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View Full Version : [DIY] Combo TT/Shower and Aerated Moving Bed



Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:10 AM
Maybe some of you will find this interesting. Its simply a combination of my two favorate methods of Bio Filtration, IMHO, they are the only methods that I consider good practice in the Koi hobby. The only reason for the combination here is that I needed space for my Sacramento Koi Bead filter, and for my former aerated moving bed in 55 gal drum, which will this season I will use to continue my tests of static K1 (which is not working to well for me so far). Some people that need a powerfull filter in a small footprint may find this interesting. I built a little frame around the whole thing, waiting for some vines to grow around it. These types of filters are not only superior in performance, but also in maintenance. Depending on the media, a TT/Shower can go years between any maintenance. In theory, a aerated K1 moving bed should never need any media cleaning maintenance, but needs a partial tank flush anywhere from once a week to once a month.

I've been running TTs or Showers since I started with ponds 2 years ago with a 220gal goldfish pond, and was introduced to the technology by a fellow ponder (Griff). Griff has had tremendous results from this types of filters in water quality, water clarity, and Koi growth. On my small goldfish pond I run a 1cuft cylinder type TT. It has a Lava Rock frame but is filled with K1 that has been in place for a little over a year now. My Koi pond has ran 2 large TTs, roughly 4.5cuft each. Cylinder type, Egg Rock shell (for looks) filled with Lava Rock first year, 2nd year with K1 and Bio balls. The crate system, although more expensive, is better from a maintenance perspective. I choose the small "donut trays", they give me plenty of gaps, good air exchange, and are small enough that Lava Rock is easy to handle in them. I appear to get better performance from Lava Rock, so wanted to go back to this in a way that is easy to maintain.

The Combo: Most of this was build last year, now that time and weather is comming around I cut everything on this weekend. The moving bed part has been running for a month now. As I said earlier the reason for the combo is footprint of the filter. The idea started looking for a base for the TT/Shower, I was going to have to use a stock tank (70gal) for this anyways, so that is how the project started into using a larger tank and moving bed here.

Rough diagram from last year for illustration:

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:13 AM
Finished Product:

emmalou
04-25-2005, 11:14 AM
That is a pretty neat setup..I have printed it out..thanks C5. I see you have the lattice around the workings..that what I was looking for..and how easy is that to clean..it looks pretty comfortable there?

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:20 AM
Built in Foam Fractionator, have not ran this yet. Some other pics before shower part was added earlier in the year.

emmalou
04-25-2005, 11:23 AM
And I am assuming that those crates are PVC protected? C5..how much area does your setup require..as far as a fliter bay..

mike
04-25-2005, 11:24 AM
yummm, donuts :p:

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:28 AM
Another. This is one of those cheapo $69 2.3cfm air pumps with a cheap manifold I put together.

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:30 AM
And I am assuming that those crates are PVC protected? C5..how much area does your setup require..as far as a fliter bay..

NO, they are not. I don't think its a big deal, I've had others not PVC protected (file crates) out for a long time. Area is that for this filter, or total setup? I have a ~300gal settlement, 2 55gal drums with microstrainers, and 2 pumps under a deck. Then exposed, this filter, the Bead filter, and another 55gal drum. This filter only requires the space a stock tank takes up.

mike
04-25-2005, 11:32 AM
this is great. more pics please

emmalou
04-25-2005, 11:34 AM
NO, they are not. I don't think its a big deal, I've had others not PVC protected (file crates) out for a long time. Area is that for this filter, or total setup? I have a ~300gal settlement, 2 55gal drums with microstrainers, and 2 pumps under a deck. Then exposed, this filter, the Bead filter, and another 55gal drum. This filter only requires the space a stock tank takes up.
Sorry...I was talking total setup..I would like to hide as much as possible..

