Brian Woodcock's pond using an AFS.

https://plus.google.com/117600850419794638639/posts/dXysqWTamdY

To take a closer look at Brian Woodcock’s pond in motion, click the link above to see his beautiful Koi and very clean water using an Anoxic Filtration System integrated with a Bead Filter.

Yogas’ update of his ponds AFS with the addition of a new Bakki Shower Filter. Is the Bakki Shower really helping, or is it just a hindrance?

UPDATE 6-9-14

Hi…Dr. Novak,

I hope all is going well for you? As you know a few months ago I installed a Bakki Shower and as you have mentioned in your blog cyanobacteria started to grow back once again after its installation, especially on the top shelf/pier. Probably the Bakki Shower shown on your blog has cyanobacteria all over it because maintenance was neglected, so it did not get rid of it.

Expensive denitrifying media such as Bakki House Media has matured; it will have the same or similar facultative anaerobic bugs in it as in a biocenosis basket?

http://anoxicfiltrationsystem.blogspot.com/2013/06/normal.html

Well, here is my update and I just wanted to share my experience after I cleaned the top shelf of the BS filter. Right after I cleaned the Japmats and the Bakki Shower from the clogging cyanobacteria, I turned the pump back on and not long afterwards my pond went cloudy, something I have not experienced now in a long time since using the AFS. Horrible flashback memories of times when I was still using Japmats in my filter chamber(s), this would happen every time I cleaned one of the chambers out, and the cloudiness would clear up once again in a day or so.

 I used to hate having to clean my chambers during weekends because besides it being tiring, I would lose an entire weekend of enjoying the pond due to cloudy water. Since I’ve switched my filter chambers to AFS with Biocenosis Clarification Baskets, I have never experienced cloudy waters after backwashing the chambers again. As a matter of fact, I’ve forgotten all about how cloudy the water uses to get. So I was a bit stunned at first when it occurred once again after cleaning the Bakki Shower, fortunately memory served me well as I quickly realized what was happening with the dying off of needed bacteria. This is something I completely had forgotten about, that cleaning of a filter like a Bakki Shower means killing off the good bacteria along with cleaning the dirt as well.  Now the Bakki Shower had to reestablish its bacterial colonies again after malignance. So I took the situation as an opportunity to oxidize any growth stopping pheromone accumulation using PP (potassium permanganate) and also to stabilize the pond once more.

 Well I guess I’ll just have to put up with cloudy pond water and bacterial die-off whenever I have to clean a shelf in the Bakki Shower (I plan never to clean more than one shelf at once.) because I need the Bakki shower cooling capabilities and also optimizing DO levels to saturation point.

Oh yes, I recently had to apply Masoten (1) in my pond, no problems to the AFS and the Facultative bacteria it harbors. The situation in my pond has change drastically to one that now shows a visible shortage of the troublesome cyanobacteria now. The piping in the pond that is white, which I hoped would be camouflaged by the short cyanobacteria growth on it is now starting to show through again; where there are several spots on the PVC that no longer have cyanobacteria on it.

I’m pounding the pond now with high-protein Koi foods once again and so far no problems with parameters even though I am slowly increasing the amounts being feed. My fish go crazy every time I feed them; so much so that sometimes I worry one of them will get hurt in the feeding frenzy process. So now every time I feed them I have to make sure I spread it out on top of the ponds surface wide enough so that each fish can get its share easily without climbing on top of one another.

 Well, I guess that is all I can update for you at the moment. If there is anything you like to know on the progress of AFS in my pond please do not hesitate to ask.

Best regards,

Yogas

1:[Ed: Masoten Powder:  Is for parasites and should be administered at one gram to 220 gallons (USG) of pond water.]

