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  1. #101
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigcarpchaser View Post
    Thanks Syd.
    I took all that on board when I embarked on my journey and am completely satisfied that they do what they say on the tin. My water parameters are stable and satisfactory.
    Although water does not penetrate the basket there are still nooks and crannies within the outermost surface, around the pebbles on top and on the baskets themselves which “could” be where mulm/detritus could build up. Also around the separating pipework.
    For example, the baskets with pebbles on top were quite fluffy with settled mulm however, I had/have a few baskets without any coverings at all and they’re as clean as a whistle. I haven’t got around to inspecting ones with tights over the top but will do over the weekend.
    I also had my baskets quite close together and maybe the flow round/between these may not have been as good as it could have been.
    I will space out the remaining 18 baskets for a couple of weeks and monitor for any sludge build up.
    I have also been changing water (yes, via a dechlorintor). Not 10% a week but certainly around 5% as I lose a bit regularly as my pond water level fluctuates as my drum levels do. I tend to keep on top of this with a trickle every few days.
    Trust me, i desperately want/wanted this to work out but I’m at a loss to explain why these issues just don’t go away.
    I’d be interested to know from those who have suffered similar issues this year which kind of filtration people have.
    I see (Smartin?) has an Evolve with Jap mat, ie, a static media and he’s had issues as has Ian Miles.
    Is there anyone suffering who JUST has a moving bed?
    Would a shower running a relatively slow flow (less than 15k l/hr) be able to flush any detritus through the media or do people who run say a flowfriend at a massive rate have no issues?
    I have a pergola, that equates to lots of pigeons perching/crapping in the pond, might this be a factor? Would there be any benefit covering this?
    Anyone got any thoughts they want to share?
    I don’t want to get into a big discussion whether anoxic “works” or not, I’m 100% it does, I’m interested more in the prevention of parasites/biological issues that may be avoided by other means. It might be impossible to achieve but it might be possible to mitigate ones exposure perhaps?

    The reason I mentioned a shower is that I also cleaned this out and was quite surprised with the amount of junk that came out of that.
    I’m running my pump 20k around 80%.
    It looks pretty feeble at first glance but when you see it without any media in, 15k of water through a chamber 600x300 is A LOT.

    I’ve put sponges over the top of it now to see what I catch.

    Oddly, this last couple of weeks with the first chamber empty of baskets and replaced with K1, my fish have been a lot more active despite the drop in temperature. I will scrape a couple at the weekend and see if there are any critters left as well.


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    A 58 micron drum doesn’t remove fines, plus snails that consume any biofilm create poop that looks like stuff that has miraculously appeared.
    Looking at a diy second drum of 20microns that would help but the size of it would be a meter long by 1.2m circumference at least. Alternative is matting replacing the moving bed.

    I think deposits will always be present, even with water flow.

  2. #102
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigcarpchaser View Post
    Having scraped today one of the poorly ones is absolutely infested in the things. 4 treatments and it’s worse than ever.
    At the point of caving in and giving up to be honest, the stress and the aggro, not to mention the cost is beginning to outweigh the pleasure by some margin.


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    Have you tried Supaverm BCC?

    Your question about moving beds and showers- I’ve not treated any parasites in nearly 3 years in my pond. My moving bed is pretty clean looking, as is my BHM in the shower. Obviously I have no idea whether I would have had any issues had I gone for anoxic.

    I do think that people often approach parasites with an aim of total eradication- but this is generally not realistic. Low levels of these critters coexist held in check by natural innate immune defences in healthy fish. We tend to trigger issues by adding new fish with different strains of critters our fish have not seen before, and new fish get exposed to what existing fish are holding in check just fine. No doubt water quality issues can also be a trigger factor in some cases.

