In the last year and a half i have added two filters and raised the bog.
The bakki shower was added so if i ever got a spike from a fish dieing as these fish are getting bigger and bigger. And i can see the changes as the pond matures and also has to control more waste. The other fear was it a fish died , and was not picked up on . Back In warm weather i had one fish die and within 2 weeks maybe three the fishes skeleton was found in the water and it was stripped clean there wasn't so much and a piece of skin left. . tSo that is a heck of a spike to the system but having a closer to natural pond with all the hiding spots behind my boulders. There's just no telling
The bakki shower is a strong polar opposite of a bog in many ways. The bog strips the water of oxygen as the bacteria absorbs it as it goes to work breaking down waste and converting the levels in our ponds The bakki shower has a minimal amount of water that drips over porous media and soaks through and is surrounded by oxygen this allowing with the bacteria to thrive. The one thing i did do was to place Blue Matala matting across the top of the shower so there was a little more filtering before it got to the ceramic disc's
And last but by no means least I just wasn't thrilled that i could not get any waste that was generated or that was blown in to the pond, there was no filter to limit these. So the answer to this equation was a nano bead filter. Now the nano is basically about 1/16" straws . dumped into a very familiar fiberglass pool filter. But this one works from the bottom up. So when the media starts to clog it's level fluctuates within the filter.
could i have gone with a RDF heck yeah , however here on the east coaster their is no one at the moment who builds or services these filters. Not to mention all the moving parts. Thus the bead filter won out,as there are little to no moving parts.
To clean the beads once a week I turn on a 2hp air blower. It then breaks up the clog /dirty beads. and in doing so it knocking off all that it trapped in the last week. flip the directional valve to back was and watch how dirty the water is. as it clears repeat. I usually will do this three times depending how dirty the water is thats being backflushed.
Adding this filter was never in the original plans. but i was able to squeeze it into the show taking up very little room. The plumbing how ever started requiring a little creativity. Well this past spring i got the GC tech 6.3 nano bead filter tied in. But i never got the bypass hooked up Three way valves are not a on the shelf item in many supply houses. So i saved it for latter , that being today it was tricky i had to cut in two 3 way vales that were are different angles and plains, over all these are only 18 inches apart so even 3" flew is not very flexible. Regardless i got it in and here is the pump area now, it use to be very straight forward and still is in my mind but if i die tomorrow it will take some doing to figure it out . The first photo is a close up where the 3 way diverters will go.The diverters were added so the bead filter could be shut down for the winter.
