Homemade bead filter

Some pictures of our homemade bead filter if anyone's interested

http://www.infohitsystems.ltd.uk/Gal...5&sort=by_name

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

"Rodney Pont" wrote in message
news:atcfzvasbuvgflfgrzfygqhx.ih3gim2.pminews@ouse ...
Some pictures of our homemade bead filter if anyone's interested

http://www.infohitsystems.ltd.uk/Gal...5&sort=by_name

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk


Nice. I like the way the plants are arranged.

Rodney Pont wrote:

Some pictures of our homemade bead filter if anyone's interested

http://www.infohitsystems.ltd.uk/Gal...5&sort=by_name



Good job and great looking pond! :-) .

In the last picture, 'finished' I notice you have what looks like a 2
1/2 return pipe. What is your water flow like? Has it bothered the
fish? I ask because the water flow return to my pond is pretty high and
I was wondering how that might affect the fish and plants. So far is
just sounds like a small river and the fish seem to enjoy playing in the
flow.
Have a great day and thanks.
W. Dale

Good looking pond and the filter pictorial is great.

On Thu, 26 May 2005 07:13:34 +0100 (BST), "Rodney Pont"
wrote:

===Some pictures of our homemade bead filter if anyone's interested
===
===http://www.infohitsystems.ltd.uk/Gal...5&sort=by_name


==============================================
Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked!

~~~~ }((((o ~~~~~~ }{{{{o ~~~~~~~ }(((((o

On Thu, 26 May 2005 09:57:31 GMT, George wrote:

Nice. I like the way the plants are arranged.

Thanks George. The planting is left to Rosemary. Our lives are just not
worth getting involved in planting :-)

We are the ones who have to spend our summers netting the petals off
the pond though :-)

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

Gorgeous setting! Interesting choice of the barrel, fermentation. ~ jan


See my ponds and filter design:
www.jjspond.us

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

"Rodney Pont" wrote in message
news:atcfzvasbuvgflfgrzfygqhx.ih3gim2.pminews@ouse ...
Some pictures of our homemade bead filter if anyone's interested


http://www.infohitsystems.ltd.uk/Gal...5&sort=by_name
=====================
It looks like you have almost be a plumber to get all that hose-work
right..... beautiful pond. :-)
--
McKoi.... the frugal ponder...
EVERYONE: "Please check people's headers for forgeries
before flushing." NAMES ARE BEING FORGED.
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

On Thu, 26 May 2005 06:10:43 -0600, Wilmdale wrote:

In the last picture, 'finished' I notice you have what looks like a 2
1/2 return pipe. What is your water flow like? Has it bothered the
fish? I ask because the water flow return to my pond is pretty high and
I was wondering how that might affect the fish and plants. So far is
just sounds like a small river and the fish seem to enjoy playing in the
flow.

That's a 40mm pipe (about 1 3/4inch) and it's used as an overflow from
the bio filter. It does get a trickle when the bead filter has been
backwashed and then there is a slight surface movement but nothing
significant.

We have two pumps in the pond. The filter one is a Blagdon Torrent 8000
and the waterfall one is a Tetra OFX11500. I'm in the UK so those
numbers are litres/hour but they are shifting about 1,200 gallons/hour
and both return via the waterfall/stream. The flow from the streams
cause the surface to rotate about once every 10 minutes or so but there
isn't any flow in the pond noticable on the oxygenators, they stick
straight up and are not slanting towards the pumps.

The waterfall pump is raised off the bottom so that it's flow doesn't
disturb the lower levels of water and it's not run all of the time. The
fish do sometimes play in the waterfall flow but there are plenty of
places for them to go and rest. They had a visit from a Heron last week
so they are still spending most of their time at the bottom around the
planting baskets.

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

On Thu, 26 May 2005 08:26:56 -0700, ~ janj JJsPond.us wrote:

Gorgeous setting! Interesting choice of the barrel, fermentation. ~ jan

BV inspired? I'd been looking round for something suitable for a long
while and saw this in Wilko (a hardware chain in the UK - Mostly in the
north) for GBP10 (roughly USD16). I got the size wrong in the comments,
it's only 5 gallons, now corrected.

I don't know whether you remember the problems we had at the beginning
of last year with the systemic bacteria but you helped with the
diagnosis and then we got an antibiotic from the vet. I think the root
cause was the poor filtration and we have been working on it since
then. We have a distinct lack of space for the traditional approach.

We tried a Fishmate pressurised filter but it even let tadpoles
through!!! We fitted inlet and outlet screens to it last year and
filled it with beads and that at least got it to filter. Unfortunately
it's connections were so restrictive that we couldn't get sufficient
water flow for it to keep the bottom clean and the backflush wasn't
very effective. This wasn't helped by the Otter Maximus pump, a caged
solids handling pump where once the lower intakes of the cage clogged
it only filtered the clear water taken in from the upper half of the
cage. We didn't get inches of muck on the bottom but I knew there had
to be some way of getting it it better. The Fishmate was too small
anyway and we were having to backflush it every day and dismantle it
every few weeks to wash the muck off the beads.

Luckily the Otter Maximus failed this year and we got a Blagdon Torrent
pump http://www.pumpsandspares.com/blagdo...orrent8000.php which
has a bottom intake and works very like a bottom drain. When we first
started this one up we had to backflush the filter three times a day so
we didn't let it run overnight but now it's only every two or three
days and even then the flow is as high as it was with the freshly
cleaned Fishmate. It will probably get backflushed once a week even if
it doesn't need it since it's a handy way of ensuring the partial water
changes.

Wow, I'm sorry but I think I got carried away a bit. It's hard to stop
me talking about ponds :-)

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

On Thu, 26 May 2005 10:45:02 -0500, Reel McKoi wrote:

It looks like you have almost be a plumber to get all that hose-work
right..... beautiful pond. :-)

I always have trouble cutting pipes to the correct length when 45
degree bends are involved. I learnt many years ago to cut them too long
and keep cutting half an inch off until they fit :-)

I don't understand why, a tape measure should work the same for them as
for 90 degree bends but it never does for me :-)

The pond could be a few thousand gallons better, after all there is an
acre of garden wasted on plants :-)

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk