Journal Freds new pond build

[frederick thompson]

My big chagoi.
And some more of the fish

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[frederick thompson]

All the best
Fred

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[foxfish]

How much do you think he would weigh Fred?

 

[frederick thompson]

How much do you think he would weigh Fred?

I ain't got a clue mate. The last time I had her out was about a year ago. And the pan net was on the floor. With the weight.
She would make a nice fish supper though.
I love her to bits.had her from a baby. 23_24 years old now.
My favourite fish the chagoi. Not for looks.
For character and personality. Every koi
Pond should have a chagoi in the pond in my opinion.
You good mate.
Project this summer.

I am changing my return pipe work from my drop in draco drum nexus 320.
To 2inch size. From 1 1/2 inch. And adding
A bakki shower on the top pond. Started it
Just before the lock down. But it's getting harder to sauce the gear. With the lock down.
That's the 2 inch that's been done in the photo
That pump I will be replacing with a vario
20000lph that's a 15000lph.
That 15000lph will then go on my skimmer line. Which right now has a 8000lph pump on that line.
Plus a new UV on the nexus line.
Because of changing to 2 inch. The one on there now is 1 1/2 inch.
Hope your doing well mate
Take care fred

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[frederick thompson]

This is the midi shower going onto top pond. Can flow 20000lph
This is the pump. You control the speed of flow with the wattage up and down. So I don t have to muck around with ball valves

new 20000lph pump

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[frederick thompson]

this is the media going into the shower. I was shocked at the price of it. 1 tray of this

this is the other media for bio I am going two trays of this

 

[frederick thompson]

and a new uv. because my ea 55watt uv cannot get the flow I require designed for 1 1\2 pipe
while this one can take 2 inch flow
this lot should keep me busy for a while. while in lockdown
all the best fred

 

[foxfish]

Hi Fred, i am sure you trickle filter will work well.
I am a huge fan of this type of filter, I used to make my own version from fiberglass. I use parcel packing tape to fill the filter, the black hard plastic tape used to secure large boxes .
The tape can be bought in huge rolls for about £50 and would be enough to fill 3-4 trickle towers.
The type of filter media you have bought will work fine but is massively expensive.

 

[frederick thompson]

also buying another draco drop in rotary drum auto self cleaning as this is more up to date.
I will be replacing the one I have. and keep that as a spare drum. you never know when things break down
fred

 

[frederick thompson]

Hi Fred, i am sure you trickle filter will work well.
I am a huge fan of this type of filter, I used to make my own version from fiberglass. I use parcel packing tape to fill the filter, the black hard plastic tape used to secure large boxes .
The tape can be bought in huge rolls for about £50 and would be enough to fill 3-4 trickle towers.
The type of filter media you have bought will work fine but is massively expensive.

I agree 100% with you mate and thanks for the advice. sounds good. great info as always. I am afraid I have already bought the stuff.
just waiting on 2 inch pipe fittings. and pipe.
your spot on. on the price of the stuff. when I seen that I nearly fell of the chair. I was going to fill with grog stone the same as my qt grow on. but I did some research on this media.
and its brilliant stuff. far superior to grog. the reason I am adding this. is for a fail safe more then anything. plus more fish.
I have seven in my grow on to transfare. and I think I would be pushing the water parameters a bit to much. I agree the showers are a great bit of filter kit.
I meant to add one last year. but never got around to it lol
take care fred

 

[frederick thompson]

Hi Fred, i am sure you trickle filter will work well.
I am a huge fan of this type of filter, I used to make my own version from fiberglass. I use parcel packing tape to fill the filter, the black hard plastic tape used to secure large boxes .
The tape can be bought in huge rolls for about £50 and would be enough to fill 3-4 trickle towers.
The type of filter media you have bought will work fine but is massively expensive.

forgot to add also these vario pumps what an improvement they are. if your bills are to high you can control the amount of wattage straight from the control
take winter when not feeding so much. turn the flow down. summer up the flow. its some times hard to control on ball valves. that s what i have found. with this a press of a button
changed things a lot these type of pumps
fred

