Bubble Bead Filters or Powerbead Filters

Bubble Bead filters or Powerbead filters are particularly suitable for Koi, especially where the pond has become a little bit overcrowded as the stock has grown, to help give clear and above all healthy water. They have the ability to remove the tiniest particles of detritus that can be forever in free-floating motion and not necessarily filtered out of the water in normal biofilters removing specks down to 10microns, but their main purpose is the breakdown of the pollutants in the water.

This specification pinpoints their speciality and their weakness in that the water has to be fairly clean and algae free before it gets to the bubble bead filter, otherwise it would soon clog up. They are not designed to handle solids of more than 2mm. So good ancillary equipment is necessary too.  A pre-filter is required on any submersible pump that is capable of handling solids of more than 2mm. Because they cannot cope with algae, ultraviolet clarifiers are an essential string in the filtration bow.

HOW BUBBLE BEAD FILTERS WORK

Water is pumped through the inlet and the inlet screen, flowing up through a floating bed of beads where filtration takes place. A coating of bacteria that has formed on the beads does the breakdown of the pollutants in the water. Any undigested particles remain in the chamber to be backwashed out to ‘waste’. On many models of Bubble Bead filter, this process occurs automatically when the pump is turned off. A one-way air inlet valve opens as the wastewater starts to flush out of the waste outlet, which starts the ‘bubble wash’. The beads tumble clean in frenzy of air bubbles, whilst dirt is drawn down through to the bottom chamber through the screen that traps the beads and the dirt is flushed to waste by gravity. The action is so gentle that the layers of bacteria that build up on the bubbles remains intact. The action of the bubbles not only helps with the cleaning action but also supplies the bacteria with the essential oxygen for their processing of ammonia compounds and nitrites.

After the backwash, on the manual models, you just turn the control valve to ‘RUN’ and the filter starts to refill. On the Hydraulic valve models, once the pump restarts, there is a final short rinse of the waste pipe work then the outlet closes automatically and the filter starts to refill. Once this happens the filtration continues as normal until the next backwash. You can add a timer for an automatic backwash.

HOW BIG does my Power Bead filter or Bubble Bead filter need to be?

Bead filters are sized by the maximum amount of dry feed pellets that is put into a pond on a daily basis. 1 cubic foot of beads can provide complete solids capture and nitrification of 1lb of dry pellets per day (that is if they are 35% protein).

The backwash for the filter on average flushes out 10 to 15 gallons of water every backwash. This can be just flushed onto the garden but a top up system of de-chlorinated water needs to be organised. Something like the Evolution Aqua De-Tox range of in-line tap water detoxifiers may be an idea.

Much of this information has been stolen and plagiarised from the Bubblebead filter website where you can find out  a lot more about what are probably the best filters of this type on the market.