Great insight into your ponds Ricky and a very simple solution to keeping koi 👍🏻. Quite a damning review on drums due to your experience with them. Looks like a QK15 you have on that pond so it will be struggling with the amount of loading in your commercial ponds. Could do with a bigger drum really. Overloaded drum = wash pump under alot of stress, more water changes which explains your water level issues you mentioned on a previous video, as soon as that screen gets any muck lodged in it then its just gonna make things even worse. Have you considered…. 1. Get rid of the snail issue blocking the spray bar nozzles - Header tank setup would be really easy to install. Small 15litre tank mounted on the top (connect a solenoid valve then you can place it higher than the drum for easy fitting/access). 2. Waste on dirty side mounting up on one side - i get the same issue on my grow on. Planning to split the bottom drain feed into both inlets to get the flow going on both sides and hopefully stop the waste piling up. Implementing changes like this will save you a fortune on maintenance overheads to compensate the huge utility bills you guys must be suffering with now. Feel really sorry for businesses like yours who are impacted so much by these increases. Government needs to sort it ASAP. Surprised to see you using those EA dechlor units. I always had problems with my mine letting chlorine through so i upgraded to a big blue.

Great video Ricky as always, totally with you on keep it simple, I have done for years and they work a treat not , whether many moons ago in" dealer systems" or now in my" hobby system", sometimes I think nowadays things are way over complicated ,but then if you a manufacturer with a "fancy system" you are wanting to push and sell these at end of day

I cant believe I've never clicked on your videos before they are very informative. I will get through all of them eventually lol. Keep doing what you doing ricky. The sleeping sickness video drew me in

Can't wait! Looking forward to this. Thank you.

Good video that, amazing results can’t be wrong. Really like the idea of spray bar return. It also lets people know like myself that it can be done without spending thousands of pounds on all the latest gear. Brilliant . Cheers Ricky 👍

Excellent walk though of what you're running there, Ricky. Good points about the drum jets needing regularly cleaning and the running cost of the larger variflow pumps. Things that people don't realise unitl they're too invested to turn back. 👊

Nice video 📹 very informative 👍. Enjoyed watching 👀

Filtration is one of those things that amazes me about this hobby. You have Japanese breeders and big time dealers that have the simplest filtration possible on the other side you have some hobbyists trying to build a damn transformer for filtration 😂 thanks for the information Ricky!

Thanks for the video. Agree with your points, but maintenance wise my drum probably from same factory. Yours cleaning every 4 minutes, mine cleaning every 35, So your weekly jet wash equates to my bi-monthly jet wash. In 2 years I've changed 1 float switch and one drum seal (UV degradation). Only ever had one blocked jet in 4 years of drum use. Have same problem with waste in inlet chamber and a small air stone solves that. Drum waste shoot itself gets huge waste build up and needs hosing fortnightly. They have too many design faults considering the initial outlay, but still a game changer, and worth the cost when winter comes and not having to clean mechanical media in the freezing cold.

Swap the 150 airtec (100w) for two 75’s (31w each) uses a third less elec. For just moving k1 I use multiple smaller air pumps. Also adds redundancy incase one breaks. I only use the bigger air pumps where you need the pressure so deep bottom drains etc. I have questioned my shower, added elec need33 to pump that high. I think I would rather have more k1 now tbh

As always Ricky great video and some great info 👍

Maybe if and when I return to the UK I will go the Nexus or drum+ MBF but for now I am pleased with the "alternative" system I built here in Italy. I think Riky is right when he states that there is no need to overcomplicate things. I have a 10k UK gallon pond single bottom drain gravity fed to a 750 liter sedimentation tub (plus another for the surface skimmer) where eight SunSun CTP 2800 pump the water to 20 square meters of bog filtration. The pumps each move a nominal 3000 liter/hour for only 10w so a total of 24000 l/h for only 80w. They only have to deal with about 3" head and very efficient used this way but get exponentially crapier the higher they have to push the water. May to October I feed about 1/2 kg a day and the sedimentation tank gets emptied/flushed once a week and that is all the water change the pond gets. I know there is a theorical ratio between volume of the pond/stocking and volume of filter/flow rate but I kind of eye-balled it and it seems to work, fish have been healthy and growing well and parameters are good (yes I am one of those paranoids with the Hanna checkers)

Need to be looking at how your running your drums if you need that much maintenance on them 🥴🤔

First class Ricky, Nice to hear and see someone talk honestly about filtration, that works. Without people shoving constantly down your throat, that you need to spend thousands of pounds on filtration for it to work and to get great results. Even heard people say, you will never get good water Quality and healthy fish without a drum. But somehow you have a simple and basic filtration that as always worked well with the prove of excellent results. Thank you, Ricky and Team.

