Someday hopefully I will look up links to support the claims below and write up a web page. But forums don't require footnotes and are rarely used so I'll just post away. Almost everything I know about TT I learned from others.
History I think is important. Pond keeping, filters, etc., have a long history. It evolves. If you only look at one small slice of time you may miss why one filter is looked at a certain way. Or worst, that just because a filter is considered a great filter today it will be tomorrow. I'll only post a tiny bit of the TT history.
My understanding of where the TT concept came from is Japan and that it was based on streams. There was a belief that streams had a positive impact on water quality. I don't know if the TT concept actually came from Japan or the stream connection was made after someone built a TT but it fits. Rushing crashing streams have been known to improve water quality at least in some ways. It goes so far back it's almost human instinct to think drinking from a rushing stream is better water than calmer water.
Many years ago, before TT and UV filters, Greg Bickel posted in a pond forum about how his 2 new ponds were very green. As part of the construction process he then constructed a stream between the two ponds. A short time later his ponds suddenly cleared. He made some posts that discussed why this might be. It's the first time I ever read anything about streams improving water quality in ponds. Greg Bickel was and is a very serious pond keeper and so his posts stood out.
A while after that, maybe years, I started reading posts by Dr Roddy Conrad and his TT. I think Roddy is a chemist if I remember, and he posted a lot of data. I'm guessing this was 15 years ago. Roddy was demonized in forums by forum gurus who considered the Skippy filter to be the best filter that could ever be created. It was forum heresy to suggest otherwise. Such wars are common in serious forums. Many forums were created because of such schisms. Forum moderators would censor and ban members for daring to post heresy and so members had no choice to go off and start there own forum. Interestingly in the years that followed the very same people who had demonized Roddy started to promote TT as if they invented the concept. Human nature is not pretty.
Any rate, Roddy posted lots of data about seeing amazing ammonia conversion, about 30 times as much as the current state of the art bio filter at that time, static (not moving) submerged media. In those days everything was about surface area. More surface area = more ammonia conversion. Nearly 100% of discussion was about increasing surface area. People had formulas saying X sq in of surface area = Y ammonia conversion. At the beginning even Roddy, I think, was using lava rock in his TT and saying surface area was the key. But over time it started to become obvious that surface area really wasn't very important at all. People were seeing much different ammonia conversion rates with different filters and surface area just didn't seem to be a deciding factor. Obviously surface area is a factor, but not a very important factor. Something else was going on.
Side bar: One thing I think we all missed at the time was that people with TT reported clearer water. This was before UVs so green water was a huge issue. The credit was given to lower nutrients. The concept that algae could be starved to death was still widely believed. At the same time people were reporting their TT were covered in string algae. These were all Koi ponds that had been string algae free because the Koi ate it and the ponds were kept very clean. Today I think the clear water was related to the string algae, but that's another story.
What was blowing people's minds was that a TT could be 30 times better at ammonia conversion than static submerged media. The surface area of both types of filters were basically the same.
The idea had been more surface area = more bacteria = more ammonia conversion.
The data showed increasing surface did not always increase ammonia conversion. Must be something else. The other thing TT users were reporting was KH levels dropping, a lot. Most were adding baking soda to support KH. That lead to a new kind of formula. They knew ammonia and KH were being consumed and they knew what these bacteria ate, basically ammonia, KH (carbon) and oxygen. Oxygen is a big component in conversion. They also knew you got max O2 into water at the boundary of air and water (the surface). That lead to the theory that TT were so good at ammonia conversion was an increase in O2.
Koi enthusiasts have one thing in common, a desire to own more Koi. When people started seeing other people using TTs being able to keep more Koi they just couldn't help themselves and had to leave dogma behind. No problem, they just started new dogma telling everyone TT were the best possible filter there could ever be. People suggesting moving bed and Shower filters met with the same demonizing from basically the same people. History repeats itself.
