C hecking out my koi pond today found that the pond water clear up further. I am now able to see the base of the 5 feet deep pond very clearly. This is an indication that the bio filter of the Vortex has kicked in. From this point onwards, I will increase feeding and consistantly feed 3 kg of koi food daily to my koi for the next few weeks and monitor the water quality regularly. We shall see if the Vortex is able to cope with this load.
With 10 tons pond running on two Vortex Chambers, the pond water finally clearing up today. The filter has been running over a period of more than one month. The bacteria in the bio chamber appear to be matured. The next thing to do is to monitor the nitrate level in the pond water. Very soon, I will have to re commission the original underground filter so that I can restart my Trickle Filter which has been idling for the same period of time. Hence, the Vortex is working well.
The two Vortex filter that I have installed for my Koi Pond has been working for a few weeks now. I am now testing the Vortex by turning off my existing filter to see if those two Vortex is able to cope with my 10 tons pond. Water has cleared up slightly but remain greenish. I shall allow the vortex to mature over a period of longer time, possible three month before making any conclusion.
Feeding amount is minimal and will slowly increase back to normal level when the bio filter mature. Will post the result soon.
Cheers
The installation of Vortex was done and completed in 3 hours and the Vortex was commission 30 minutes after the completion of installation. Some of the pictures of the completed Vortex are as below :-
After more than 10 years of keeping koi, I finally decided to add Vortex Filter to my pond system to increase the water filtering capacity. Two large capacity Vortex Filter Chambers were purchased locally.
The Vortex are 4′ tall about 3′ in diameter and each Vortex has two compartment, top and bottom section. The Vortexs are filled in the following manner :-
1) First Vortex is completed filled with brushes, all together 43 of them of 24 inches long each. The bottom section of this Vortex is filled with 20 brushes where the top section has 23 of them. This Vortex will serve primarily as the settlement chamber or prefilter to removed heavy solid waste.
2) The bottom section of the 2nd Vortex is filled with 25Kg of Bio Ring. The top section is filled with 25Kg of sea shells. Both Bio Ring and Sea Shell will serve as filter medium for biological filter. The sea shell will also serve as buffer against PH fluctuation in pond water.
The inlet and outlet of the Vortex is 4″ PVC pipe. A 150watt Tsurumi Submersible Pump is being used to feed water from the pond to the Vortex. Some of the pictures of the Vortex setup as below :-
Installation will commence soon and I will post the overall cost and installation time required in the near future.
The same posting will also be added to the Koi Forum in time to come. Upon completion of the setup, the Vortex will serve the 12 tons pond and I will monitor its performance to see if the Vortexs alone is enough for the 12 tons pond water.