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:39 AM
Cost for a DIY, I may have missed stuff, this I what I can think of prices from memory

Rubbermaid tank ~$60
3" Uniseal for drain ~$8
3" Farmteck ball for drain ~$10
2x 4" Uniseal for flow back to pond ~$12 each
2" Bulkhead for inlet of other pump $4.99
Various PVC fittings ~$30
13 Crates $70 total (4.5" when stacked)
Air pump $69
Air manifold ~$10
Air lines and stones (AES silica diffusers) ~$75
K1 (5cuft) $150
Bio Balls (5cuft) $150
Lava Rock (4cuft) $16
Straps (we have a lot of hurricanes here) $12

Other random notes:

Unions allow me to move each pump to each possition, since I often use different setups for Winter, Spring/Fall, and Summer.

Gravity flow out is drilled pipe, ABS in this case b/c I had the predrilled stuff left over from last year.

emmalou
04-25-2005, 11:41 AM
Excellent stuff C5....I like this alot. Thanks for the post.

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:42 AM
Sorry...I was talking total setup..I would like to hide as much as possible..

Under the deck its 4ft x 10ft. The laticed in area outside is roughly 4ft x 8.5ft. Some people may consider some of it excessive.

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 11:45 AM
That is a pretty neat setup..I have printed it out..thanks C5. I see you have the lattice around the workings..that what I was looking for..and how easy is that to clean..it looks pretty comfortable there?

The latice is plastic, I assume I will never have to clean it. Or are you talking about the filter. Its peacefull in there.

emmalou
04-25-2005, 11:47 AM
The latice is plastic, I assume I will never have to clean it. Or are you talking about the filter. Its peacefull in there.
Lol..I was talking about cleaning the crates..or will you have to do that at all?
Okay..that is alot of bay area you have going...I suppose one could whittle that down?

mike
04-25-2005, 12:05 PM
is the gravity out and FF out 2" or 3" pipe?

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 12:12 PM
Lol..I was talking about cleaning the crates..or will you have to do that at all?
Okay..that is alot of bay area you have going...I suppose one could whittle that down?

This question is difficult to answer and will only reflect my opinion. Some medias could go years between cleanings in a shower setup. Cleaning could be very easy, yearly since they are in small crates. Depends on the case, the water, the flow, the media. On Lava Rock, some have gone upto 7 years between cleanings, others clean several times a year. Like I said this was setup for easy cleaning, small trays. I plan on inspecting yearly and going from there. Things don't always work out how they may appear. Last year with 2 similar TTs, one with K1 and one with Bio balls, at the end of the year the K1 TT was clean, the Bio Ball one was not, I would have tought K1 would trap stuff in a TT, but its been a great media so far in that application for me. The K1 TT on my small pond was clean enough after last year it has not been cleaned yet.

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 12:15 PM
is the gravity out and FF out 2" or 3" pipe?

The Shower runs off a Sequence 4300 (1000 series) that pumps through a bead on the way to the shower. The bottom (FF inlet) is from a Sequence 3600 (750 series). Both come in on 2" flex PVC. The FF is 4" body. Bottom drain is 3", 2 Gravity flow out is 2x 4".

Cowiche Ponder
04-25-2005, 12:20 PM
I am going to a TT in a tub like that for my q-pool, but never thought of adding the moving bed like that. Not sure about for the pool, but I will be looking at that for the pond for sure! Great idea :yes:

mike
04-25-2005, 12:22 PM
thats a lot of flow. net flow of 4000 gph?

so you think this can filter a 4000 gallon pond?

(be back in 8 hours ... gotta go to sleep)

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 12:27 PM
There is probably ~6000gph total. 5 cuft of K1 in moving bed, 5 cuft of Bio balls in Shower, ~3.5cuft of Lava rock in Shower should be able to handle a great load, aerated MB and Shower media is many times more effective than traditional submerged media filtration. This often makes this type of filter very cost effective, since you can have much less media for a given load.

