a few fish pics & a look at my simple but effective basement pond setup

[Dave 54]

KoiGuy very well thought out nice to see some inventiveness in our hobby still I'm amazed at the whole setup congratulations and well done.
Question how many times an hour does it take for the hole indoor wiinter setup to cycle and how did you go about working things out.

rgrds

Dave

 

[koiguy1969]

Dave.... the pond is around 800 gals including the filter volume...pond itself is around 750 or so. the biofilter is fed with 1000 gph. so it filters the ponds volume 1&1/4 times per hour. the skimmer cleans 865 gph of water of fines and floating particulates. for a total of 1865 gph in water circulation. ive been using this setup for years. my biofiter is loaded with my media from my outdoor pond filter. and the pond is filled by the outdoor pond. via a flotec pump. theres no acclimating the fish, they go right into the same water, and i always have an active bacterial colony in my filters.
Fines and DOCs tend to accumulate in the top layer of water, so a skimmer style fines filter is naturally the most efficient, My fish come inside in late September or early October,and stay inside past Easter. so they actually spend more time inside than out.

 

[Dave 54]

Koi Guys your all thats good in the koi world my friend that is one well thought out system , did you get a chance to check out the post on the Shoham filter.
Or the our pond thread take a gander at the indoor koi tank we used to keep our koi in.
That one was cycled at a rate of 950 gallons per hour the koi did very well in it in the end it was my health that failed them .
However you know as I do old koi keepers will find a way which we did and are happily still going strong aftet 26 years well this one will make it 27 in June.
Do you have any long lived favourites like our Tiny and Browntop ?


rgrds

Dave

 

[koiguy1969]

no i've really never had a favorite individual fish. but i am partial to sankes and bekkos. i may get a butterfly this year. to add a little more variety. and every year people call asking if i have any.

 

[sissy]

JUST A NOTE...untill this year i was buying "Joe Boxer" brand pillows at Kmarts for about $4.00 they had a piece (about 12" x 18") of egg crate foam to cut a nice snug fitting bottom layer,and enough fiberfill to last the winter in a fines filter...this year they went up in price and they no longer have the eggcrate foam. the foam was able to trap the finest of fines. now i will have to make a trip to foam world and buy some... it was amazing how much it would catch even after the fiberfill in visually clean & crystal clear water.

How about that egg crate type mattress pads you add to the top of your bed .I get the twin sized one for less than 5 dollars on sale and cut it up .I have also used the window air conditioner charcoal filters from walmart and they are thin but only cost 98 cents .

 

[callingcolleen1]

Sissy, your so inventive and smart!
Now if only you can invent a way to to stop the darn puppies from tearing the rugs, I got the same problem!

 

[sissy]

spray the rugs with lemon juice it smells great and dogs don't like the taste .I even add a little to my washing machine to clean it and makes towels softer and smells great .i have even soaked a wash cloth in lemon juice and allowed it to dry and threw it in the dryer .May take the dogs a couple of tastes but they will get the idea after awhile .I sometimes I just buy the lemon juice in the bottle when lemons are expensive .

 

[koiguy1969]

sissy....about the mattress pad idea, thats what i'm using now. but a couple miles from me theres a wholesale foam warehouse that sells to the public. i called, they sell "scrap" or remenants. and have several densities. I'm using the mattress pad because my neighbor threw out 2 of them, still in good shape....cant beat that price!!

 

[sissy]

FREE is always great .Scraps may be really cheap to pick up also .I know we have a place here that sells fabric and sell the scraps for 1 dollar for a large black garbage bag of them and I buy them for a friend who lives in West Virginia and when she comes to visit 3 or 4 times a year she is in scrap heaven for her quilted blankets she makes .I never asked them if the sell anything else also .Now will have to ask .

 

[Carolyn22]

Beautiful set up koiguy. I love your fish too! I would be living in the basement if I had that set up!

 

[koiguy1969]

Beautiful set up koiguy. I love your fish too! I would be living in the basement if I had that set up!

thank you....i like it, and i believe the fish enjoy it alot more than 4 months under ice!

 

[koiguy1969]

now. i know there are skeptics on upflow filters. even calling them useless. i kept 83 fish. 6 of them in the 18 - 23" range... and fed more than many people do. with my single 55 gal barrel filter. properly prefiltered.. in 6&1/2 months of being in 800 gals of water with consistantly great water parameters. this pic is the amount of food i've gone thru in their time indoors so far this wintering seaon...on my 9th bag...not to mention a 1/3 can size mid day treat of diced up green beans every other day. so something is working right. even with my "useless filter". nitrates are the only thing i have ever had a +side reading on. due to no plants to use them up.



this isnt to say that: this setup is best, there arent other alternatives or even better ones for biological filtration. but i have no complaints with the performance of either of my upflow bio filters. they both do their job well.

 

[capewind]

Are those the 1.7 lb bags??? If so, that's about 15 lbs of food. I dont have any BIG fish inside. In the 600, there are about 50-60 fish ranging from 2" to 9" (the tiny guys are just a few Shubunkins) with a joke of a filter (this is where the new baby skippy went - but there are plants to help) and the 750 has 103 babies (delivered the first week of December) ranging 3"-6" (were 1-3" standard fin, and 2-4" butterflies) with a couple close to 7", which is running on a combo of spare parts ... nothing near as nice as your filtration system ... I just looked .. since October (when the plant pond was built and I bought seperate bags for the basement verses outside fish since I am too lazy to go up and down stairs just for food), we've been through one 5 lb bag Tetra Pond Vibrance, one 5 lb Tetra Pond Growth, and are about 3/4ths of the way through another 5 lb bag of Tetra Pond Growth ... On average, each pond is getting 35 gallons of new water a week (2, 35 gallon barrels of water always cycling) ... I have NO DOUBTS, with your system, we could put ALL of these babies in one pond. I havent checked the nitrates in a couple of months ... ammonia and nitrites are staying right at zero. Personally, I think as long as there is a good amount of area for the good bacterias to grow, it doesnt really make a damn bit of difference which type of filters we use. Some just take up more space than others.

 

[koiguy1969]

yeah, i believe thats the bags. i know theyre shy of 2lbs. dont remember the exact weight. Tetraponds foods are much lighter than most and easily digested. once they go outside i'll switch the big guys to Wardleys T.E.N... $19.99 for the 10lb bag at Wallyworld.
oh... i chop up some of the food in a nut chopper so the smaller guys can eat...

 

[capewind]

The outside fish are getting the Tetra Pond Spring and Fall food now, but once their water stays over 60F will switch them to the Vibrance. They eat it and seem to do well with it, although at $2 lb, that Wardleys may be worth looking into.

I like tossing pellets ... if our guys want treats, well, the plants are fair game I guess (just wish they would slow down on my water cress til it gets going LOL).