Thread: Anoxic filtration - 50 baskets - my experience

Hi everyone,

I want to share my experience with anoxic filter. 50 baskets total. All submerged in the BIO CHAMBER. I did them because I have constantly high NITRATES (60 - 80 ppm). Fish stock at the moment is around 30 koi).

Items used making all the basekts:

1) Moler Medium Grain (Biozorb/Terramol/Danish Pink) Bonsai Soil (size 2-6 mm) - recommend many times when proper cat litter is not available (I live in Poland)

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2) For iron substrate I used mix of FLOURITE, FLOURITE RED (those two with biggest iron content from FLOURITE range), AQUABASIS PLUS

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One basket is:
- size about 28x28x19 cm
- 4 kg of danish pink (washet out before putting into the basket)
- 400 g of mixed iron substrate (wanted to add more than 200 g for longer lasting)
- sock to keep iron substrate in one place
- stainles stell mesh on the top to prevent moving around of danish pink

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My initial water parameters before putting the baskets in were:
- NITRITE - 0,01 PPM at the max, but often test shows LOW (means below 0,01 PPM)
- AMMONIA - 0,01 PPM at the max, most of the time test shows LOW
- NITRATE - 60 - 80 PPM range - 99% of the time
- PHOSPHATE - almost all the time LOW (below 0,01 PPM) - I use PHOSPHREE daily to deal with it (without this it is constantly growing to the levels when blanket weed grows very rapidly and is very strong)
- ALKANITY - 145 PPM
- TOTAL HARDNESS - 97 PPM
- HARDNESS checked by drop test (german scale) - around 7-8 Dh

Now it is about 5 weeks after putting the baskets into the BIO CHAMBER. No water parameter changes at all (NITRATES). All the basket sit in the bottom of BIO CHAMBER where the water turbulences are lowest.

Baskets runs next to:
- drum filter
- 200 cm, 4 tier bakki shower, 120 kg of ceramic media - will cover my experience with this in another topic very soon
- moving bed filter with HEL-X
- 2x trickle tower (Manky Sanke style, but do not work at all in terms of reducing NITRATES) - will cover this also in another topic very soon

Maybe this is the reason why ANOXIC does not work at all. Maybe it just needs to be standalone bio filter to catch all the AMMONIA before it gets converted to NITRITHE and then to NITRATE.

Next spring I plan to shut down compoletly MOVING BED, BAKKI SHOWER, TRICKLE TOWERS and check how it is performing as standalone BIO.

have a look at Ukzero's thread he successfully set up anoxic filtration on an existing system,

https://www.koiforum.uk/water-treatm...ghlight=anoxic

https://www.koiforum.uk/water-treatm...ghlight=anoxic

I thought it was 5 weeks, but this Thursday it will be 7 full weeks after putting the baskets. With no change at all in NITRATE levels. So plenty of time to start happening at least something...

I think the best and final test would be to start it all over again early spring, without any other BIO, just the drum.

In my opinion they are built ok, with all the rules and correct materials used in.

Hope it will finally work, because with so high NITRATE I have a big problem with blanket weed.

Water temp. currently 10 degree Celsius and rising. Still no feeding. What is running now is a drum, baskets and UV (2hrs daily, water started to turn green lately).

All the water parameters are LOW except NITRATES which are around 10-12 ppm.

At the bottom plenty of blanket weed from the last season. I will try to remove it, when the water gets warmer.

One month later. Water around 11 degree Celsius. Almost 3 weeks ago I have started some feedings - 2 times per day. Not much but some.

NITRATE - same, around 12 ppm at the max
NITRITE - LOW
AMMONIA - LOW
PHOSPHATES - 0,06 ppm

Small update:

5 feedings per day. Water is cloudy. 2 weeks ago I removed plenty of blanket weed from the bottom. It still grows no matter what natural method is used - bakki, trickle tower, anoxic or moving bead.

- ammonia / 0.11 ppm
- nitrite / 0.11 ppm
- nitrate / around 40 ppm and rising
- phosphate / LOW (using phosphfree daily)

So I can say that anoxic basket do not work for me or work very weak. It is now full 6 months anoxic solo, so plenty of time for to show its capability.

My last resort removing nitrates and others would be big bog filter - 20m2. But this is the sound of the future. No time for this now.