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  4. #103
    I haven’t tried anything stronger than Lernex Feline.
    I’m comfortable with a “mild” outbreak but it really went mental in a very short space of time in a cycle of parasites - bacterial - parasites.
    As I’ve mentioned, my water tests for the usual suspects have always been mega stable so my “bad water” was being caused by something else.
    My pond base is pretty clean, well, as clean as everyone else’s seems to be and I do give it a vac every once is a while. The detritus around my baskets was pretty skanky to be honest so maybe that was the cause? I should have put some of it under the microscope in hindsight.
    Anyway, I realise that people still have parasites even with more conventional filtration so it remains to be seen whether or not I get a repeat of this years troubles with a MB/Shower this time around.


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  5. #104
    RS2000, did your anoxic filter start working again, please?

    I have been in touch with Dr Novak and Manky Sanke and neither can explain why mine stopped working.

    My theory is it is something in the tap water inhibiting the bacteria. It sounds like yours stopped working at a similar time to mine. At that time we noticed the tap water started to taste different too. Are you in the Affinity Water supply area around the St Albans/Hertfordshire area like me, please?

  6. #105
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougcov1 View Post
    RS2000, did your anoxic filter start working again, please?

    I have been in touch with Dr Novak and Manky Sanke and neither can explain why mine stopped working.

    My theory is it is something in the tap water inhibiting the bacteria. It sounds like yours stopped working at a similar time to mine. At that time we noticed the tap water started to taste different too. Are you in the Affinity Water supply area around the St Albans/Hertfordshire area like me, please?
    Hi Dougcov1,

    It was September when my nitrate levels suddenly went through the roof along with ammonia spikes and I determined the anoxic filter must have stopped working.

    I cleaned out the anoxic pond which turned out to be a lot dirtier than it looked, but the insides of the baskets were very clean, immaculate even, with the laterite (aquabasis) still intact.

    Since then I have had consistently high nitrate and phosphate readings, at one point nitrates were over 80mg/l despite reducing feeding down to 1 feed a day, and also despite the fact I've been using rain water for water changes (related to another experiment) which contains zero nitrate.

    The high nitrate readings continued up until about a week ago when I suddenly got a lower reading of 20 - 40 mg/l, then another test today showing 20 mg/l, but phosphates remain at over 2 mg/l.

    Whilst these readings show a significant reduction in nitrates compared to the last 3 months readings, they are not conclusive evidence that the Anoxic filter has fired back into life because:

    1) I'm using different test kits which may be reading N03 as N03-n, which could be giving a figure around 1/4 of the real N03 reading... This is something I've not been able to fully establish even after talking to the test kit manufacturers, so need further tests with different kits before I'm sure there's been a reduction.

    2) it is mid winter and while the pond is heated, I'm feeding one small feed a day compared to the 4+ big feeds that were going in back in September, so naturally water changes will be diluting out the nitrate faster than it is being produced.

    In conclusion I'm not yet sure if the Anoxic filter has kicked back into life, but there are some positive signs.




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  8. #106
    Thanks RS2000, is your pond covered from the rain? Just wondering if the filter has started to work because the rain water changed the water composition on the pond.

  9. #107
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougcov1 View Post
    Thanks RS2000, is your pond covered from the rain? Just wondering if the filter has started to work because the rain water changed the water composition on the pond.
    I won't be able to answer that because I cleaned out the Anoxic pond at exactly the same time I started using rain for water changes.

    Rainwater has changed the composition, slightly bringing down GH, KH and pH.

    However to the best of my knowledge my tap water composition didn't change between the time when Anoxic was working to the time when Anoxic stopped working.

    Another confession is that when Anoxic stopped working I had to add extra moving bed media to deal with the ammonia spikes and that moving bed is still running alongside the Anoxic pond. I don't have the confidence to rip that media back out so the anoxic filter is only there to help reduce nitrates and thus save water changes, but of course it is now competing against a nitrate producing factory so nitrate levels are unlikely to ever reach zero even if Anoxic was working at full capacity.

