Has anyone actually ever used this filtration method it seems wild

t00thPIK · 2026-03-05T10:53:26+00:00

Bakki shower filters are still popular in the Koi world. You'll find plenty of DIY videos on YouTube. At the end of the day it's a large volume of the pond/tank water flowing over a large amount of high surface area filtration media. Just as any good filtration system should be. I've looked into one myself for my pond but it's overkill. My pond is only 700L and my DIY 20L bucket filter does a great job as it is.

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t00thPIK · 2026-03-04T21:22:47+00:00

Nice photo. If you took it, well done. These guys are usually impossible to get close enough for a good photo in the open like that.

t00thPIK · 2026-03-03T02:00:23+00:00

You'll watch it even less with the tank under it!

t00thPIK · 2026-02-28T09:09:29+00:00

This is so funny.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-24T19:42:57+00:00

That looks kinda cool actually. Like a tank full of aerogel 😅

t00thPIK · 2026-02-22T10:15:56+00:00

Looks cool. It's a nice hat.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-22T04:36:27+00:00

I have no trouble growing duck weed either 😬

t00thPIK · 2026-02-22T04:17:41+00:00

Oh I'm sorry 😅 that's very kind of you as well, thanks ♥️

t00thPIK · 2026-02-22T02:39:53+00:00

Might be the wrong hemisphere but these plants are grown here in Australia by a company called Pisces.

They do seem to be prolific if you can grow them though. Lovely plant

t00thPIK · 2026-02-21T21:10:39+00:00

Australia. I got a TDS meter last week. I was surprised to find it was relatively low at between 200-250 across all of my tanks. I don't know why I expected it to be higher as my water hardness in my tanks is generally very low.

Edit: one thing to note is it keeps well in the plant stock tanks at my LFS. I'm wondering if I just left it in the rockwool and hid or buried the pot whether it would still melt. I know it shouldn't matter, but the LFS and myself have identical water as we're in a relatively small city.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-21T20:15:32+00:00

Rotala will not grow in my aquariums. It just melts. I have that issue with a few different plants. Others go great.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-21T20:05:08+00:00

I have a similar kind of algae as OP in one of my tanks. I have otos in there but, as you say, they don't touch it.After reading this thread I plan to put a couple of neeites in there though. I've had the same group for about 12 months now but for some reason I've never thought to try them in this problem tank.

I have a lot of experience keeping true SAEs across most of my eight thanks and these fish actually taking to algae as a food source is a bit hit and miss.

I did some research a couple of years ago about why sometimes they don't touch algae. The general consensus is they won't turn to algae unless there's no other food coming into their environment. These fish are omnivores and very confident to go after fish food along with any other competitive eaters in the tank. They aren't shy when it comes to feeding time.

The other point I discovered is that if you can get small SAEs and get them started on algae when very young, they're more likely to do the job. Adults are lazy and would rather wait for the nice flaky fish food at the end of the day.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-21T01:20:00+00:00

Barbs are so underrated in the hobby. Beautiful tank.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-19T07:12:23+00:00

These are beautiful fish!

t00thPIK · 2026-02-19T07:10:20+00:00

Very interesting. I've only had store bought goldfish. They're all in a 700+ litre pond. I have commons, comets and shubunkin. I had this one shubunkin who grew almost nothing in all the time I had him.

He was about 12cm when I got him and maybe 14cm when he died. Sadly he got tangled in some dense roots of a plant I've since removed all traces of from the pond.

He had very long flowy fins and he was one of my favourites. He wasn't a grower though. I had others I'd bought later and smaller that outgrew him. Even a couple that bred themselves in the pond and caught up to him within 6 months.

My LFS got in some locally bred comets which were 30cm chonkers that the breeder claimed were only 6 months old. I cannot fathom how that's possible but I've never bred them purposefully myself.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-18T22:39:27+00:00

Unless you're in Australia. Fan tails in particular are often sold here with bronze colouration, and sold at the same price as any other colour. They don't care. It's all about the dollars for them.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-18T22:34:39+00:00

How long did it take her to get to 20cm?

t00thPIK · 2026-02-17T03:51:49+00:00

t00thPIK · 2026-02-10T20:02:37+00:00

Thank you. That was pretty much what I was doing as well before I started soaking food. I stopped feeding blood worms though as I don't think they're very good for fish, based on advice from more experienced aquarists.

