Saturday, June 22, 2013

Can your ponds filter hold up to an unforseen disaster?


 
 

A  true story:

 

  About five years ago I had a fear-provoking experience with my automatic Koi feeder that is expeditious proof of the Anoxic filtrations ability and durability. At about 4:45 am I went out to see if all was well with the pond before going to work ,like I’ve done a thousand times before. However, on this morning the pond was a light color brown and you could not even see the fish one inch from the surface. 

   What had happened was a raccoon reached into the automatic feeder and emptied its entire contents of 21/2 lbs of Koi food into the pond just for the fun of it. My small skimmer was filled to the max and my prefilter going to the Anoxic filter was also in the same state. I called work and told them I would not be in that day and proceeded to net out the excess food from the ponds main body of water. My wife and I were both empting food out of the pond like digging dirt out of a hole.  

   I call to arms the sump pump and proceeded to evacuate the polluted waters as fast as I could. All the time we were digging out food and still seeing no Koi insight. I did not touch the Anoxic filter at all, nor did I empty any of its water. Only because my prefilter stopped most of the polluted food chunks before it reached the Anoxic filter. The filter water was brown but this was mostly very small particulate matter. 

  As the pond was empting, I proceeded to clean the prefilter and skimmer, as my wife kept up with the scooping of food waste. As the fish had no where to go except the bottom of the pond you cold see their backs poking out of the water before I turned the sump pump off. Remember, I have a very small pond and a 2400 gallon pond would have the equivalent of 5lbs of food dumped into it. 

  Everything was replaced and the main pond was refilled with fresh clean water, but never was the filtration system touched. Once everything was filled and ready to go, I fired up the Anoxic filter and waited to see the damage.  To my delight there was none, the filter took over as if nothing had happed at all. No Ammonia, Nitrites or Nitrates ever showed up in the following days or weeks ahead.  In fact for the next few days my Koi’s waste was the size of the biggest Night crawlers you have ever imagine in you life. You must also remember I did not stop feeding them, just because of this misshape they were still hungry. At one time I approached the pond and thought there was a small snake in the pond, it scared the… you no what out of me! 

  The Koi never got sick nor showed any side effects from their ordeal of such an overload of food being dumped into their habitat.  If this was a conventional filtration system I would have had to teardown the entire system and cleaned everything for a fresh start; because it would have clog every orifice in the system. Because I was using the non clogging Anoxic system this was not a concern. For a conventional system this would mean starting from square one in the middle of summer when it is a highly dangerous time with the heat and humidity we have in Chicago.
 
  I was now convinced that what I had discovered was a truly a remarkable system that once again prove itself to be superior in all aspect of filtration for very little outlay.

As I say: Sh - -  happens, and you better be prepared for the worst, at the most unexpected times from your pond and its filtration system.
 
 
 
 

Chicago Raccon's will eat every Koi you have and then some.

Anoxic Filtration Book... Still free on Apple's iBook store
 

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