Only thing is if I close skimmer and turn my Ultima filter to waste it discharges water out of the discharge pipe and I am assuming those must be coming from the bottom drains? Is that a differant line then the one that goes bottom drain to filter? He has it with 3 valves 1 to each bottom drain and 1 to the skimmer. If I close the skimmer valve while the system is running and open both bottom drains the flow does seem to slow a tiny but pretty much the waterfall continue to return water to the pond. Therefore I don't think the bottom drains coujld be clogged, is that correct or am I missing sometniing?
I don't understand your plumbing situation, but based on post 60 and on the other post that I quoted in post 61, it seems that you have most of your flow going thru the skimmer. If the skimmer and BD are the only supply lines then if the skimmer is shut off and you still get water supply it is probably fine. But if you have a midwater intake that could be where it is coming from. Seems something is amiss if you can't see any flow near your BD. (as you mentioned not being able to see debris sucked into it). at least in my pond I can see the current drawing debris towards the BD from 6 feet away.
edit to add- if you have two BDs then one could be plugged?
I closed valves to test each bottom drain separate and both drain to the discharge line and feed the waterfall individually So don't think there is a clog. Both drains are 4ft deep and my pond is less then ideally shaped,,,, narrow and long (almost a Y shape for the bottom basin..... Its also all rock and has a pretty heavy brown tone to all the rocks making it hard to see. My guess is that because of the location of the drain and the large cobblestone that are mortared in the bottom is why its not all that productive. Also I found what I think will be a trouble spot in the pond, waterfall is weaker on one side and its the farthest area from skimmer and bottom drains and stuff seems to "sit" and not move nearly as much as the other areas of the pond. During the building process we discussed the possible need for TPRs in that area but they were never installed. I have asked the builder about adding one and we have an extra valve already (waterfall bypass that we decided we dont need) so he is suppose to help put in a jet. I am hoping this helps move stuff along and out of this "dead" area.
I don't know what I am reading. Are you running the pond with both bottom drains fully open all the time? Something you said made me question that. If both bottom drains are on full draw full time, the skimmer should only be allowing a shallow flow over the weir, and this could be adjusted by closing down on the skimmer. If the skimmer is pulling any more than a thin film off the surface, it is not working as a skimmer, just as another return.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard
I only opened the bottom drains fully to test them and i guess to see what happened. I was told by builder on a day to day basis to always leave the skimmer valve 85 percent open and the bottom drain in the main basin open about 15 percent and the top basin either fully shut since no fish in there yet or at most 5 percent.... open as little as possiable becouse that is the basin that needs to build up and overflow for the second waterfall into main basin, by trial and error I have found that the top basin bottom drain even opened the minimum amount really slows the waterfall down (which makes since, guess it means it pulling water out from bottom faster then it can fill it back up).
You are probally correct, perhaps he is using the skimmer as the main return and to move the largest amount of water. When skimmer valve is opened 85 percent it does move even the furthest top layer of water of the pond for the most part. So if I feed the fish at the farthest corner of pond within about 10 minutes the food will be at the skimmer. Is that normal to use the skimmer as the main return? The problem I have came across is when the skimmer fills with foam or even a few huge floating leaves from the giant Mongolia tree which it has been doing this past week is that if I don't scoop it off the top inside of the skimmer it seems to stop "skimming" the top layer of water and the result is the pond water starts looking gross and scummy on top. I will try and get a video if that helps.
So you have two basins? One with a BD and an overflow that is a waterfall to the second basin? And the second basin has a BD and a skimmer?
In my pond my water flow is split fairly evenly three ways:
1/3 skimmer, 1/3 BD, 1/3 other BD.
I like to on occasion shut down the skimmer and then close one BD line at a time to force 100% of the flow through a BD line, one at a time, to flush the lines out completely. If I can get 4-6000 GPH going thru a 4 inch line I can know that is has been swept clean.
This questioning about BD lines may not mean anything regarding your water parameter issues, but it also might mean EVERYTHING. If you have a nearly clogged line, say 3/4 clogged, then that line is just full of sludge and disgusting stuff that can be a toxic zone.
Yes that is the setup. Like most people have told me I know my water is bad because I added 6 large koi on day one the pond was filled. I didn't understand or know that a pond needed to cycle. I also know I was feeding too much for a new pond and such a large starting fish load. Luckily the ammonia level dropped after about a week but we are on week 4 and the nitrite still seem to be getting higher and higher. Some say change some water, some say dont.... I have for the most part just been trying to leave it alone.... salted to .2 and add SAFE powder about 1/4 cup every 2 days. I had nitrates (higher then city water 20ppm in city water pond was testing at 30-40ppm) now I am back at 20ppm same as city water so dont know what happened there... Perhaps I messed something up when i did a 30 percent water change when I panicked around week 2
The 30% water change did not hurt the cycling. It takes a minimum of 6 weeks to see a substantial drop in nitrite, and it can take much longer than that.
Water changes will not hurt, but they are not enough by themselves to control ammonia or nitrite.
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The upper basin, if the valve is open and the power goes out, will drain down through the plumbing bringing the water level in that basin to the same water level in the lower basin, and if that means that all of the upper basin water overflows causing the pond on restart to go very low level, that is what will happen. I would close the upper basin valve, except periodically for cleaning any settlement from the upper basin. I would have the lower basin valve fully open to create a cleaning operation on the lower basin, and then have the skimmer open enough to get a good skimming action with the weir keeping the water in the pond higher, by maybe a half inch than the water in the skimmer.. This will allow the skimmed debris a waterfall to go over and accumulate instead of being trapped in the flow path into the skimmer.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard
Do you guys have any guides for amount of baking soda to add?