 

[foxfish]

I can see that would be a huge benefit Fred, of course three speed pumps have been around for a long time but having this type of modern technology is great .
Some of my customers are running three kilowatt swimming pool pumps on their Koi ponds but sometimes you need that sort of power to feed large waterfalls.
Things are always moving on in life at least they were up until now!
At least you have something to do at home.
I still have two maintenance contracts and I have managed to get permission to work on theses ponds as I will be working on my own in an open environment.
However I have not been to either as yet but I need to change the UV bulbs and check things over.

 

[frederick thompson]

I can see that would be a huge benefit Fred, of course three speed pumps have been around for a long time but having this type of modern technology is great .
Some of my customers are running three kilowatt swimming pool pumps on their Koi ponds but sometimes you need that sort of power to feed large waterfalls.
Things are always moving on in life at least they were up until now!
At least you have something to do at home.
I still have two maintenance contracts and I have managed to get permission to work on theses ponds as I will be working on my own in an open environment.
However I have not been to either as yet but I need to change the UV bulbs and check things over.

Nice one mate. I did nt know you still looked after ponds. I knew you had a pond and koi. And you built them in your earlier
Years. Good on you and respect mate.
This virus made me think a little more about the pond and fish lol. I was thinking about if the drum packed up. In the nexus.
What if you could nt get the gear or parts to replace the drum how would I still keep the bio running. So I thought bring the bypass into play. On the nexus. Then go to the shower. Then my wife said why don t you just buy a spare drum. So I thought yeah I will. But also the shower is still a great idea. I can add more fish as well.


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[foxfish]

I am sort of semi retired Fred, i would get to board without a bit of work.
I was a manager of a large Koi farm here in Guernsey in the 1980s and early 90s then i stated a hard landscape business specialising in Japanese features and koi ponds.
I have no idea how many ponds we built but there were a few very high budget ones, some still exist, some were filled in some are now used as swimming pools and I have just two that i regularly maintain.

 

[frederick thompson]

I am sort of semi retired Fred, i would get to board without a bit of work.
I was a manager of a large Koi farm here in Guernsey in the 1980s and early 90s then i stated a hard landscape business specialising in Japanese features and koi ponds.
I have no idea how many ponds we built but there were a few very high budget ones, some still exist, some were filled in some are now used as swimming pools and I have just two that i regularly maintain.

Good on you mate. You have to have some thing to do later on in life. My hobbies are fish and my dog patch. I go out with patch
Over the day maybe 4 or 5 hours walking.
Love it. And my fish pond. I am glad I built that as I spend maybe 4 or 5 hours on that.
Then when the nights are a little warmer.
I sometimes get up a 3 or 4 in the morning
And sit by the pond with patch. Love doing that and see the sunrise in a morning and listening to the birds and all the world starting to wake up.
Bliss
Fred

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[frederick thompson]

This lock down has altered things a bit though because of the pandemic.
I just go for one longer walk now.

Ordered all my gear pipes fitting rubber boots. Jesus. The price. Because of this
Lock down. More or less doubled in price.
Hard to sauce the gear now. And they know it. The outlets. The pipe work on there now is pressure pipe. I am changing it all to black waste pipe . 53mm od. And 2 inch. 50mm
Internal diameter.

Bought the shower and pump. First. So I can line everything up for the plumbing.
Then I will get the shower media last.

UV I am going to try and use the 55watt
I already have the ea 55w. If it does not do the job. I will buy that other 55 watt UV.

I have another 55w UV on another line
My skimmer line. So I will still have a UV working.

Also ordered some aqua sauce resolve for when I have it done.
Just in case of algi build up. And green water.
Fred



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[foxfish]

Hi Fred funny enough I found an old roll of that packing tape in my shed, it will work very well in a trickle tower filter as once opened up and loaded in the filter, the surface area is huge but perhaps the main benefit over the ceramic medias
is that it wont clog up!
Also the tape offers an extremely long path for the dripping water as once it is unraveled into the chamber it becomes a huge tangled mass that directs the water flow into a never ending flow pattern.

