bio filter ingrediants

[excaliber]

thanks for the input, looks like i might need a higher capacity box, and might redo the whole concept based on what you folks have posted, the trickle down might be worth incorporating main thing is to use the water escaping from the filter into my mountains as a springs and waterfalls.

ya cat lets see what we can do with a new system

 

[shakaho]

Another bio filter I want to mention it algae. Algae directly consumes ammonia. A surface exposed to sunlight with a small amount of water trickling over it a profusion of algae will grow on it. I have 15 square feet of exposed liner that should be suited for this.

I have been looking for internet references on doing this but must not be using the right name for it. "pond algae wall filter" has now worked.

Anyone ?

Here it is.

 

[Catfishnut]

Another bio filter I want to mention it algae. Algae directly consumes ammonia. A surface exposed to sunlight with a small amount of water trickling over it a profusion of algae will grow on it. I have 15 square feet of exposed liner that should be suited for this.

I have been looking for internet references on doing this but must not be using the right name for it. "pond algae wall filter" has now worked.

Anyone ?

HTH,

Are you certain of this action... That algae or "a species of algae" consumes ammonia directly?
Or is it a colony of Nitrosonomas bacteria living upon and within that algae growth that is converting the ammonia?
And then there is a colony of Nitrobacter bacteria also resident there, attached to the algae, that is consuming the nitrites given off or produced by the Nitrosonomas and
they are converting it to nitrates which the algae consume? Thus making a nearly excellent symbiotic relationship in a mini-ecosystem?

i.e. Feed fish > Fish waste > ammonia > Feeds Nitrosomas bacteria > nitrites > Feeds Nitrobacter bacteria > nitrates > feeds algae > algae growth > home for bacteria?
Then back to square one?

Catfishnut

 

[HTH]

Ah yes thanks

Algae Scrubber

Here it is.

Ah yes thank you. I know people had been working on this sort of thing for aquariums. The ones I recall are submerged with LED lights for the algae. A search with "pond algae scrubber" gives the desired hits. Wikipedia

Are you certain of this action... That algae or "a species of algae" consumes ammonia directly?
Or is it a colony of Nitrosonomas bacteria living upon and within that algae growth that is doing so?

Quite sure. "Green, algae-rich water virtually assures a zero-ammonia level...". Some fancy goldfish raise their prize fish in tubs of green water with no filtration or air!

[SIZE=12.800000190734863px]The on thing that I am wondering about, and my find it with further reading is this. Does one have to [/SIZE][SIZE=12.727272033691406px]occasionally[/SIZE][SIZE=12.800000190734863px] scrape the algae off. It seems to me that if it is not removed it will break down generating ammonia. [/SIZE][SIZE=12.727272033691406px]Uncertain[/SIZE][SIZE=12.800000190734863px].[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12.800000190734863px]The neat thing is that this filter, along with veggie filters, remove the ammonia rather then just converting it to nitrates which build up in a pond.[/SIZE]

 

[Catfishnut]

OK, you have me HIGHLY interested in this subject now. Gotta learn more!

Also gotta sleep, so I am signing off for now.

Catfishnut

 

[Koilady]

We use plastic scrubbies in our bio-filters. We cut the scrubby in the middle and then pull it out like a sleeve and cut the tied end off. This way we don't have to use so many scrubbies and they work much better because no debris gets trapped in the middle when they are un-open which can starve the good bacteria of oxygen.
We have also used 1/2 inch pieces of pvc piping and corrugated black hose that we cut in 5 inch lengths. They leave a curled effect and lots of space for food and oxygen to get to the good bacteria to keep it strong and healthy.

Your's Koily, Lorraine

 

[Waterbug]

That algae or "a species of algae" consumes ammonia directly?

Yes, green ponds are almost always 0 ammonia and 0 nitrate. It's one of the big dangers of clearing a green pond, Suddenly the water is clear, ammonia shoots up because there's not much of the converter bacteria and a week later the fish start dying. 99% of "pond experts" won't have a clue about this (or much of anything else). However I do come across it a lot more in texts about farm ponds. They seem more into the entire nutrient/alage/fish/water parameter thing because they're trying to make as much money growing stuff in the pond. So the Ag Dept does lots of studies and publishes a lot of info.

 

[Waterbug]

I also investigated moving bed systems, expressly something incorporating Kaldness K1 or K3 media, but I have become less enthused with these systems for small operations and ponds because I believe that they demand much more energy to "fluidize" the media bed.... Which means in simpler terms that it requires more energy to keep the media in motion and bumping into itself continuously within a bath of water. That is just common sense regarding the energy expended. Pumping the water up about the same head height and just allowing it to trickle down through stationary media seems more energy efficient than trying to pump enough water and pump enough O2 into the water and agitate the water sufficiently to make a bunch of friction prone media discs keep rolling around like a washing machine. And then, I am not so certain that it is AS effective in the first place. I am thinking not.

Certainly are trade offs. Bakki Showers need a lot of flow and are high. To me they don't scale very well. If you need them then their great. But no point paying for power when it isn't needed.

I think the Trickle Tower scales very well. These can be just a few inches high. Just depends on what kind of load you're trying to handle. But as the load goes up the TT does too. And in tight spaces that can be a problem. Or ponds on a deck, or raised ponds, the mass can be a problem. So TT doesn't scale great in all cases.

For the MB I think brains over brawn wins. The shape of the tank and location of water flow in and out make the difference. In ponds most people seem to dump a truck load of media into a 55 gal drum and then use whatever power is needed. Not too bright imo. They never seem to actually measure ammonia to see how much filtering is needed. Their motto is "you can never have enough filtering". The caveman approach.

I think MB can be scaled very well. Here's a guy way into DIY MB for aquariums. There are a lot of aquarium owners that really test this kind of thing. They give lots of data. That data can be scaled to ponds I think. Way better anyways the myths that are pervasive in the pond hobby. Here's a video on this guy's MB ideas. He has other video, other designs, feed back on designs.

 

[Catfishnut]

Waterbug,

I had seen that video from Tyne Valley Aquatics previously. Really a great demonstration. I found MANY youtube videos of those bottle-type setups for aquariums when I was looking for the Kaldness setups and ideas.

As for scaling, the bottle in the video appeared to me to be roughly one liter, maybe two? Looked like a good size for a 30 - 50 gallon aquarium. So, for a 1,000 gallon pond, you would probably need a MB vessel in the order of 5-10 gallons. That's not too big.

My idea for a Kaldness MB bio-converter was to use about 1/4 - 1/3 of the volume of a 55 gallon drum - which would be about 10 to 15 gallons of water volume for the media.

The space above the water was going to accomodate a circular filter ring (or disc that fit exactly inside the drum) that I constructed from 1/2" polyethylene plastic. I cut out ten ~4" diameter holes and recessed them to hold ten 14" long, 150 micron nylon screen filter socks. The inlet water would filter through these and drop down into the MB filter below.

The bottom several inches would be a sort of settling area for any dead bacteria or other organisms as well as provide a drainage mechanism. I constructed another polyethylene disc that had 350 7/16" holes drilled through it to allow the water to pass through, but prevent the Kaldness media from settling on the very bottom or from going down into the drain. This also provided me a plate to anchor my aerator "agitators" to. I built this a couple summers ago and it works very well in principle of the movement of the media bed. That's even with the media NOT being mature and colonized with bacteria. I was just experimenting and putting it together as a prototype.

My notion regarding TT and Bakki showers is that, if you had the "luxury" of elevation changes and being able to apply them, you could use gravity flow until you got to the "bottom of the hill" so to speak, where you would then have to pump the water back up.

Catfishnut

 

[Dave 54]

I needent say everything everybody else has said to ref algae bacteria etc because its been said.
All I'm going to tell you is we use a large barrel for our bio filter.
In the filter I have three types of bio media, one that all koi keepers know and use in their bio filters K1 filter medium , the next type are Aquaone bio balls,plus a type of bio ball which for the life of me cant remember at the moment.
Lastly we use bio chips which is for a differing use in that it promotes the growth of tiny microscopic little creatures that live on them eating the all the dead bacteria.
We also have six Japanese ceramic airstones in the bio filter which help churn everything around creating new bacteria slothing off the old, this way we have a huge surface which is a perpetually moving area to grow bacteria on.
In the middle of the barrel is a 2" pipe that is "L" shaped and has a huge number of holes drlled into it that draws the water out of the bio filter through the inline pump U/V-C and out back into the pond.
It works perfectly and I cannot fault it.

rgrds

Dave

 

[Waterbug]

As for scaling, the bottle in the video appeared to me to be roughly one liter, maybe two? Looked like a good size for a 30 - 50 gallon aquarium. So, for a 1,000 gallon pond, you would probably need a MB vessel in the order of 5-10 gallons. That's not too big.