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 12:28 PM
Old Moving Bed Tread:

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3954&highlight=moving+bed

showa75
04-25-2005, 03:42 PM
hardtop,

great setup, im looking to do something similar. how big is the pond you are using the system on? also, where did you buy your k1 media and bio balls? i was going to use a 150 gal. rubbermade tank for the moving bed chamber as well, is the 5 cubic feet the right amt to fill one up? thanks

Ryan S.
04-25-2005, 03:53 PM
hardtop,

great setup, im looking to do something similar. how big is the pond you are using the system on? also, where did you buy your k1 media and bio balls? i was going to use a 150 gal. rubbermade tank for the moving bed chamber as well, is the 5 cubic feet the right amt to fill one up? thanks

K1 I have on had is from AES, Bioballs are from Drs. Foster and Smith. Both were $29.95 per cuft at the time, although slightly higher now I think. The round container (55gal drum) or another vortex tank works good for aerated K1, rubbermaid container was chosen for its ablity to told the shower also. If I was going to do just a MB, I would use 55gal drums or vortex poly farm tanks. Pond is ~3200gal. I'm not sure on exact amount in here, I have 8cuft of K1 total, I think ~4.5-5 is in there now based on what I have left over.

KOI_IN_DA_Nile
04-25-2005, 05:33 PM
I like the idea of TT and the moving bed.
Would we be able to do this with the tanks we have: (2- 525 gallon tanks) .
as your design DIY moving bed/biofilter coned bottom. combined with the TT on top ,or would that be too much going on in each tank? chambers are 6' high if i need to extend for TT,I will do that.
any info Greatly Appreciated. Michael

mike
04-25-2005, 11:38 PM
thanks c5.

im also very interested in your FF. please update if it starts churning out the bubbles already

Fast Eddie
04-26-2005, 12:25 AM
VERY :cool:

Can you let me know how the protein skimmer you made works out?

Harveythekoi
04-26-2005, 03:39 AM
The FF will need a lot of tweaking. There are many variables to get it working properly. But keep us posted on how it does.

With all this set up after a bead filter is there enough food to even feed that media? I would think by the time it got to the moving bed all's your doing is roiling the water. I suppose a percentage of food will always get past but oxygen saturation and off gassing should have already happened in the tower.

Garrett

JPR
04-26-2005, 07:26 AM
Garrett, you are right. I have built various towers such as this design in several reincarnations over 15 years now, and the efficient removal of effluent is always the bugaboo. Here's one I build in 1988 for a 600 gallon marine aquarium. A Pretty ugly monstrosity no doubt but as a bioreactor it worked very well. The trick here was to put a shallow rubbermaid into a larger one to allow water to degass then into the lower section for dynamic media to have a go at what did not gass off. This acted as a prototype for the next generation unit I built a year later. Finally MARK 3 was a combination of towers and dynamic media with FFs attached to each tower- separately however as I was never able to solve the removal mystery. Sorry, don't mean to highjack here- just add to the conversation. JR

Ryan S.
04-26-2005, 09:23 AM
Thanks for the input

Foam Fractionator - I expect it to take some tuning to work out. In particular I may have to decrease flow through it. The reason it is here is that I use tiny bubbles (from silica diffusers) as my method of churning the media, and I get dirt/something (?) type of buildup around the inside edges of a Moving Bed by this method. So trying to remove this first is good practice (?).

Overkill - Probably, pond was ran last year, including ~ thousand babies (2-15"), on TTs of similar size and similar flow as current shower setup. The water from one pump enters at the MB area without passing through the bead or shower. Established Beads can be good biofilters, but in my head this is just for mechanical filtration and no bio benefit was taken into account here. (It should be another month or two before it becomes established anyways). Besides I had 8cuft of K1 laying around.

JR - Cool setup. The last thing I need is another hobby. This started as using a stock tank as a collector for the Shower, before I desided to move the MB filter here.

lilhelper
01-20-2006, 11:04 AM
Doesnt that make the Biological bacteria so plentiful that it eliminates the need for a UV STERILIZER?

birdman
11-02-2008, 12:21 AM
Now that winter is coming and I assume your pond is cooling down, with the cooler water are you still making as much foam?

Ryan S.
11-02-2008, 11:13 AM
I actually never cut on the FF part this year, my smaller sequence needs a seal and never go around to replacing. It would be cut off about now as leafs are falling a lot now and that is my skimmer line so I just remove with net this time of year, I still have the other line going, I will probably cut it off for the year in the next week or so.