I'll ditto thatOriginally Posted by Roddy Conrad
The Fish Whisperer
I'll ditto that
Marie
Have You Hugged Your Koi Today
I have to agree that I have been plagued with floating matter for 2 seasons but it is algae. The water quality is excellent, but my pond is in full sun. The algae is like kelp, it grows inches in one day. The koi graze and knock off pieces all day long. That's just the way it is. I'll almost be glad when they are back in the basement and I do not have to fight the algae wars any more.
pm'str
I find that the phoam phraxionator I built tends to clear the pond of these small solids as they stick to the bubbles and come out via the bubbles.
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
Supporting Member
Here are the results from a water test done this morning.
Ph - 8
GH - 107.16 ppm
KH - 142.88 ppm
Nitrite - < .3 mg/l
Ammonia - 0 mg/l
Temp - 75 deg. F
Size - 32,000gal
Filtration - 3 Nexus units(designed and built with 6 in mind, but the customer wanted to try three for right now)
Backflush Nexus Units - 2/week
Skimmers - 5 Savio skimmers(with typical matting)
Pond is turned over every 3 1/2 hrs
10% water change 1/week
Daniel
pm'str
You probably had some solids initially that just could not be seen with the green water. Now that it is clear of the green algae, you are able to view them maybe???
Ephesians 2:8-9
faith is a gift, not a personal talent.
Senior Member
With surface coating algaes doing well in fertile waters, forming debris which is close to neutral buoyancy which is readily set drifting by grazing koi, perhaps there are some skimmers better suited for collecting such debris than others.
I wonder if there might be a technique, for example bubbling aerators, where if they were set below the skimmer, it would help drive the less buoyant debris up to the outflow for improved clarity performance...
Regards, andy
http://www.members.aol.com/abdavisnc/swglist.html
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l42/adavisus/
Supporting Member
Daniel
You were absolutely right to design the system for 6 Nexus units. The sad part is the owner only decided to install 3. I'm curious about a couple things. Each Nexus is designed to handle 3500 gph, so a total of 10,500gph, which equals your stated turnover rate above. If there are 5 Savio skimmers, what type of "system" is installed on those and, if properly filtered, doesn't that flow count toward the total turnover of the "system"?
Next, how old is this system, as I see you posted a slight Nitrite level and no Nitrate level. I suspect your Nitrate level is reading 0 and your system has not fully matured, so I assume it is a rather "young" system!?
Mike
Supporting Member
Absolutely excellent point about the grazing koi nocking off some algae from the walls.I have to believe that is part of the debris I'm seeing.
Daniel
Supporting Member
Very young system. We finished the pond renovation early this year. Here is a link to the build thread you might be interested in.
https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66826
I guess the skimmers could count towards the turnover rate. I thought there had to be more of a filtration system for it to count towards the turnover. Three skimmers feed the upper pond while the other two just recirculate water right back into the lower pond. The skimmers have 2 UVs and 1 filter mat in each.
Daniel
Senior Member
ya got what it sounds like alot of pumps doing the poo into mence mew thing, and causing alot of extra fines,
my vote is beef up the filteration. but what or how leads me to ask. do you have a diagram per chance showing all the inlets and outlets on the pond and were the plumbing is ran and size of plumbing?
the pond build thread i went through. be left me assuming to much of were things are and what pipe sizes are and where the plumbing went to. then again i didn't wait for all pictures to load up on thread. due to dial up
Pond and Construction Forum 101 good place for any first timers to the forum. for finding resources and general info.
Ryan
Supporting Member
I will make a map of the pond and piping system for you to take a look at. I can probably get that up here tomorrow evening.
If you haven't seen any of boggen's handy work with these diagrams and drawings you are missing out. Artwork to say the least. You put a lot of time and effort to help people on this forum and I speak for everyone when saying, I appreciate it. Heck, you helped me tremendously on my project.