Sounds right to me. But I think you could factor in fish load. I assume an aquarium owner wanting a MB probably has a pretty high fish load. And in general I consider pretty much any aquarium to be high fish load.

But that's always the case. The filters have to be scaled to the fish load rather than the water volume.

My notion regarding TT and Bakki showers is that, if you had the "luxury" of elevation changes and being able to apply them, you could use gravity flow until you got to the "bottom of the hill" so to speak, where you would then have to pump the water back up.

I'm not sure I follow. Seems like you have the same head. My understanding, and I'm dubious that this is actually true, but the Bakki people seem to think the high vertical is needed. For example a stack of say 3 troughs can't be separated into 3 stacks of 1 trough each. I don't understand why, but that's what they seem to say. 1 trough high would be more of a TT imo. They say the crashing water is part of the process, and that I do understand, but why wouldn't 1 trough high crash just as much? So I don't know. I'm not sure anyone understands the Bakki very well.

 

[Catfishnut]

My notion regarding TT and Bakki showers is that, if you had the "luxury" of elevation changes and being able to apply them, you could use gravity flow until you got to the "bottom of the hill" so to speak, where you would then have to pump the water back up.

I'm not sure I follow. Seems like you have the same head. My understanding, and I'm dubious that this is actually true, but the Bakki people seem to think the high vertical is needed. For example a stack of say 3 troughs can't be separated into 3 stacks of 1 trough each. I don't understand why, but that's what they seem to say. 1 trough high would be more of a TT imo. They say the crashing water is part of the process, and that I do understand, but why wouldn't 1 trough high crash just as much? So I don't know. I'm not sure anyone understands the Bakki very well.

Waterbug,

I was sort of thinking off on a tangent related to my own application there. The voices in my head were just rambling at the time. What I was referring to was having a pond on the top or side of a small hill or elevated somehow, then using BD's to feed the water down to a sieve filter and then to the bakki or the TT and let gravity do all that part of the work. Then, you'd need to pump the cleaned water back UP to the pond. It isn't any different total head-wise, except for one aspect which is that any solids which are removed aren't chopped up finer by the impeller of a pump. Strain these out before going to the bio-mechanism and on to the next stage lower and so on.

A little part of me (one of those voices I hear all the time) was talking about having a cascading waterfall - for aesthetics - but having the bakki shower built into the falls system with its construction hidden, but the effects adding to the waterfall observable. So at one point in the falls, there would be a large, straight drop where the bakki shower was, but you wouldn't see the troughs or the media inside, only the effects of the water falling through, as if it went into a channel eroded through the rock and came out below with mist and spray.

Basically you could have both a TT and a bakki shower in the same awesome looking system! If you can visualize what I mean, I think it would look picturesque. I got this idea from something I saw in nature, erroded into the rock in a streambed with a high gradient in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Just without the bakki shower of course.

Catfishnut

 

[Waterbug]

That's kind of what I thought you were thinking. Well, I wouldn't call such a setup a Bakki only because Bakki is so precisely defined. But both Bakki and TT were designed to act like a stream, or a crashing waterfall. The only reason the inventors didn't just use a stream or falls is because they didn't have the space. So although the setup you described might not be a Bakki or TT it would be what they're trying to be. The Bakki and TT can be better for the same square footage, kind of like a compacted stream/falls...but if you have the space and want the look compact really isn't a limiting factor.

For backyard ponds I think streams and falls are the absolutely best filters available. Longer the better. When we get into higher fish loads the streams have to be soooo long that they get to be less of an option.

Yeah, the sieve gravity fed for sure. But after that the pump should be OK. The particles start to get so small they don't get chopped up (too much).