1st attempt to design my koi pond

[DragonFireSG]

Originally Posted by spidy

almost missed out the zakki shower.
Am still trying to get Zac to reply my email but no luck.

Anyone know of very compact version of bakki shower from other vendor ?

Try SMSing him. There's some koi event going on now and he may be busy exhibiting. Zac's speciality is the pressurized distribution manifold which very evenly over the media. That's the main advantage his system has over regular drilled pipe.

You can build your own bakki. At it's simplest, it is a stack of media trays fed by a pipe drilled full of holes. Think if it as a very high flow, oversized version of an aquarium OHF. Max Koi has a huge unit doing bio for the show pond next to the office.

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On pumps:

The Tsurumi 2.4 is a 400W pump vs the Tsurumi 2.15 which is a 150W pump. The 2.4 has higher head capacity and moves a lot more water. Perhaps quite a bit more than you need. According to the flow charts, the 2.15 gives about 1900gph at 10" head. The 2.4 gives 3900gph at 10" head.



Two small pumps will serve you better than one big one. Put a one way check valve after each pump, and have both feed your bead filter. Pumps can die unexpectedly - and in a smaller pond, pump failure can be very dangerous as the water pollutes very fast.

I speak from experience. My first pond of about 1200g had only one pump - a 2.15S. A failure overnight about 5 years into operation claimed 3 of my flock. Having to scramble for a replacement at 6am on a weekend is no fun.

btw. The one way valve prevents backward flow if one of the pumps is off or is dead. Many DIY folk forget to put in this very important piece of plumbing and then wonder why they aren't getting any flow the moment one pump is turned off

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On flow:

4000 GPH turnover isn't actually a lot for 1000g based on more recent approaches to pond filtration. I do about 15000 GPH for my 3xxx gallon pond. That's sub 15m cycles. Bear in mind that you will be splitting the output between underwater returns and waterfall. Water returned via a waterfall does not generally cause a lot of subsurface turbulence. You will be able to control flow by using a quality ball valve before the bead filter.

One important note on flow - you need a certain amount of GPH (~3000, depending on whom you ask) to keep a single 4" bottom drain clear of debris. Insufficient flow will result in crap settling out in the drain.

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On fish:

Ranchus don't generally mix too well with koi. The bigger, faster, stronger koi will get to the food first every time. Ranchus will get bullied.

Some also say ranchus do not do too well in water deeper than 3ft. I have no experience with ranchus so this is just hearsay until someone with more experience chimes in.