Daniel
Senior Member
Maryanne:
You are right that grazing koi contribute greatly to lowering water clarity. My water gets progressively less crystalline as the summer goes by and they have more natural food available. I have taken photos under water and blown them up and you can see much of this is SA that the fish pulled loose from the liner/rocks. During fall/winter, the water goes back to a very clear state. And anyone that has ever seen a mud pond with koi in it knows that these fish can stir up a mess, even in "perfect" water, when there is something available to be stirred.
Daniel:
I should have remembered that you were the builder of the nicest private pond I have ever seen! Thanks for the link to remind me! Get a white bucket and pull a bucket full out of the pond and let us know if the particles (or in this case threads) are green. I, like Maryanne, would not be surprised if it is not SA. If brown, poo is the likely culprit-it naturally gets worse during the summer, too (hmmmm, that extra food, maybe!).Either way, I agree, Boggen can help. I am counting on him to help me with my rearrangement this fall!!!
Steve
An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.
Will Rogers
Supporting Member
Daniel, as a fellow contractor.koi pond builder, I will say you have done an amazing transformation of this property. The ponds are well thought out and planned. Your reasoning for the skimmers is spot on. I would say "most" everything was well thought out prior to starting. The "other" part would be the use of a settling chamber from which to feed the Nexus filters from. I personally have a converted swimming pool that unfortunately has to be pumped from the skimmers/BD to the mechanical filtration. Not my "true" idea of proper filtration. HOWEVER, in my situation, it was planned for MECHANICAL FILTRATION ONLY! My mech/bio pulls from mid-level and returns via a waterfall. It knew it would be a challenge from the beginning, but as worked out extremely well. Now that the fish have grown well, I need to supplement my existing bio with a set of shower filters for increased degassing and bio filtration.
Your skimmer circuits are NOT adding to your filtration within this system as they are, so I would say this pond is WAY UNDERFILTERED. you have good circulation with all that water movement, I just think you could put the electrical energy being expended to better functional rather than esthetic use. Let's see what Ryan comes up with after you post the diagrams and maybe I can add my 2cents for what it's worth.
I'm still really impressed with your overall design. BTW, that sheeting action you have going on is adding some good degassing to the system as a thin sheet of water has better contact with the air.
Mike
Supporting Member
Thanks for the comments I can respond a little more after a little while. I am just now starting the diagram. I will post later. Sorry for the delay.
Daniel
Supporting Member
Wow...that was tough. I sure hope you guys can make that out. LOL
Here's the thing...The customer isn't going to make any improvements right now, if ever. It has been an interesting project. We designed and built for 6 Nexus units and are just using 3 right now. Go figure. So I would hate for you guys to spend time on this and nothing come of it.
The black box above the first figure is an external pump that feeds the water feature. One 3" line comes from the pond and 2 2" lines feed the feature.
The filter pit is about 150' from the pond. If there where to be some additional filtration attached to the skimmer circuit it would be right next to the pond and visible.
Anyways there you go.
Mike
I appreciate your comments. As far as the settlement chamber, I explained the need and they didn't want anything to do with it. I'm hoping one day we can add the other nexus units. Those koi(60) are going to get big and we know what big koi dooo.
Steve
Thank you and you are welcome. I got a bucket today and the bits seemed mostly green. It has seemed to calm down a little bit.
Daniel
Senior Member
well hhmmmsss... system is not really built to handle much more than 3 nexus.
i was going to suggest pulling all 3 nexus from the system. and changing the filter pit that holds them. into a more of japaneese rectangular filteration system. but. system is going to get taxed pretty hard with only 7 2" lines leading out and 6 4" lines leading into the filter pit and those 7 2" lines are not in best location to push a hole lot more water without tossing everything else out of balance/whack as far as currents in the pond.
how things are. i am going to state water of pond is going to be cloudy for majorty of ponds life. and toss it to like mud ponds as in clarity of water. were every now and then they might see bottom of pond. and at most the system is setup so the pond doesn't need to be dredged out from build up of muck on the bottom.
at about 533 gallons per koi. IE 32000/60=533. i say pond is going to have problems with other water quailty issues, that may lead to fish health issues.
i am going to say. don't add UV, don't add something to nock back algae. algae for this pond is the filteration for the pond. or lack there of, of filtration. i am going to say discourge the owners from trying to fix water clarity issues with chemicals. due to the algae for this pond is part of the over all filteration system. IE no barely straw, pp treatments, etc...
i have some ideas. but all the ideas would mean almost a complete rehaul of the plumbing. or major re-work of alot of rock work. to get the needed changes done to pull of the ideas off.
the system is not designed for upgrading filtration down the road. if owners don't want more filtration. then. they are saying they are willing or need to accept water clarity as it is. this is one of those times 2000 to 3000 bucks worth in plumbing materials and a day or 2 of labor during construction. running plumbing to filter pit. would have really paid off. as far as filtration upgrading is concerned. and now try and play the chemical game thing.
===================
i realize i am prolly going to get smacked on hands by others with above statements. but i am fresh out of ideas. without tossing things back into new pond syndrome, and possibly causing water parameters to crash over the life of the pond via use of chemicals, if keeping with current plumbing of things and amount of filtration.
to be honest. water clarity issues. size of pond and look of all the rock work. little murky water, prolly fits in just nice. *shrugs* i would be willing to live with water clairty issues at least.
Pond and Construction Forum 101 good place for any first timers to the forum. for finding resources and general info.
Ryan
Supporting Member
Boggen:
I don't have any problems with what you said.
I think there might be some confusion though(and then again the confusion might all be on my side). I knew that might happen with me trying to draw a fast diagram.
3 of the bottom drains are piped to the filter pit but are not being used.
3 of the 2" returns are piped from the filter pit but are not being used.
Also it's funny...I know I built the pond and drew the diagram, but I don't remember 7 pipes coming back from the filter pit. I thought I had 1 2" return for each nexus(6). I guess I had 5 pipes coming from the 3 skimmers of the lower pond to the upper instead of 4. My mistake.
The water itself is clear(obviously not clear, clear water with small pieces of solids). We can see the bottom of the pond without a problem. I just saw some unwanted suspended solids that I wanted to try and get rid of.
Hopefully this cleared up some things. Let me know if it did or if you understood this in the first place and you still have concerns.
Thank you for your time.
Daniel
Senior Member
am cringing some what more. with added info of less returns to filter pit.
for a comparison only to help get idea across better. see below diagram.
most likely everything would be 4" pipe work. exception of a tprs. which might be 3".
pretty hefty cost if ya count in like ball valves / knife valves for everything. but the bottom drain / tpr / gpr circuits. one could prolly get away with stand pipes. and save a good chunk of change. along with air lift pumps. when going old school Japanese style rectangular filtration setups. and would prolly be abit more compact as in size. and easier to clean pending on media choices.
--perhaps for mechanical filteration. brushes, or a media that can be cleaned with air.
--perhaps for bio filteration. either foam/mat type media. (don't really like idea of mat media), but perhaps a small size plastic media. and going with moving bed. or straping or something.
--perhaps a 3 to 4 layers of foam / matting for mechanical fines filtering. at the end of it all. i don't like foam or mat media. but when speaking volume of water. and amount of media and times to clean. mat/foam media and a few layers would prolly work out awesome. plus allow for a complete gravity flow filtration system for given circuit.
skimmer waterfall circuit.
--i would prolly go with a rectangle chamber. and use stand pipes for valves. i would prolly give myself enough room to place a trash pump in this chamber,
--i would prolly go to a second chamber. and put a few layers of foam/mat media.
--then goto a dry chamber. were i could have space for pumps and possible UV filters.
