Simply Koi and More Koi

Throwing this open for everyones own opinion.

If you had a constant trickle of de-chlorinated (and possibly RO) water would this work and get rid of contaminants ?
Obviously the rate would have to be determined on each individual pond size, but basically a constant top, overflowing to waste.
Would it work, and if not why not ?
thanks
Carl

Carl

thousands of garden ponds have no direct filtration and no through put of fresh water

my sister has a garden pond with koi about 2.5 ft deep and i suppose 12ft by 10ft with a tiny isalnd in the middle she has no filter and no water running through water as green as the grass surounding it and dont touch it from one year to the next and the fish not only grow but she dont spend half the time most of us do treating for parasites, thats nit to say she dos not have them

in one of the threads on here i pondered just this scenario and asked for someone who runs a good old portion of RO water through their system to simply turn off the RO water ( propably best when we are feeding heavy) and see what happens to the water parameters, if total loss top ups do make a difference we would expect to see a brief rise in the polutants as the filter pulls up the slack

dunc

Do you think it could work then, I mean on a normal stocked pond with big koi ?
You'd still have to bottom drain and some form of solids/fines filter. Then water could be pumped back to pond (via UV) for some aeration, would cut out the need for all these expensive filters/media.

I guess if you have a good amount of air going into the system to ensure a continual mixing of the water it could work, if there was not enough mixing I could envisage huge issues but then some people run ponds like this ......

Yes, I absolutely know it could work .... as I've seen it works in the saltwater industry, with sea water being pumped into food fish (snapper) growing tanks, in the caribbean. The cost of water could be a bit prohibitive, but I'm sure it could work. I'm also sure it would be nowhere near a cheap as a filter, considering what I pay for water ... in the food fish farms, the water in the tanks are changed effectively every couple of hours ... but when your supply is free it doesn't really matter.

PM musings after a day in London;

In my naive days when other things kept me busy I had three lovely Koi in a preformed plastic pond in the front garden. Lot of plants, not much water, fish got fed occasionally mainly by my daughter throwing crisps into the pond and the frog/toad spawn each spring, pond was frozen over most winters……..pond was topped up almost every week because it had a leak, straight from the garden hose. No filter, well there was one but it was never running because it was always blocked. No air.

No ulcers no obvious parasites (at least the fish weren’t showing any signs) they became a neighbourhood feature and then when they were 5 or 6 years old they were stolen one night.

Now I have a pond and…….. you can fill the rest in yourself……. Does make you think though.

Peter

PS this was before the internet !

For people who aren't on a water meter it's no issue then, only for people who are on one.
It would be an interesting experiment, the only probable drawback would be if someone is heated...topping up water(depending on flow) would have an effect on the temp of the pond.

carlejo wrote:For people who aren't on a water meter it's no issue then, only for people who are on one.
It would be an interesting experiment, the only probable drawback would be if someone is heated...topping up water(depending on flow) would have an effect on the temp of the pond.

Well not so much the temp, as the money to keep it at the same temp, which I try to manage by turning of the trickle on really cold days, although its not really required as much in the winter anyway, in the summer as I can produce enough ro water to change the pond every 4 days if I match it with raw tap water it will be interesting to try it and see if with or without the changing it affects the readings.

hi

this is an interesting thread and you guys are thinking it out well

chris hit the nail on the head it probably would work and its easy to prove but because of cost and more importantly ecological factors it probably would unacceptable to do this hence the recirulating system was born. remember water is a valuable and increasingly diminishing resource

also remember at some point you would have to treat the fish i dont think the environmental agency would take to well to supaverm/flubenol or dare i say some organophosphates being pumped direct into the sewer system, there are loads of factors like this to be considered

but the trick here is in discovering how much work the filter is doing and how much the RO system is contributing to this effect?

like i say when summer comes if soemone was to trun their RO system off and just leave the filter running maybe we could capture a data point, it may be not very practical to do it the other way around without draining the filters down while you do it, those with TT's or showers would best get away with it

good stuff boys

dunc

ok so what if you removed water from a bore-hole dug in your garden ( i think the limit is a couple of thousand gallons a day) and then returned the water to the ground via a soak-away .
that way is doesnt matter if your house is on a meter and lso the water should be at a stable temp all year round.
i know the initial outlay for the bore-hole and soak-away could be high but from then on you could run the water to waste straight from the bottom drain...
the small pump needed could be run via a solar powered pump....

vippymini wrote:ok so what if you removed water from a bore-hole dug in your garden ( i think the limit is a couple of thousand gallons a day) and then returned the water to the ground via a soak-away .
that way is doesnt matter if your house is on a meter and lso the water should be at a stable temp all year round.
i know the initial outlay for the bore-hole and soak-away could be high but from then on you could run the water to waste straight from the bottom drain...
the small pump needed could be run via a solar powered pump....

Good thinking Jane

Yes but no but,

While the bore-hole idea sounds attractive, would`nt you end up poisoning the ground water that supplies it if you were to flush any medications like Duncans superverm/flubenol/organophosphates down your soakaway?


Chris (another one)

you could always divert to drain waste water after treatments.

think of all that loverly fishy pooh, nitrogen rich water that your plants would love.....

heres a bit of interesting info..
especially the 20,000 ltrs per day...
http://www.geologicboreholes.co.uk/borehole-faq/

also on the above link is a solar powered system.......

taken from Vippy's site

As water passes through the ground and into the water table it flows through layers of rock and chalk, which act as natural filters. This produces water that is usually far cleaner and purer than the water provided by water companies (ask anyone who has had their supply analysed).
Would this then filter out any nasties we may be putting back into soakaway ?

A single borehole has over forty times the water capicty that an average home would need (500–600 litres of water a day).
The average person in the UK uses 150 litres of water a day. You can extract 20,000 litres of water a day from a borehole without any permissions or licenses. An average 4 bed house uses approximately 50,000 litres of water a quarter; this can legally be extracted from a borehole in 2½ days.

Pump system
The cost for the supply and installation of a submersible pump and control system. The cost of these is dependent upon the depth of the borehole, flow and pressure requirements of the system and distance the water has to travel. A recent system including a pump located at a 80 meter depth, supplying a 4 bedroom house with land and outbuildings with water at 3bar pressure across the system cost the customer £2695.00 for the entire system including pressure vessel, control system and pipe work.

I'd like to think that if I won the lottery I'd happily be fully self sufficient. Borehole, large turbine and solar for electricity and nice plot of land for it all as well...... I'l keep dreaming