This photo was taken from the Internet site Fish Lady (click link below to view and get more details.) to give an example of what a bacteria bloom looks like up close. This same thing can and will happen in a ponds when bacteria dies off from a good filter cleaning or when the filter is starved of available oxygen far too long. But this phenomenon will not transpire in a well establish AFS even if completely emptied and cleaned. As long as the BCB’s remains intact, there is nothing then to degrade turbidly of the water.

http://www.fishlady.us/cloudywater.htm

FYI on pond chemicals for BW and other algae's.

Quote: from a UK forum.

Originally Posted by brian1962  As you know i have been suffering with BW in the anoxic and what i did was to isolate it for a few days and gave it a dose of cba.......well 2 weeks on and its looking great  Brian

Brian I was having the same problem but I hung fire treating it as sure I read that it eventually goes when the bugs get up to speed and hey presto it is now dying off in both the filter and the pond so hopefully that should be it. It's been hard not putting anything in but this year I don't want to treat the pond unless I have to after I put nearly every chemical in the pond known to man! 

Sent from my iPhone using fat finger typing

Sent from my iPhone 5s

[Ed: CBA stands for Cloverleaf Blanket Answer, and is for persistent Blanketweed filamentous algae growth but to my knowledge is not sold in the USA and only in the UK.

However, the hobbyist that reapplies to Brian’s post, states that he held-fast on using any chemicals to eradicate the Blanketweed in his filter and pond to let the AFS mature and start making antibodies that will do the same thing. As these AFS start to mature in the UK and settle-in, so will the Blanketweed problems and its duration in the pond and filter will become shorter and shorter with time.

There are always circumstances where algae and cyanobacteria are more persistent than other years but the AFS will prevail in the long run without the use of chemical additives. The CBA states that it must be added to the pond eight times a year and best results will be seen after the second application of the chemical, but Brian will soon find out that once was enough and any additional use of the chemical CBA will not be needed henceforth.]




Photo taken with iPhone 5s in my garden.

I also would like to say thanks to all those that have contribute to the education of others on my blog ...

47,319 pageviews and 212 post latter… What does all this mean; well its been one year now since KKU (Koi Keepers Unleashed) in the UK closed its doors to its forum. After the forum was no more, I decided to start a blog and what better place to start a blog on than… Google, plus it was free and you can’t go wrong with free.

Now I know some of you are laughing at the small numbers of pageviews and I really don’t have that many followers to speak of, but this blog was not about how popular I became with imaginary likes or dislikes from readers to support my superego or id. It was about getting the word out about a filtration system that I thought would help the pond hobbyist(s) in saving the lives of their valuable aquatic pets. I say aquatic pets because not all hobbyists that use the AFS have just Koi or Goldfish as pets but some have turtles and frogs too.

I also found out that a lot of people that use an AFS are more “earth concuss” and enjoy the fruits-of-their-labors making things by hand. The AFS is not something you can just buy out of a box and plug in. It requires for the hobbyists to hand build the filter to their requirements and their imagination is the only thing holding them back from a simple easy to build filtration system to a very elaborate one that will rival the best filtration systems out there. In other words, pride of ownership that you did it and not someone else did it for you. That’s what makes this hobby so much fun, the enjoyment of satisfying ones own gratification of accomplishments.

The most looked at website to get information on the AFS has been Manky Sanke website in the UK.

http://www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/anoxic_filtration.html

                              

A special thanks to Dr. Franco of Italy for his experiments on the AFS, may he find happiness wherever he is, RIP.

I also would like to say thanks to all those that have contribute to the education of others on my blog that their dedication of photos, pond videos and filtration builds help get the message across to others better than I can alone. Shelly, Brian, Manky and Vogas’ to name a few; living in different parts of the world have done so much to help someone they don’t even know like myself. A big thanks for your contributions to this hobby in educating others so they may follow in your footsteps. It’s extremely hard to get the word out when there is so much opposition out there that for vindictive reasons alone some would like to see the AFS just go away! Too all my dedicated readers thanks for this first year of letting me bore you with my esoteric writings. It’s also great that Google allows people like me to blog for free and we must remember to keep the Internet that way forever.

Happy ponding,

Kevin