There have been many studies related to bacteria converting ammonia. It's important to many areas beyond ponds. One study, I think in France, counted the types of bacteria found on media in conditions like a TT, moving, thin, water. They found 90% of the bacteria on the media was heterotroph, what we call "bad bacteria". Only 10% were ammonia converting kinds. This is on "clean" media in a lab.
Looking at bacteria bio film...
The dark grey at the bottom is the media surface. The lighter grey "fans" is the bio film gel produced by the bacteria and the black dots are the bacteria. Arrow is water movement.
It doesn't take long to see that water movement thru these skyscrapers of bacteria is important. When dirt starts to clog these fans the black dots are cut off from ammonia, carbon and O2. Heterotroph (bad) type bacteria would grow in those clogged areas because it can live in low O2 and the stuff doing the clogging is mostly organic which it feeds on. Going by the population census of 90% heterotroph it's reasonable to guess 90% of "clean, washed" media is still 90% clogged with dirt (dead bacteria, old bio film, etc.)
Translate this to a pond environment, a tremendously more dirty environment, and it's reasonable to say the film in even a moving bed contains less than 10% ammonia converting bacteria compared to heterotroph. Static submerged media must be way less, almost none. And that is proven by the many studies, both formal and informal, that demonstrate orders of magnitude better ammonia conversion rates for non-static media. Increased water movement = increased conversion.
It also shows how few ammonia converting animals are actually needed. Submerged media filters may be converting ammonia only on the surfaces of pipes and near inlets and out flows. That would fit the 30x conversion rate seen. About 1/30th of a Skippy could be have fast moving water keeping media clean.I've never read of anyone testing this but it would be interesting to see how a Skippy performed with and without media.
The concept of the TT was a way to compress a stream into a smaller space, important in Japan, fish farmers, etc. Once people understood why a TT was more efficient they developed moving bed and Shower filters. Today Shower filters are considered the best bio filter as measured by conversion rate. And once again we do not completely understand how they work. Some people never measure nitrites which means the ammonia is going some place else. And some people measure reduction of nitrates which I haven't even heard any good theories to explain that result. People also haven't been able so far to reproduce results like nitrate reduction. So far it seems it's the crashing water, it must be violent. Could be as simple as keeping the bio film even cleaner. Someday we'll know.
To me the definition of a Trickle Tower is media that is not submerged and has water running over it. That's it. Some people over the years have said it has to be a certain size, shape, or media, be shaded, have extra air holes....you name it. But none of those configurations were ever shown to be clearly better (until Showers). A stream could be considered a TT. A small pile of rocks with water running over it is a TT. Beyond that we would be talking about increasing conversion rates. Different size rocks, amount of water, size of the pile, etc., would effect conversion rate. But we'd be talking about something that is only 20 times better than submerged or 35 times. Bottom line the worst TT is many times better at conversion than static submerged media.
The Shower filter, which is basically several TTs stack on top of each other, are better conversion than TT. Current wisdom says a Shower increases O2, but this is based solely on what we learned from TT. In TTs increased O2 increased conversion. Therefore Showers' increase conversion must be due to increased O2. Narrow thinking and history repeating. Data coming from Showers doesn't seem to be pointing to O2. Ot could be more O2 is doing something other than feeding bacteria. Maybe bacteria aren't the primary converters. Nothing definitive yet.
To me a filter is a tool. It isn't my child that I have to defend at all cost. As long as I let data show me attributes I'm free to pick whatever filter system that's right for the pond owner's goals. Ammonia conversion is only one factor.
I picked the story of Trickle Towers only to show one element of pond keeping. These things didn't just appear out of the blue the moment you first read about them. There's a history. There have been lots of debate, some even constructive. Opinions can be whatever a person likes. Data can proven or disproven. When you buy a car which should you care more about what your neighbor says, that his car runs on water and gets 10000 mpg? Or data from actual tests? Why should ponds be any different?
Most ponds I've ever run had no constructed bio filter of any kind. But still nice to know what tools are available.
History I think is important. Pond keeping, filters, etc., have a long history. It evolves. If you only look at one small slice of time you may miss why one filter is looked at a certain way. Or worst, that just because a filter is considered a great filter today it will be tomorrow. I'll only post a tiny bit of the TT history.
