Interesting reading and I too, have wondered if a Bakki arrangement may be better that conventional wet filters. As I understand the concept, the actual through rates on a Bakki are between 0.5 to 1 times the pond volume every hour.
The through rate is exactly the same as a wet filter and the only difference between them would be the volume of air added through the bakki. I guess the Bakki is really an advanced trickle filter which, contrary to popular belief also operate with high through rates perfectly efficiently. It must be remembered that the actual term trickle, refers to the path water takes over the media rather than implying that the throughput is very low.
My only concern with Bakki or indeed trickle filters as a stand alone filter is solid waste. It is far better to try and seperate solid waste from the system before hand. I don't like the idea of pumping raw pond water directly to a bakki filter since it would break up the solids into very fine particles which neither a Bakki or Trickle filter could cope with. Indeed, the success of any trickle based filter rests upon pumping clean water through the filter, not dirty water containing disolved waste.
A combination of settling chamber followed by a Bakki may be an ideal system though. Experimentation is the only way to find out of course.
Posted on Mar 22, 2004, 9:31 PM from IP address 213.122.22.243