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  10. #108
    Thanks RS2000! I think I am going to take out some of my biocenosis baskets for now. They are not working. I am going to test them with household ammonia in water with different compositions (using RO with different additives) in small buckets. At the same time, I'm going to reluctantly look at fitting a Bakki shower to the pond.
    Such a shame, but nobody knows why mine don't work anymore. They did. It's a shame you cannot buy the bacteria like you can get for regular nitrogen cycle filters.

  11. #109
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougcov1 View Post
    Thanks RS2000! I think I am going to take out some of my biocenosis baskets for now. They are not working. I am going to test them with household ammonia in water with different compositions (using RO with different additives) in small buckets. At the same time, I'm going to reluctantly look at fitting a Bakki shower to the pond.
    Such a shame, but nobody knows why mine don't work anymore. They did. It's a shame you cannot buy the bacteria like you can get for regular nitrogen cycle filters.
    I'd be very interested to see the results of your experiment with ammonia. Please report back with your findings.

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  13. #110
    Hi there, I just thought I'd add a positive note and a ray of hope.

    I've been running an Anoxic filter since 6th June 2011 with 38 baskets to filter a 43,000 liter pond. I fitted a drum filter in February 2014. I last cleaned the Anoxic filter in October 2013.

    Yesterdays readings were pH 8.0, Amm 0.00058, Nitrite 0.09, Nitrate 0.3

    All I can say is they do work, stick with it

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  15. #111
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Collins View Post
    Hi there, I just thought I'd add a positive note and a ray of hope.

    I've been running an Anoxic filter since 6th June 2011 with 38 baskets to filter a 43,000 liter pond. I fitted a drum filter in February 2014. I last cleaned the Anoxic filter in October 2013.

    Yesterdays readings were pH 8.0, Amm 0.00058, Nitrite 0.09, Nitrate 0.3

    All I can say is they do work, stick with it
    Thanks for the input Dave.

    I've heard your name in Anoxic circles a few times.

    Hope you don't mind a few questions...

    What specific litter did you use?
    How many koi in your pond?
    Have you ever experienced any wobbles where parameters suddenly went awry?
    Have you ever had to replace the laterite in the baskets?
    Are your baskets planted?

    I currently have 23 baskets, 13 koi, but am still running a moving bed in tandem and due to occasional ammonia spikes haven't had the confidence to close it down.

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  17. #112
    Quote Originally Posted by RS2OOO View Post
    Thanks for the input Dave.

    I've heard your name in Anoxic circles a few times.

    Hope you don't mind a few questions...

    What specific litter did you use?
    How many koi in your pond?
    Have you ever experienced any wobbles where parameters suddenly went awry?
    Have you ever had to replace the laterite in the baskets?
    Are your baskets planted?

    I currently have 23 baskets, 13 koi, but am still running a moving bed in tandem and due to occasional ammonia spikes haven't had the confidence to close it down.

    Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
    Hi,
    I used Tesco's Low Dust cat litter. It is unfortunately scented so required copious amounts of water to rinse it.
    There are currently 12 Koi in the pond but I used to have more.
    The parameters remain stable.
    I've never changed the laterite (nearly 9 years now). I did open one of the baskets last year and it looks the same as the day I set it up. The baskets do slowly build up some fines on the top but it remains soft and can just be brushed off gently.
    I've not planted the baskets because the filter is indoors at the back of the garage but I have a plan to move it outside this year and maybe plant some up.
    Drum filter, Anoxic that's it

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  19. #113
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Thanks for responding Dave.

    I don't believe the current Tesco low dust litter is suitable as they have changed it.

    I used Sanicat which is Sepiolite, and then started using a bonsai graded litter which is Danish pink moler clay and doesn't need much more than a quick rinse.

    In all honesty I'm not sure how wise it would be to move your baskets outside and plant them.

    Mine were covered and pitch black initially and they stayed immaculate, not even a layer of dust. Then I uncovered them and planted a few and maintenance increased. The plants go crazy, even small ones, and all the baskets become one big tangled mass of roots. You are constantly pulling out dead leaves and trimming etc.

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  21. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by RS2OOO View Post
    Thanks for responding Dave.

