Waddy’s blog and video 02/03/14.
As an advance explanation of this video, the Koi pond in question is a very real pond that is running right now and anyone is welcome to view it by prior arrangement.
The Koi pond holds 16,500-gallons (75,000-litres) of water and has four strategically placed and totally independent bottom drains leading to the filter system.
Because of the exceptionally mild winter I am receiving here, the Koi are still being fed sinking foods such as boiled pearl barley and petit pois as can be seen on the video – all the waste you will see in the video is from pea shells, a few leaves and waste produced by the Koi.
As mentioned earlier, only ONE single-tier EPDM brush box and only THREE eMat cartridge blocks can easily handle 16,500-gallons (75,000-liters) of Koi pond water.
If you check the amount of waste being deposited into this single-tier EPDM brush box for over one week without cleaning it, then this should give you some idea as to its capabilities in preventing this amount of waste from entering the biological stage of the filter.
The video clearly shows the EPDM brush box being cleaned thoroughly (after seven days) by a gentle brush to both sides of the brushes and we can easily see all the waste exiting into the discharge box below as shown.
However, by removing the ‘clean’ brush box and hosing it down with a jet of water, this shows that the brush box is not as clean as first thought.
This is simply because of the VERY FINE dust that’s also successfully trapped in the fronds of the brushes.
Now please do observe the ‘filthy black’ water that’s produced entirely by this VERY FINE dust!
Not nice – is it?
Of course, this only goes to prove that the single-tier EPDM brush box is doing the job in hand that it was actually designed to do.
Perhaps I’ve failed to mention this before, but this single-tier EPDM brush box lasts indefinitely, it needs no electricity to drive it, it cannot possibly break down at any time – but it does cost the princely sum of £145.00, so please do bear this in mind if considering it – I have heard that there are some other options available?
In fact, the ‘entire’ mechanical stage, the ‘entire’ biological stage and the ‘entire’ hand-made container that these are all placed in, costs less than £1,500.00.
Sadly, like most other aspects of this hobby, there are many times when one needs to wet one’s hands – irrespective of what filter system one decides to choose.
Please enjoy, Waddy.