Koi Pond Filter with Drum, Moving Bed, Air Lift and Anoxic

This video describes the filter system I designed and built.
As well as a Drum filter and Moving Bed I have taken out the Bakki Showers and installed an Air Lift and Anoxic Chamber instead.
The video also describes the various Back Up devices to keep everything going.

[@rockfella27]

Oh boy! This single video could put pond makers out of business!

[@petercousins4767]

Great setup you have put a lot of thought into your filter system well done you certainly have given me new ideas on improving my setup. Thank you🌞👍

[@neilryan9664]

Fantastic filter. Well done on creating such an inclusive system and backup system. Very impressed👍

[@ukzerocom]

Thanks for the kind words.

[@nickrider5220]

Very thorough and excellently done !

[@anoxicfiltrationplenums]

Nice filtration system 👍

[@ukzerocom]

Thanks. Especially given the anoxic element 👍

[@landon1285]

love filter overviews! very nice!

[@garyhiggins4945]

Having played around with various forms of filtration (including anoxic) and air lifts, if I built another pond I’d definitely utilise this method as it’s extremely efficient. For people on a budget use a decent sieve instead of a drum as you 100% require some kind of pre-filter else you’ll soon be clogged up. From my experience on 4500 gallons and 20 odd baskets and a sensible fish load you don’t require any form of moving bed. It just works, ignore the naysayers, anoxic also matures far faster than plastic media.

[@AS-qk9xn]

Great to hear a Brit voice using air lift. I’m at the design stage of building a new airlift pond, would love to see more of your airlift setup.

[@DavesKoiPond]

Great video, very detailed explanation of the way it all works. +1 for the pond video, as I know how great your pond looks!

[@ukzerocom]

Thanks for the kind comments. I will do a second shorter video which will focus on the pond. Given everything else we have going on this will now be next Spring when the pond will be nearly three years old.

[@jdofb]

Stumbled across this and honestly floored about how good the system you have made is I'd love more information on the stand pip setup and how it works

[@greenmachinesweden]

What a neat system. Really nice build! I like the anoxic system a lot. New subscriber, please show us more.

[@ukzerocom]

Thanks. Hadn't really planned to do more, but may do a short video showing the pond itself if there's interest.

[@greenmachinesweden]

@@ukzerocom I am sure there are interest in that all over KZbin.

[@benogrady3328]

Fantastic watch ! I been building myself a similar system

[@ukzerocom]

Thanks. Over a year since it was upgraded and proving well worth the effort.

[@guppiesstories5942]

Indeed it is very intresting and highly impressive. I am into anoxic filters adapted for aquarium. Can you please do some nitrates test and let us know the results. Also some more videos of your koi and pond

[@ukzerocom]

Sorry, just seen this. NO3 is running consistently between 1ppm (mg/l) and approx 4ppm. To put this into context, this time last year without the Anoxic it was hovering around the 50ppm level. My water changing is purely controlled by level drop and not by constant trickle-in, so is much less than is often the case for Koi ponds and explains the highish pre-Anoxic NO3 level at this time in the season. Hope this is of use.

[@guppiesstories5942]

@@ukzerocom That's is very good indeed.1ppm-4ppm.I am very impressed. Dr. Kevin Novak should be elated. He is giving greater insights into the BCBs [biocenosis clarification baskets] currently. Electrical/ionic charge, difussion, and convection[thermodynamics] forces in the BCBs.

[@rockfella27]

1-4!!! Woah! Nice! Thanks for sharing!!!! Dr. Novak must be elated!

[@KoiRun50]

Enjoyed listening to all how it all works (complicated to me but I find it fascinating). How is the anoxic filtration working?

[@ukzerocom]

The air lift and anoxic sections have only just been completed. As the season progresses I will divert more of the water from the mature moving bed section to go straight to the anoxic section. I will only be able to judge the success of the anoxic process in this particular filter when Nitrate levels are measured towards the end of the Summer.

[@KoiRun50]

@@ukzerocom Looking forward to it. Thanks.

[@alistairmarks]

Congratulations on an elegant and supremely well implemented filter house. I set up a drum, then air lift then anoxics and they simply didn't work well enough capping the amount of food I could give. I've since added a moving bed and can feed what I need without the ammonia and nitrite spiking but the anoxics are not working properly leading to fluctuating but gradually increasing nitrate. Still trying to troubleshoot them, would you be kind enough to answer three questions. Would you be able to tell me what size of baskets you are using ?40cm What cores do they have? I couldn't find laterite and used JBL Aquabasis Plus. The main substrate is pink calcined Moler clay What proportion, in your estimation, goes straight to the air lift vs through the moving bed to the air lift? Thank you in anticipation. 😊

[@ukzerocom]

First two as you surmised. As to the proportion passing through the moving bed it's hard to say, but in my current system the main flow is under the moving bed (which is contained by perforated mesh) and so the mixing here will only be due to turbulence in the bed itself - so most goes straight to the air lift and anoxic. NO3 is not zero, but averages at about 10ppm. Hope this helps. PS I don't feed intensively as rapid growth not a priority.

