I’m currently participating in a koi keeping contest to see how my system pars with other systems so far.

Today is (October 6^th) and after the rather huge water change I tested my water parameters again and the results were pH 7, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10 mg/l (probably due to dilution), and TDS 81. I’m currently participating in a koi keeping contest to see how my system pars with other systems so far. So beginning on October 6^th I’ve increased my feeding regime from 3 handfuls @ 3 times a day to 2 handfuls @ 5 times a day. In the evening I noticed the water becoming a bit murky, but I let the system do its work. By Tuesday morning the water was clear again and I repeated the new feeding regime. This time the water was still clear in the afternoon. I plan to give my Koi a rest from excessive feeding every Wednesday and Sunday, so I will not feed the Koi on those days. I also plan to give the prefilter (I consider chamber 1-3 all prefilter, even though Japmats also function as biofilter) a quick backwash every Tuesday and Saturday night.

Anyway, I believe the cyanobacteria problem that is covering the Biocenosis baskets is now just a matter of time before it will be gone from the Anoxic filter and 4 more of my BB’s should mature by November 5^th and the rest is targeted to mature by December 5^th  if everything goes as planned. Indonesia should be entering its rainy season soon, so it should be interesting to see how the pond will react to the heavy rains we get here with lower temperatures and less sunlight. My next focus or should I say target, would be improving the redox potential of the pond along with GH and KH respectively. I already have a GH and KH test kit now so this should be interesting to see. The device for measuring redox potential is still quite costly for me at the moment but will try to get one and a silver platinum probe too. Still not sure what the ideal numbers should be, but if memory serves me right between 225-375 mV ready is considered to be in a safe range. My goal is to strive for a better environment for my Koi to win the Koi keeping contest. According to Dr. Novak better things are yet to come.   

Yogas