Nexus are over rated and k1 is in fact not that good when it comes to dealing with large amounts of waste.

Hi everyone, 

I have been running my Nexus 200 and nexus easy pod for around 3 years now, and this is the first year I have had a good run with feeding regular amounts throughout the day, due to the high temps we have had for a change compared to the last 3 years or so! 

 

Now the problem is my nitrite which I have mentioned before, it has hardly been 0.0 all year and tends to hang around 0.25 to 0.5, I backwash every 3 days and top up with purified water when I do this, I have spoken to a couple of dealers regarding this and they seem to think Nexus are over rated and k1 is in fact not that good when it comes to dealing with large amounts of waste, they seem to think the surface area of k1 is not large enough for large amounts of nitrifying bugs to accumulate on.

 

I was thinking of adding a trickle tower to try and smooth out the problem, but one dealer said not to waste my money and change the k1 to a new filter media he has brought out that has 6 times the surface area compared to k1, he told me to wait until the winter to change over the media when it will not stress out the Koi as much, I’m kind of confused on what to do any suggestions? And have you heard something similar regarding Nexus and Nitrite problems?

 

Regards,



Steve


Also on the same forum...

My nexus 310 is in its third year, and has been great, with readings good and clarity acceptable. This year I raised the temps and increased feeding to 6-7 times a day. The nexus has let me down big time, nitrite is low but never gets to zero, but he worst aspect has been the water clarity, from lovely clear water at the beginning of June, to water so cloudy, I cannot see the bottom.

At the moment I am putting floss in the exit chamber to try and clear the water, but it is blocking after only six hours.

There's not much else I can do at present, but next year may be expensive, as I have to rethink my entire filter system.

Mark

  

This is the inside of a Nexus 310 filter…see the bacteria’s polymeric adhesive on the K1 plastic medium turn brown from detritus.

 This is a question being asked on a Koi forum. As expensive as these filters are: Don't you think after being out since 1985 that all the problems would've been ironed out by now? We the hobbyists are not the Beta testers of manufactures! It just is very disappointing to read that after 28-years these filters should run like clockwork with no problems at all to the hobbyist. This is exactly what happens when research and development is not done like I did on the Anoxic filtration system. The only difference is; a Nexus filtration system here in the U.S.A. will could cost you, as much as $5000 by the time you get all the add-ons you need. 



This is exactly why I went through so much trouble with R&D and making this system of mine work and did all the testing on it for years before it was brought out to the public Too many hobbyists out there that are new to the hobby, buy filtration systems that don't quite work as advertised and then they are stuck with them. I remember one woman telling me, "I wish I would've known about your filtration system before I bought mine, but now I must make mine work because I paid so much for it!"  



Surface area! No matter how expensive or efficient a filter is the total surface area of your medium needs to exceed that of the available foodstuff for the metabolizing bacteria to live on. This is why small filters always run into problems if the hobbyist does not have enough foresight on how big the future growth of their animals will be and food consumption those same animals will eat and their byproducts. We haven’t even touched on unforeseen insults, like example when the Raccoons emptied the automatic food dispenser into my pond. It’s better to have too much filtration than not enough.

http://drklnovak.blogspot.com/2013/06/can-your-ponds-filter-hold-up-to.html

 

The hobbyist above got away with not having a large enough filter because of cooler temperatures and the slower metabolic rate (BMR) of his Koi. But once the ponds temperatures began to elevate to those of warmer climate ponds (Like we have here in the Midwest of the U.S. where pond temps can get + 80F°-26.7C°) then the accelerated metabolic rate of the Koi and the amount of available food given exceeded that of the filters capacity to neutralize those insults; this also happens when filter begin to clog. So don’t expect miracles from pond filtration systems that have a small footprint. A 24”- 60.96cm Koi can eat 183-grams of food a day. That would be about 6% of its body weight which is the same weight as a 10” Koi that weighs 8oz.-226.79g. and/or 3.5 lbs. - 1.58kg of food a week! 
 

Anoxic Filtration System ®

February 02-2005-2013

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