I am running into a similar issue since last week since my house keeper decided to add too much PP and I feel like the good bacteria had all died off as I lost a lot of fishes the last few days.
I am dosing with prime regularly, would Microbe Lift help too?
I am also trying to find a salt dosage guide
Go to the top of this page and click on koi calculators.
When using the calculator mplskoi mentioned, put in the change in KH - not the target KH. For example, if your KH is 6 drops and you want to take it to 10 drops, put 4 in the DH box (10-6=4).
If you overdosed on PP, there is a good chance the biofilter was knocked back. What are the values for ammonia and nitrite? Microbe Lift will not help. If ammonia is present, you need to add Prime, SAFE, or ClorAm-X to keep the ammonia in a safe form. Also, you would want to get a Seachem Ammonia Alert Card, which only measures free ammonia, and use that reading as a guide to when to add more Prime, SAFE, or ClorAm-X. The API ammonia test measures total ammonia, so even when you add Prime, SAFE, or ClorAm-X, the API test results will not change.
If nitrite is present, you need to keep the salt concentration between 0.10% and 0.15% for as long as nitrite is detectable.
As mplskoi pointed out, there is a salt calculator, but you should not be adding salt without a reason. If there is measurable nitrite, then you do want to keep salt between 0.10% and 0.15% for as long as nitrite is measurable. If the fish have ich (which is far more common in aquaria than in ponds), you need to keep the salt between 0.30% and 0.60% for several days beyond the time it takes for all of the white spots to have disappeared. Those are about the only two times I would add salt to the pond. There may be additional times to use salt in a quarantine tank, but not in the pond. Remember that salt does not evaporate. If you are adding water to top off the pond, you do not add more salt. If you are doing a water change, though, you do need to add more salt, but just enough for the volume of water that you removed - not for the entire volume of the pond.
I wanted to thank everyone who has took the time to respond and helped educate me on ponds it helped a tremendous amount.
Update: as many had pointed out previously that the pics of pond didnt appear to be as many gallons as the builder told me it was ( he told me directly that he metered it when he filled it! , well they were all correct, I emptied the top basin and used a meter and he was off by half. He lied! Although I could only meter the top it gave me a great idea and the salt method and the pond is much closer to 1200 to 1500 gallons instead of the 3000. No idea why he lied about that ( the.area we had to build limited the size of the pond) but the good news is the ultima 2000 filter along with the 16" savio skimmer filter, and 6000 GPH pump is probally sufficient for the actual size of the pond. The pond finally seems cycled and balanced even with the heavy fish load since day 1 of new pond with 4 koi about 18" 2 12" koi, 2 feeder but growing goldfish and 2 5" koi. I still test almost daily out of habit and pretty much get consistent readings of
Ph 8.2
Kh 9 drops
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20 to 80
Hoping it stays that way and the only thing I would like to figure out eventually is a semi easy way to better polish water and remove fines (since both bottom drains go straight to pump and ultima filter) I noticed that water stays clear (can see 4ft down to bottom) but when light come on at night i see lots of fine particles. I have added quilt batting to the 3 returns on slate waterfall and they get very dirty very fast like within a couple days. The ultima does not seem to be doing a great job at getting the fines and I dont want to use quilt bating forever, so need to fine a compact solution for this long term.
I backwash frequently about every 5 days but the pressure never seems to change on the filter always low. Would it be ok to let it be until pressure builds? Do you think if I let it get very dirty that it will catch stuff better? Or maybe I need to use values to slow the flow down of water going in and coming out.
you could add the Sand/Gravel filter as a fines filter to help with the removal of the fines. There are two things that are needed to get the fines level down, one sufficient fines filter and, two sufficient turnover rate. The fish gnawing on the algae on the side of the pond, any plant material entering the pond for them to munch on, any runoff from the yard or blown in stuff like pollen, is continually introducing fines to the pond and if the turnover rate is slow, then they are going to be visible and if the filter is incapable of trapping them, again they will be visible. The Ultima filter is more open with the tubular media on the inside allowing more fines to pass through than one of the true bead filters like the SacKoi or Aquadyne type filters that use true beads which are solid spherical media. Quilt batting works for a while and then as you have found it works you more than it works on fines removal.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard
Yes you are very right, the quilt batting is a ton of work and a more long term solution would be better. Do you think the ultima would do a bit better job if I let it get dirtier before backwashing? Would it hurt to let it go a few weeks and see what happens? If I add a sand/gravel filter should it be installed after the ultima? the only place I would have is behind the waterfall right before pond return and even there the space is very limited. How often do those have to be maintained on average? Thank you!
I would not recommend letting any filter go without backwashing, just like I would not recommend not flushing a toilet. Behind the waterfall would be where most have placed the sand gravel filters. They are generally backwashed weekly. The backwash is not very difficult and if the waste line has a place to go, away from the pond, it is no more difficult than the Ultima.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard
Thank you. That will be our plan. The 2 bottom drain go straight to the motor basket then to ultima and then returned to pond. I am guessing the ultima just can't keep up with that type of load and lots of stuff is passing right through filter and returning to pond.