    I don't believe the current Tesco low dust litter is suitable as they have changed it.

    I used Sanicat which is Sepiolite, and then started using a bonsai graded litter which is Danish pink moler clay and doesn't need much more than a quick rinse.

    In all honesty I'm not sure how wise it would be to move your baskets outside and plant them.

    Mine were covered and pitch black initially and they stayed immaculate, not even a layer of dust. Then I uncovered them and planted a few and maintenance increased. The plants go crazy, even small ones, and all the baskets become one big tangled mass of roots. You are constantly pulling out dead leaves and trimming etc.

    Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
    The cat litter was purchased 9 years ago and I still have 10 bags in stock

    Good point about the plants, more maintenance means less time to watch the Koi and drink a cold one

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  23. #115
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion john1's Avatar
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    Hi Dave, would you have a photo of your anoxic filter and how have you stacked them.
    I have a smallish one stacked three high as not a lot of room but thought of doing some more.
    John

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  25. #116
    Quote Originally Posted by john1 View Post
    Hi Dave, would you have a photo of your anoxic filter and how have you stacked them.
    I have a smallish one stacked three high as not a lot of room but thought of doing some more.
    Hi John,
    There only one deep in a 3 meter by 4 meter pond and I still have room. I did have some small Koi in the filter so they moved some of the cat litter onto the floor.
    Attached Images Attached Images

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  27. #117
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Supreme Champion john1's Avatar
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    Thanks Dave, could you not stack some more on top or are you happy with the way it is as the old saying, leave well alone.

    At least it's working for you,mine has been going for 4 yrs and I dont do water changes may top up a bit in the summer though,could do with some more baskets so may do some come the spring.
    John

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  29. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by john1 View Post
    Thanks Dave, could you not stack some more on top or are you happy with the way it is as the old saying, leave well alone.

    At least it's working for you,mine has been going for 4 yrs and I dont do water changes may top up a bit in the summer though,could do with some more baskets so may do some come the spring.
    If I move it outside then I will stack them but at the moment I have plenty of room and as you say if it works then leave it along

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  31. #119
    Very interesting turn that thread took, it leads me to ask two questions:

    1. The guys who's anoxic systems stopped working, are they working again now? If so, what did you do?

    2. Has anyone had an anoxic system failure?

    3. What have your systems got in common?

    4. All this talk about rinsing the cat litter from right at the start of the thread, surely this is to prevent blockage, like having the system full of fines, which would effectively be like having clumped cat litter? Nothing to do with asthetics or poisoning the fish.

    Jay

  32. #120
    Hi Jay,

    I built mine in 2019. It worked. The fish ate and grew and the water quality was excellent. I tested the water regularly and the nitrates were lower than tap water. They never got to zero, but Syd's reasoning for that explains it (that there are always some nitrobacter and nitrosomas as well in the pond).

    It stopped working in early 2020. No idea why. I even rebuilt the system (new pond litter and AquaBasis Plus). Nothing restarted it and it still isn't fully working. I have had nitrites of between 0.2 to 0.4 ppm since then. Nothing brings them down other than water changes and stopping feeding for a few days. It's odd as the nitrite isn't meant to be able to escape the baskets.

    I think it's a capacity issue, as I don't have a problem with ammonia and the nitrites never go above 0.4ppm (thankfully). But I also can't feed the fish as much as they want me to at all. I have 10 fish, only 2 big (50cm), and 16 baskets, all positioned to have flow all the way round them. I can't feed more than 40g of food a day or the nitrites go up.

    I've used 3 different nitrite and ammonia test kits. They all confirm the same thing, and also work for my fish tanks (which are fine).

    In 2020 I made a basket for my goldfish tank following Dr Novak's youtube videos but after 5 months it still didn't work.

    My only answer is that there is something in the tap water now that wasn't there before that the bugs don't like. I have eliminated all other possibilities.

    Very strange and frustrating!

    But I believe they do work, so it is worth trying it.

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