[@alistairmarks]

@ukzerocom Thank you. Not being able to find the 30x30 baskets cited in the articles, mine are 28x28 and perhaps I should recycle them into 40x40s like you have, as essentially my original system had everything you have but with lots more baskets, as I have two independant small drums, two air lifts and two anoxic ponds with 50+ in each, so one side could fail and the other be enough to run the pond but I never got past 200g feeding per day. I did worry that the air lift before the anoxics rather than after them was the problem but you disprove that, too. All great information from you, thank you and the search for anoxic success continues!

[@alistairmarks]

Please might I ask for another little bit of information? I'm going to re-pot my small baskets into large 40cm ones. Do you recall how much Aquabasis Plus, you put in each core of your baskets? 200g is suggested by Mr. M Sanke but I wondered if you did something else.

[@dalboy247]

Nice setup. Been looking at the airlift and not found to mean people using then over here, how do you find it? Have you found your PH gone up ? Thanks 😊

[@ukzerocom]

pH has remained steady at 7.5-8.0 Air Lift has been working extremely well, but can be difficult to add to some existing systems due to the constraint of low head and the need for gravity returns in most cases.

[@garethbaker3429]

Hi, I am very interested to know how you are getting on with Anoxic. I have been testing it in a 1000L aquarium for 20 months now. I have found that it deals very well with ammonia and it doesn’t seem to produce nitrate. But any nitrate produced elsewhere in the tank is not attracted into the BCB so the nitrate level slowly rises. I would be grateful for your observations as my goal is a large koi setup with anoxic as the filter. Thanks again

[@ukzerocom]

There is still the "back up" conventional moving bed filter running in my system. Although only a small part of the flow is now through this moving bed I have to assume it is still functioning at low level. With that in mind my Nitrate levels are not zero, but remain low (~5ppm) despite Summer feeding and much less than usual water change rate. Ammonia and Nitrite have remained at zero throughout the transition to more Anoxic operation (apart from during KMnO4 treatments). There are people who have gone 100% Anoxic who may be in a better position to comment.

[@garethbaker3429]

That’s very encouraging, just one final question, what did you use for Laterite?

[@sdqsdq6274]

i am more interested how long cat litter last

[@AS-qk9xn]

How did you waterproof your chambers? I noticed black paint, is that the fibreglass flow coat?

[@ukzerocom]

I used special pond paint on top of a cement based tanking compound. To be honest it took an age to cure and is not very robust. If there is a next time I will go back to proper GRP as I have used in the past. I would never use non-reinforced flow coat as it will always crack and lift in time.

[@jcm06]

is anoxic filter effective? does it reduce your nitrates?

[@ukzerocom]

Nitrates have reduced from up to 80ppm (and occasionally higher) down to less than 10ppm. I would not expect nitrate levels to reach zero because the system is a "variable hybrid" design and so retains a variable degree of regular Nitrogen Cycle NH3 to NO2 to NO3. Even with the bypass wide open there is still some deliberate "just in case" residual "normal" activity in the moving bed media and of course the rest of the pond system's surface biofilm. I didn't have the courage to completely switch to 100% anoxic with a fully stocked pond and no quarantine/backup.

[@jcm06]

@@ukzerocom what did you use for your anoxic filter? Catnip?

[@ukzerocom]

I used Kittyfriend Pink cat litter.

[@waynebailey8619]

Fantastic setup, great to see your design and understand your thought processes behind it. Are you an engineer by trade? Thanks for sharing, enjoyed watching.

[@ukzerocom]

Thanks. Not an engineer, just a lot of years of DIY'ing.

[@rockfella27]

Regular size : 30 cm X 30 cm X 20 CM??

[@ukzerocom]

Sorry - missed these comments. Being cognitively challenged I don't really understand them I'm afraid.

[@rockfella27]

@@ukzerocom What is the size of your BCB?

[@ukzerocom]

@@rockfella27 Ah, with you now. Yes regular sized baskets as you surmised. There are 15 of them for my 7 fish (24"-28"+).

[@rockfella27]

@@ukzerocom 2 for one adult wow. Nice.