--then to waterfalls.
other words only ball valves in system. would be either on the pipe lines that ran to tprs/gprs/waterfalls. everything else for skimmers/drains/waste lines for filtration chambers. would use stand pipes.
ball valves for controlling air flow for air lifts. would be much smaller in size and not! count up to a good sum of cash. vs the 3" and 4" ball/knife valves.
most likely filter pit would be 2.5 times bigger than what it is now that is holding the 3 nexus units. with all drains,skimmers, tprs,gprs,waterfall lines runing to filter pit area.
=================================
above to what is on pond currently
--i would guess 10 times more in amount of effective filtration volume.
--i would guess either same cost monthly or maybe a little less.
--up front costs though. prolly after labor and material prolly $6,000 to $10,000 more. ((completely guessing on cost))
--a redo would prolly double price. due to needing to remove rock work and put in back in place and digging new trenchs for plumbing.
--after pond/system matured. algea problems would be most likely be less. but water clarity and water quailty would most likely be much easier to manage. and have some breathing room.
--filteration would be all back a filter pit and not at pond.
--higher loads of feeding could be most likely had. due to filteration would be there to deal with it.
--cleaning filters. would take some time. and pending on owners might have there handy man or like do the cleaning. or keep ya on contract to come out every so often. to clean the filters for them. if they don't do it themselves. it would be easy. just a little bit time consuming due to amount vs smaller size ponds. be almost like having them pay someone to mow there lawn. but cleaning there filters type of thing / cost.
============================
with you stating worrying about water clarity. with current filteration. water clarity is just not going to be there. and i don't think it is worth the effort to try and deal with water clarity at this moment in time. atleast with the current filteration. nothing is there to allow easy maintance. and to keep on top of water clairty all the time. and anything done would only be a short temp fix if that.
as far as water quality. i have my skepticism in me. and my gut says, something going to be done to either try and deal with water clarity or to clean the pond and the result of doing this. is going to make the water quailty suffer pretty badly because of it. and fish deaths will most likely occur. it may not be in next month. but i am going to put money down on perhaps a few times in ponds life.
Pond and Construction Forum 101 good place for any first timers to the forum. for finding resources and general info.
Ryan
Supporting Member
Daniel
To add to what Ryan stated, which is ALL CORRECT, with that long of a run (150') from pond to filter bay, I doubt you're gett maximum gravity flow from your 'live" bottom drains.
What size pumps are you using on the Nexus units? I suspect due to the amount of water available to the pump, these aren't more than 1/8th hp at most. There in causes another problem. Long runs BACK to the pond for the TPR/GPRs and a low amount of flow to really circulate water.
Is there a way to maybe, say, install a pressurized filter such as an Ultima 10-20,000 on the waterfall circuit. this will definitely help with water clarity as your pumping a lot of water on that circuit with no benefit of filtration. This would be the FIRST area of consideration for improvement that I would start with. You might even think about either using a 20,000 or 30,000 model that has 3" inlet/outlet. They are side mounted plumbed and actually take up less space than the "standard" 20,000 model I'm using.
Mike
Supporting Member
Daniel
To add to what Ryan stated, which is ALL CORRECT, with that long of a run (150') from pond to filter bay, I doubt you're getting maximum gravity flow from your 'live" bottom drains.
What size pumps are you using on the Nexus units? I suspect due to the amount of water available to the pump, these aren't more than 1/8th hp at most. There in causes another problem. Long runs BACK to the pond for the TPR/GPRs and a low amount of flow to really circulate water.
Is there a way to maybe, say, install a pressurized filter such as an Ultima 10-20,000 on the waterfall circuit? This will definitely help with water clarity as your pumping a lot of water on that circuit with no benefit of filtration. This would be the FIRST area of consideration for improvement that I would start with. You might even think about either using a 20,000 or 30,000 model that has 3" inlet/outlet. They are side mounted plumbed and actually take up less space than the "standard" 20,000 model I'm using.
Mike
Posting Permissions
