Hi Marius,

Many years ago Dr Neville Marais had an up flow filter chamber which was working very well. He decided to test a trickle filter concept. All he did was T off his inlet from the pump at the side of teh filter chamber (this pushed the water to the bottom of the filter chamber) and run a second pipe up to the top of the filter chamber - actually about 800mm above the top of the chamber.

He built a scaffold of piping to hold coke crates about 20cm above the level of the water. Into this scaffold he placed a row of coke crates and piped the new water nlet into a spray bar which ran across the top of the crates.

The crates were filled with palstic - I cannot recall which plastic - but they were stuffed full of plastic. The water was sprayed over the cartes and cascaded down onto of the water coming up through the stone bed.

The water rising and the water cascading downwards mixed and returned to the pond through the existing returns. These were several 110 mm pipes.

Very easy and very cheap for masses of extra oxygen and extra filtration.

Regards,
Chris

Hi Marius,

I am sure you have seen my bakki shower on this thread. I have a similar one on my main pond which is situated after my settlement chamber and bio filter. A 0.25 kw pump picks up the water from the last chamber of the bio filter and pumps it through the bakki shower and cascades into a chamber where it is pumped via 0.75 kw to two sand filters, two bio filters, UV's and back to the pond. It has great results and works well. This was the only way I could make use of a Bakki shower as my pond is at the front door to the house and did not want an unsightly filter there.

I like all the photos it realy helps to get the creative juices going.
What and in what order would you put in the bakki shower as filter media
Also where can I get oyster shells?
If I have hard water (from borehole) would I need oyster shells?

According to me the order of media in a bakki shower does not make a real difference.

I like kaldness but there are so many media on the market, Alfagrog, Bio Balls, Hair curlers, Plastic shavings, etc etc. All with different surface area for media to grow. All depends on your budget and availability.

If you have a low pH, the Oyster shells will assist, if your pH is high, it will do nothing, except create a bit of surface area for bacteria, although the surface area is not good compared to other media.

The most symple bakki shower. Took me a 15 minutes to get it operational. R 56 per bin from Plastic for Africa, a few bucks for the bio media, and a lot more additional filtration.

Admin I know We are supposed to be serious here, but I guess We can make an exception for my bakki...
I made it out of old beer crates (free), rather extra large in size, media???? dont ask! Put inside what I could find here...broken bricks one line, gravel another...and izeki ... since I am the izeki lady.
I managed to swizz a foam collector at the end of it..

Very practical and cheap. I also considered using beer crates. If I take my crates back to the bottle stoor, I only get R 30.00 each. Much less than what I pay for at places selling crates. Problem, I don't drink that much beer.

I dont drink at all! I have a tenant...rents a night club from me. He gave them to me for free.
I get lots of freebies from my tenants...Imagine one sells cell phones....

Hey fischerchem

Looks good!

Question, where did you get that tray from and what media is that in there?

Hey Guys,

Ok so this is DEFINITELY the route I will be adopting in my new pond, rather than the conventional submerged type filter.

One question though, if my pond size is going to be about 35 000 liters, how many crates would I need to sustain the pond?

I was thinking about getting 2 towers of 5 crates each. (Bottom crate empty to allow water to drain back tot he pond, but the 4 above it will be fulled with bio balls.)

Now looking at some pics, it seems that this may be a tad overkill. I see most people only have 1 tower of about 4 - 5 crates for quite large ponds...

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Lee

Hi Lee,

I built a catchment area and suspended the bakkis above this. I think you would do very well with 2x 4tier (i have a 2x 2tier, and have not used my UV lights since. my pond is half the size of yours and overstocked). I have room for another tier, but the company that I bought the crates from are out of stock for now. I not a big fan of bio-balls, I prefer pumice and lava rock coz IMHO they are more porous and the bacteria seem to strive better in them). go to the market and get your hands on lots of veggie bags. make "pods" by filling veggie bags with other veggie bags - don't stuff them as you will need water to flow through them. I would suggest only these pods in the 1st tier if the bakki to trap bigger particles. in the second put 1 third pumice and pods on top of these and the remainder of the tiers fill them with 50% of pumice - this way you would only have to rinse the pods out and not the pumice. Pumice you can source from MUTIMEX in pinetown, they usually have a 25kg bag of 3-5cm stones for R255 ex vat.

all the best
V

V thanks a million. I really appreciate the feedback!

Some very nice Bakki showers ,

And so easy to make to