/her to pull the other one; it's got bells on it..!
Yeah... we're all expected to believe every biomedia is the one media to rule them all; a wonderous magical unicorn in a sea of competitors
magical unicorn.jpg
Funny thing is, they all look like nothing more than glorified chunks of overpriced plastic to me.Last edited by MustBeSomethingInTheWater; 27-09-2020 at 11:27 AM.
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27-01-2020, 05:56 AM #47
Very good post above Ive had to mesh the slotted screen between clean side of the drum and the bio side as biochips go through It will be Micro K1 and Mutag/pond pads for me.with a bakki river fitted later in the year..Diversity isnt a bad thing
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27-01-2020, 09:10 AM #48
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27-01-2020, 09:40 AM #49
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27-01-2020, 11:14 AM #50
I have the green mutags in my fluidized filter with tonnes of micro K1 and Hel-x.
Must say that after a year I haven’t seen any of the Hel-x or the mutag, only the K1 bubbling away. I guess the mutag must be stuck over the outlets or sunk to the bottom with the Hel-x.
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freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
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27-01-2020, 04:46 PM #51
The bio chips I use from Kaldnes (white one) roll around with K1 no problem, but I did PP them first.No idea if they work better than any other plastic media, as I take what manufacturers claim with a pinch of salt. My thinking was to have two types of media, that may offer different homes to different good bacteria!
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27-01-2020, 08:33 PM #52
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freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
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03-02-2020, 07:43 PM #53
Ive got 20 litres of Oase pondpads coming tommorow .Pond not quite ready but they can go in with some mature micro k1 i have coming.The blue mutag i had matured quickly so im confident the pondpads will.Maybe its a gimmick,maybe it isnt
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03-02-2020, 08:40 PM #54
Last edited by Tom Koi; 03-02-2020 at 08:44 PM.
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freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
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18-02-2020, 07:53 AM #55
Well i recieved the Oase pond pads.Jesus they are more bouyant thjan a lifeboat !.I put 10Litres in the bio section and bagged 10 litres up and weighed them down over the diffuser.Within half an hour the filter room was full of foam so they must have some sort of coating on from manufacture.It was like a foam party.No joke!.They pile together and actually stop the other media fluidising..I removed them which was a pain and have soaked for a couple of days in PP.I have put 5 litres back in the bio today and no foaming but im putting 80litres of air into the bio just to stop them piling up again .Im sure as they mature they will fluidise but it may be a while this time of year.
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18-02-2020, 07:16 PM #56
Interested to see how they get on. Assume they do not mention cleaning them?
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freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
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18-02-2020, 07:22 PM #57
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freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
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19-02-2020, 01:02 AM #58
Not quite surewhat you mean - being used in a moving bed, the bio media continually rub against each other, thereby keeping one another relatively 'clean', all the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Z3YhNZt5I
The moving bed chamber can (if designed appropriately) be purged, periodically, to allow sloughed-off biofilm and fines to leave via a valve at the bottom of the chamber.
...or are you referring to the supplier not mentioning any need to pre-treat them with PP?
The following video shows how the buoyancy and rolling behaviour of Mutag type bio chips changes, over a period of weeks, as biofilm matures upon it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5g0-X2u52o
So, don't be disheartened - as you've already surmised, if you stick with it for a few weeks, it should eventually start moving properly!Last edited by MustBeSomethingInTheWater; 19-02-2020 at 01:47 AM.
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freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
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19-02-2020, 06:50 AM #59
Im not disheartened bud..Ive gone into the filter room this morning and put the lid on the bio and im not going to open it again for a week or two because it bugs the hell out of me to see the pond pads piled up. Ive a feeling it will take longer to fluidise than Mutag as Mutag is a lot smaller and seems less bouyant.(i have a small amount) but it is what it is...There is definately some manufacturing coating on it from new as once it had been soaked in PP there was no foam or slight chemical odour to it....Best case is it fluidises and works a treat,worst case is ive wasted £75 which is pennies in koikeeping as we all know
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17-03-2020, 01:01 PM #60
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freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
Best plants to remove Nitrate
pug has a very impressive veg filter on his pond, have a look at some of his his youtube videos....