30 years ago the tape was all the rage in the Koi world and was used for biological filtration and mechanical filtration.

However the advertising would say it was very easy to remove and clean with a hose, but from my experience the tape would be almost impossible to handle without getting covered in dirt from head to toe ha ha ...

I can remember the first time we removed the two miles of tape from a big ponds first stage filter, it had worked very well but was covered in a thin layer of brown slime, because the tape is so springy it literally sprayed everything within 6’ so the pond, the decking the lawn and the workmen were just cover in brown spots that took a day to clean up!
We only used it for the last stage after that experience.!

 

[frederick thompson]

Hi Fred funny enough I found an old roll of that packing tape in my shed, it will work very well in a trickle tower filter as once opened up and loaded in the filter, the surface area is huge but perhaps the main benefit over the ceramic medias
is that it wont clog up!
Also the tape offers an extremely long path for the dripping water as once it is unraveled into the chamber it becomes a huge tangled mass that directs the water flow into a never ending flow pattern.

30 years ago the tape was all the rage in the Koi world and was used for biological filtration and mechanical filtration.

However the advertising would say it was very easy to remove and clean with a hose, but from my experience the tape would be almost impossible to handle without getting covered in dirt from head to toe ha ha ...

I can remember the first time we removed the two miles of tape from a big ponds first stage filter, it had worked very well but was covered in a thin layer of brown slime, because the tape is so springy it literally sprayed everything within 6’ so the pond, the decking the lawn and the workmen were just cover in brown spots that took a day to clean up!
We only used it for the last stage after that experience.!

View attachment 133951

Nice one. It just shows. How you have a conversation. And something happens like that lol

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[dw1305]

Hi all,

the surface area is huge but perhaps the main benefit over the ceramic medias is that it wont clog up!
Also the tape offers an extremely long path for the dripping water as once it is unraveled into the chamber it becomes a huge tangled mass that directs the water flow into a never ending flow pattern.

However the advertising would say it was very easy to remove and clean with a hose, but from my experience the tape would be almost impossible to handle without getting covered in dirt from head to toe ha ha ...

I can remember the first time we removed the two miles of tape from a big ponds first stage filter, it had worked very well but was covered in a thin layer of brown slime, because the tape is so springy it literally sprayed everything within 6’ so the pond, the decking the lawn and the workmen were just cover in brown spots that took a day to clean up!

That is a great post.

cheers Darrel

 

[frederick thompson]

That I agree is a good write up. I was laughing. Because my imagination kicked in. And can imagine the wife. Sprawled out on her sun bed. And I decided to clean the
Bakki shower full of that tape. I think I would be dead lol

In the koi world now with the new generation of kids. Building koi ponds. It's all about. The less maintenance the better.
Things like automatic rotary drums. That
Clean themselves. And the river showers
Which are clear see through. Made out of perspex. Flushing to clean. Not getting your hands wet. With waste to sewers. Takes 10 minutes to do. Not even touching
The media. I remember my first filter 30 years ago. Took me an hour to clean.
Then the pressure filter came out. Which in my opinion was never that good. But still an improvement. Then moved on to the nexus. Which was a massive improvement in koi pond or large fish keeping. Now your into rotary drums . bio moving beds. river showers. And such. Where the media costs
More then the filter its self. The kids today don t want to maintain a pond. All they want is crystal clear water to show there fish off. At there barbecue. And the price means nothing. As it's all paid for nowadays on the never never. They don t care about dept. Different mentality today
To how I was brought up. Example I went into a store when my wife had a hip operation. Got my goods went to the counter. And they would nt take cash. I was gobsmacked. It will get even worst because of this virus.
No hand contact. Plastic money.
Fred

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