Biological Bubble-Bead Filters

Building an effective bio-mechanical filter is not tough, making one that is easy to maintain was the challenge. What is the single most important element to a healthy koi pond? Filtration! What often represents the most work in owning a koi pond? Filtration! Where do many pond builders cut comers? Filtration!

It has been said over and over again. The single most important element of koi keeping is water quality, and water quality is a product of good waste treatment. Somehow we must remove the waste products produced in our ponds.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Dr. Ron Malone, an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Louisiana State University. in Baton Rouge Louisiana.

Over the past 12 years, his team of researchers have invested over $750,000 in funding from the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program and the National Coastal Resources Research and Development Institute, studying biological filtration systems.

BUBBLE WASHED BEAD FILTERS

PROPELLER WASHED BEAD FILTERS

They have focused on the development of cost effective water treatment approaches for use with high density aquaculH ture production facilities. The result of this effort is a series of head filters ranging from aquarium size to a unit that can handle the largest whale exhibits.

Dr. Malone, who leads the project, spent the day with me and took me step by step through the development and operation of these new filters. He told me that when he began the prqject 12 years ago, they started working with flooded gravel beds, similar to what is used widely in our hobby. As they studied the workings of this type of filter, they saw that the surface area of the media was not efficiently being used, and that the systems were very difficult to clean.

In their research, they studied the entire gamut of filtration media and filter designs. (An interesting story in it's own right). The goal was to find a media that would provide a high specific surface area for biofilm development in a small amount of space (in cubic feet) and to develop a filter design that would be easy to clean and cost effective.

They found that a spherical plastic bead, approximately 1/8" diameter (half the size of a pencil eraser), was the media of choice. The beads they use are made from food grade low density polyethylene plastic and they float. The beads provide a great deal of surface area for bacteria growth - about 400 square feet of surface area for every cubic feet of beads. This compares to around 100 for typical pea gravel, and 125 for bio-balls. And, since they are very durable they never have to be replaced.

They discovered that a floating bead worked particularly well, since the beads would pack into a static bed at the top of a filter chamber, providing the pockets to trap particles and grow bactena, much like an under gravel filter in an aquarium.

Then, when the filter requires cleaning, they turn off the pump and agitate the beads to break free the solids. The solids are then flushed out the bottom of the filter. In their commercial designs, called prop wash systems, they used a large chamber capable of holding 6 to 200 cubic feet of beads.

The units are cleaned by a powerful propeller system which intermittently agitates the beads within the filter, shearing off excessive biofloc (loose bacterial colonies) and releasing captured solids. When the propellers are stopped, the beads float to re-form the filtration bed while the solids settle in an internal settling cone forming a thick sludge. The sludge is removed from a drain at the bottom of the cone. Only sludge is removed so the water loss associated with the cleaning process is negligible.