Last year I took on a project of increasing my pond from about 200 gallons to a little over 1000 gallons. The system was kind of thrown together due to time constrains and came out sloppy. My DIY sand/gravel filter was a pain to clean (my own error thinking a single air pump would be enough to “boil” it - it was not) and my moving K1 media bed left a little to be desired. In general having 2 55gal barrels in the back yard was an eye sore. This year I decided I had to change the filtration system.
After watching a lot of koi videos on youtube, I decided to I needed one thing. Bakki shower. I planned my new filtration around this system. I went to Lowes and while originally going to use the small yellow top bins, I found slightly larger Kobalt stackable bins that fit the dimensions of a scaled down Momotaro shower and was not a total eye sore. By following Dazzle Koi on Youtube design I drilled 1/2” holes in 3 of the bins and found that smaller plastic bins from Target fit perfectly in the bottom bin. Later that day I purchased 1.6 cu.ft of Seaside Aquatics Ceramic Bio House media.
I liked the idea of the Tempest because of the size and easy to clean, however at $500 it was a little pricey. I decided to make my own out of PVC and flex connectors. To clean the filter I have my air pump hooked up to each with a ball valve at the bottom for easy cleaning. The idea is to flow the “tempest” filters to the bakki shower, to a protein skimmer, then back into the pond on the other side of the wall. This is fed by a 2400gph pump.
As it is now, I’m not sure if I want to go with a single pipe to the bakki shower, or dual from each tempest. Opinions would be greatly appreciated.