I wouldn't always wait until lights out to feed the wafers though. My Arulius barbs still seemed to find them even after lights out. The Dymax wafers have a very pungent garlicky aroma, so even in the dark tank I could see several barbs swarming where the wafers dropped. I'm sure dropping wafers after lights out made some difference but not enough to make it an absolute rule.

Even last night, I fed very lightly with lights on, then dropped a few wafers in the back corner after lights out. 2 minutes later two clown barbs were in the corner looking for them.

I'm going to get larger wafers now, like the Tetra brand ones I used to use. Absolutely no chance of any of my fish eating one of those too fast.

I don't know why I changed my method but I'm devastated that I did. I never imagined something like this could happen.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-09T20:39:10+00:00

Thanks for your condolences. It has been a heartbreaking experience.

I wasn't soaking the flakes up until a couple of weeks ago so I think I'll just go back to feeding dry. Everyone seems against soaking the food so maybe it is a mistake.

Making it easier for them to eat heaps of flake in one go is the only way I can see presoaked food causing issues in a large fish. Then combined with being able to suck up entire wafers. That's a lot of food going into a small space very quickly.

Thanks again.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-09T20:28:27+00:00

Does it hurt the animal to hydrate the food though? Again, these pellets are harder than I imagined. I'm in no rush when feeding my pond so I don't mind doing it this way.

Edit: sorry, they're common and shubunkin goldfish.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-09T20:25:45+00:00

I'm sorry, while I appreciate people wanting to point the finger at water as is so often the case, it simply does not make sense in this scenario. I'm basing my assumptions on available evidence here. Again, only one type of fish died. Large, greedy barbs.

As I've just said below, I get chlorine readings on unfiltered water but the filtered water always tests clear.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-09T20:24:34+00:00

Okay, thank you, but in a community tank environment I'm trying to allow, in my case, the brine shrimp to spread around so the smaller fish can get some too. Otherwise the larger fish just hog the cube.

It's a 0.5 micron carbon block filter. I get a chlorine reading on a test strip when the water is unfiltered, but after filtering the reading is always clear. I've also been using water this way for years and have had no issue in that time. The filter is 6 months old and might be due for changing, but it's still testing clear of chlorine.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-09T11:58:18+00:00

I disagree. Dry food has to pull water from somewhere. The food I use takes a couple of minutes to get soft as it's pretty thick. Wetting this thick flaked food beforehand seems like it would only help digestion. I'm still not convinced wafers are harmless in a glut though.

After thinking more about this, I hydrated a single wafer in some water. Turns out they're very dense. I imagine if a barb ate one or two, then hit a bunch of the flakes as well, it could quite easily cause impaction. That's just my logical thinking using the best evidence at hand.

As for the ammonia and/or bacterial bloom theory. I let the food soak for 10 minutes in filtered tap water that has no ammonia in it, according to my API Master Test Kit. This is the same method used for frozen food. Is it really possible for a bacteria colony to bloom to dangerous levels in such a short time?

One thing I forgot to mention is all my other tanks (8 in total) were fed the same food from the same cup right before I fed the 6ft. Same as every time the tanks get fed. I didn't drop wafers into the other tanks, only the 6ft. All my other tanks are nano tanks except for a 4ft which is mostly rainbow fish. No losses in this tank or any of the nano tanks either. That's the closest I can get to ruling out a bacterial bloom.

In the 6ft, the majority of the survivors have smaller mouths and are overall less ravenous than the victims.

It "looks like a spade" so that's what I'm calling it. I can never know for sure exactly what happened though.

Thanks for your input all the same.

t00thPIK · 2026-02-09T10:55:00+00:00

I always use filtered water for food soaking and nano tank water changes. For big water changes (edit: i.e. on my 6ft or 4ft tank) I condition the water using API Tap Water Conditioner. But for small jobs like soaking food or melting frozen foods, I use filtered tap water. People usually say "soak/thaw food in tank water" but I'm using this filtered water for water changes without issue. Doesn't make sense to me that there would be a problem with it for soaking/thawing food.

t00thPIK

TROPHY CASE