Thanks for sharing Rick. What type of protection do you have in case of power cut-off?

It’s nice to see your set up interesting. For a normal stocked say 12 koi 3000 gallon pond what would you recommend for the mechanical side of the filtration side 👍👍

Hi Ricky, could you show how you make you own air rings for bio tanks. thanks

I love it Ricky you obviously stirred up a drum lovers hornets nest! 🤣. People need to chill and listen to what you said. Personally I can afford it and do have a drum on my pond, obviously I don't drive it like yours. For me the big advantages are: solid waste is removed from the water column within minutes (lowering the ammonia load) and how I run it it is largely maintenance free so I can go away for a few weeks and be confident that the pond is ok.

Very helpful ricky 👍 do you prefer the brushes to the filter foam/jap matting. Thanks + new subscriber

If you have good well water and solar well pump would it be cheaper to not have a filter and just do a water change as needed? Local farm here does a water change every 3-4 days in his over stocked ponds and he's a old timer been doing for over 20 years at least. You could even set the drain and intake on solenoid timers to do all the work.

wow just 1100g-1500g. makes you appreciate the basics 👍. the farms in Japan have thousands $$$$ worth of fish in their systems and most just use brushes and mats. they know what works. the fancy high tech filters have their place in the hobbyist side but like you said, they really aren't needed. for freshwater are these systems on a trickle? how often and how much water is changed?

Buy a drum where you can place the uv inside the drum, no need to jet wash the screen or use acid🙃

Ricky, are you using the water from the dirty side of the drum to clean the screen? Not had to clean my jets out for over a year.

At the end of the video Ricky, you mentioned submerged media, i dont have the space and hate showers as they are noisy and look awful tbh but like the concept of what they do, would submerging ceramic media work just as efficient?, or could you suggest an alternative set up instead of a shower for the same affect? Great vids btw 👌 cheers Paul

Cheers Ricky. This is Arvind from southern India. Nice to follow you on your latest trip to Japan on you tube. That Kansuke koi farm trip was just amazing. As per your guidance, have been feeding saki hikari growth 75% & colour 25% for the 45 koi in my Outdoor pond of 45,000 litre capacity. The fishes have grown from 30cm to 50cm+ on an average in the past 4 to 6 months with 5 times a day feed for 10 to 12 mins per feed. They are all Nisai. They have put on decent body shape & weight. My aim is to get them to 75 to 80cm. What should I do from now on Ricky? Continue with the same procedure or decrease the feed a bit?

Have you considered a wind or solar power system, to reduce your energy bills?

Don't think you covered the depths on the ponds. What depth are your normal ponds?

The drum is just undersized for your stocking levels, the flow rates of the drum will be based on normal stocking levels so not at all relevant to what you are needing to achieve, a bad representation of a great bit of kit!!

Let’s see the secret ponds with the weapons 😉😂🙄

How deep are these koi ponds?

Hi Ricky interesting video as usual. You mention drums could be overkill for most hobbyists. What filtration would you recommend and why. Mines 10,000 litres with a combi drum always having to adjust for it to run correctly . Used to run bottom drain into vortex then ea bead. Sometimes wish I had hadn’t changed.

Great insight, when you say k1? Are you actually using the EA branded stuff or a commercially produced mbbr media? if so Where do you get that? Interesting on thendrum I'm sure through all their testing they never considered a pond with your feeding levels.

Great insight Ricky, over 200 per month per set up for a shower 😒😮, have you tried one set up without a shower to see if there is a worthy benefit? I'd assume its not that big due to you having the k1 Chambers. Think I'll shut mine down soon for the winter and start it up in spring like I did last year. You didn't mention pond temp and heat?

To be honest don’t look like that Drum has been clean for awhile can’t see it gets that bad in one week ? Crazy 😜

For actual flow rates of your ponds, do you go by manufacturers rating (I.e. 10,000 lpm .), or do you physically measure the return flow into a bucket ( I.e. 15 litre bucket filled in 10 seconds.)?

As my old man used to say K.I.S.S.

i agree with the Oase drum as they are fully wet tested and are German high build quality and come with a THREE-YEAR warranty but with testimonials from genuine customers that have previously purchased a ?????? drum without mentioning any brands (as i will complement a good product/brand but will not knock a product or manufacturer that can simply alter/modify their product to overcome their issues) but i will give one BIG example 40watt amalgam UV a@ £49.00 from one manufacturer readily available or £145.00 from an exclusive manufacturer google it if you think i am FIBBING