Doghouse Riley

This is really for those who “read rather than post” those who make up about 75% of people reading this board at any one time and is not intended as a criticism of members set-ups which I’m sure work equally well.
We often get posts about filters or pumps failing to work causing problems. This can be for a variety of reasons as there are so many ways of achieving efficient filtration.
When I got into this in 1986, the new smaller filters were just coming onto the market, as were expensive vortex chambers. I joined the Northern Koi Society before I started to convert my gold fish pool and took advice from some long time koi-keepers, which was, basically;

"You don’t want any of that new fangled nonsense son, what you want is a bottom drain to a pump sump and a filter using foam and hair rollers as a medium. Don’t bother with a vortex chamber, a water butt from B&Q will work just as well.”

Hair rollers were expensive, Flowcore had only recently come on to the market, so much so I drove down to Telford where they made it and filled my Renault 5 GT with bags of it, I practically had to sit on the stuff when I drove home.

Now to some, my filter will look like the engine room of the Titanic, but we’re talking 25 year-old technology here. That’s why I’ve an 8 X 10ft room at the back of my garage which houses the filter and my 300 gall “hospital tank” and filter.
Inside this header tank I have a fifth outlet with a sweep bend in it with a Hozelock nozzle connector in it. This is connected to the filter of my indoor tank. By turning the bend slightly I can lower the nozzle into the water and thus trickle change my 300 gall indoor "hospital tank" In this way I can pretty much replicate the water quality of my pool in the tank once I start up its filter pump.

My sump is a 40 gall water butt with the filter pump suspended 2ft from the bottom (as advised).

When I took this video, I hadn’t purged the sump for three days, (it’ll get done later today or tomorrow when it stops raining. I do it twice a week which takes no more than a few minutes) so there will be some detritus in the bottom of the sump.

Anyway, this is the clarity of bottom water before it goes into the filter. There's just a few tiny flecks which you may be able to see.
You’ll see a few dribbles of water down the front of one of the top chambers as I had two goes at recording this, as the first time I banged my head on the roof of the room!
I’ve not had a leak in there since I built it. (I could have phrased that better, couldn't I?)

The header tank does have a lid and a cover for the front, I cut a hole in it so I could occasionally see the four supply tank connectors in which there are short lengths of polypipe which I can raise or lower a fraction to balance the flow to the two spreader bars in each of the two sets of tanks.


My point is, very little course solids get anywhere near my filter, they are mostly removed before the process. However this is an old system and I guess unlike most modern set-ups.

Water Quality - YouTube


For anyone who has not seen the workings of a sump, (and are still reading this) here are a couple of videos.


Filter Pump Sump - YouTube

Koi Pool Sump Purging - YouTube

__________________
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners!
I don't like them myself, they're pretty bad,
I grieve over them on long winter evenings."

Davej

Hi DH

Things have moved on a little in the last couple of decades but good to see it works for you.

Guess some of the fish have been pampered for years, how big are they and what's the oldest?

Dave

Doghouse Riley

__________________
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners!
I don't like them myself, they're pretty bad,
I grieve over them on long winter evenings."