Main Picture Above: Hydrosphere ponds
The Answers Here Below
Organic wastes in the biofilter allow heterotrophic bacteria which feed off these wastes to compete with nitrifying bacteria for oxygen and living space. Heterotrophic bacteria grow a lot faster and can present a danger in that they might significantly deprive the nitrifying bacteria of enough oxygen in order to break down dangerous ammonia via the nitrogen cycle, the cycle of aquatic life. The heterotrophic bacteria in turn produce ammonia as a result of their using the organic wastes as an energy source.
Other Nasties In Your Pond
Other nasty by products can be formed. This can get seriously complicated. In essence, what happens is that as the heterotrophs break down the organics, the process actually takes place in several steps. At each stage, some of these organics and their by products are dissolved in the pond water. This increases the DOC (dissolved organic content). This leads to more heterotrophs, of which some such as aeromonas and pseudomonas which are pathogens – not something we want at all.
Then we get secondary infestation of ectoparasites which feed off these bacteria. Add some stress to your Koi, and bang! you have an infection/infestation that wipes out half your Koi in zero time. It happens more often that you care to think. A diseased Koi is a sign of a serious problem in your pond, often directly as a result of poor filtration (in itself often a result of bad information/poor understanding of the causes).
A high DOC in itself is not dangerous. The consequences of having a high DOC are.
But it is under anaerobic conditions that organic solids can become really dangerous. Anerobic conditions are a haven for pathogens and are suitable for conditions under which proteins are broken down into toxic substances that can quickly build up to lethal levels. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: bad smells have no place in a Koi pond. If you are smelling something disgusting when you are cleaning whatever mechanical filter you are using, you have or shortly will have a big problem. Clean it more regularly!
It should be clear that if the organic solids are removed from a Koi pond, most of the problems associated with them will be removed as well. I started part one of this article by commenting on how much work this is. I see Koi keepers with their arms up to their shoulder digging into their sand filter sand swirling it around to try and dislodge the gunk that attaches itself to the sand – this after a backwash of 15 minutes! Ugh. Sand filters! Not worth the effort, completely aside from the expense of running them (electricity guzzling devices – just ask your pump) and the biohazard they present to your Koi. Yes, you read correctly – biohazard!
Vortexes are better, but they have to be well designed and meticulously specified to be reasonably effective. They are no where nearly as effective as sand filters in extracting solids however, not that this is a justification to use a sand filter let me hasten to add! Also, the solid material remains to a large extent in intimate contact with the pond water. If left alone for a few days this can represent a significant contribution to the DOC and the consequential pathogen loading in the Koi pond. But vortexes are easier to clean and can be done so relatively quickly.
The Answer solves all solid waste problems. It has been designed to do one thing and one thing only – remove solids from intimate contact with Koi pond water. It does this most effectively when fitted to a Nexus where solids are effectively isolated from the Koi pond water and can rot, dissolve and sludge awsy with far less effect on the pond that with any other system. Not that you’d want to do this, but your pond will be far better off with a Nexus/Answer combination than with any other system on the market. Period.
How It Works
The way it works is to act as a drain that is lined with a very fine stainless steel mesh. It’s self cleaning so as the mesh clogs up with organic solid debris, it gets washed off via a small backwash pump. The solids that are washed off in this way slowly work themselves down the mesh until they end up in dead space – non moving water – in which their only option is to slowly settle out. It doesn’t matter how long it takes them to settle out – because there is no where else for them to go. And then it’s a simple purge to drain these solids and any heterotrophic/anaerobic/pathogenic bacteria and/or parasites from the Koi pond system completely. Makes for great fertiliser I might add.
The impact of the Answer on Koi keeping is significant. It removes all solid organic material of a significant size and in turn lowers the DOC to levels that are within manageability even within your biofilter stage. This lowers pathogen counts, it lowers ecto-parasite counts as a result and it significantly improves the quality of the water feed to the bio filters where the nutrifying bacteria don’t have to worry about competing with an overload of heterotrophic bacteria keen to start feeding on the organic solids that end up neatly trapped in the bio filter stage.
Does it make sense?
You bet it does! That’s why it’s called the Answer. Of some interest is that it cost just over a million pounds to develop and put into production. That’s a lot of faith in any business.
Did I also mention that the maintenance on it is just about zero? OK, let me retract that: a purge once a day of a few seconds is required but when it comes to the alternative of mucking out sand filters and such like once a day (preferable) or once a week (more likely!), then this opening of a valve for a few seconds amounts to just about zero as far as I am concerned! Call me lazy but I like that. Even if you miss a day, it’s really not going to be a disaster (think about when you go away and you need someone to look after your Koi – can you imagine anyone you know mucking out your filter for you??). Enough said!
Also nice to know is that Auto Purge valves are in the pipeline – imagine the maintenance levels when these start to ship? Finally. A self sustaining self cleaning self maintaining STABLE Koi pond. The less human intervention Mother Nature receives, the better she seems to handle things on her own.