My understanding of where the TT concept came from is Japan and that it was based on streams. There was a belief that streams had a positive impact on water quality. I don't know if the TT concept actually came from Japan or the stream connection was made after someone built a TT but it fits. Rushing crashing streams have been known to improve water quality at least in some ways. It goes so far back it's almost human instinct to think drinking from a rushing stream is better water than calmer water.
Many years ago, before TT and UV filters, Greg Bickel posted in a pond forum about how his 2 new ponds were very green. As part of the construction process he then constructed a stream between the two ponds. A short time later his ponds suddenly cleared. He made some posts that discussed why this might be. It's the first time I ever read anything about streams improving water quality in ponds. Greg Bickel was and is a very serious pond keeper and so his posts stood out.
A while after that, maybe years, I started reading posts by Dr Roddy Conrad and his TT. I think Roddy is a chemist if I remember, and he posted a lot of data. I'm guessing this was 15 years ago. Roddy was demonized in forums by forum gurus who considered the Skippy filter to be the best filter that could ever be created. It was forum heresy to suggest otherwise. Such wars are common in serious forums. Many forums were created because of such schisms. Forum moderators would censor and ban members for daring to post heresy and so members had no choice to go off and start there own forum. Interestingly in the years that followed the very same people who had demonized Roddy started to promote TT as if they invented the concept. Human nature is not pretty.
Any rate, Roddy posted lots of data about seeing amazing ammonia conversion, about 30 times as much as the current state of the art bio filter at that time, static (not moving) submerged media. In those days everything was about surface area. More surface area = more ammonia conversion. Nearly 100% of discussion was about increasing surface area. People had formulas saying X sq in of surface area = Y ammonia conversion. At the beginning even Roddy, I think, was using lava rock in his TT and saying surface area was the key. But over time it started to become obvious that surface area really wasn't very important at all. People were seeing much different ammonia conversion rates with different filters and surface area just didn't seem to be a deciding factor. Obviously surface area is a factor, but not a very important factor. Something else was going on.
Side bar: One thing I think we all missed at the time was that people with TT reported clearer water. This was before UVs so green water was a huge issue. The credit was given to lower nutrients. The concept that algae could be starved to death was still widely believed. At the same time people were reporting their TT were covered in string algae. These were all Koi ponds that had been string algae free because the Koi ate it and the ponds were kept very clean. Today I think the clear water was related to the string algae, but that's another story.
What was blowing people's minds was that a TT could be 30 times better at ammonia conversion than static submerged media. The surface area of both types of filters were basically the same.
The idea had been more surface area = more bacteria = more ammonia conversion.
The data showed increasing surface did not always increase ammonia conversion. Must be something else. The other thing TT users were reporting was KH levels dropping, a lot. Most were adding baking soda to support KH. That lead to a new kind of formula. They knew ammonia and KH were being consumed and they knew what these bacteria ate, basically ammonia, KH (carbon) and oxygen. Oxygen is a big component in conversion. They also knew you got max O2 into water at the boundary of air and water (the surface). That lead to the theory that TT were so good at ammonia conversion was an increase in O2.
Koi enthusiasts have one thing in common, a desire to own more Koi. When people started seeing other people using TTs being able to keep more Koi they just couldn't help themselves and had to leave dogma behind. No problem, they just started new dogma telling everyone TT were the best possible filter there could ever be. People suggesting moving bed and Shower filters met with the same demonizing from basically the same people. History repeats itself.
There have been many studies related to bacteria converting ammonia. It's important to many areas beyond ponds. One study, I think in France, counted the types of bacteria found on media in conditions like a TT, moving, thin, water. They found 90% of the bacteria on the media was heterotroph, what we call "bad bacteria". Only 10% were ammonia converting kinds. This is on "clean" media in a lab.
Looking at bacteria bio film...
The dark grey at the bottom is the media surface. The lighter grey "fans" is the bio film gel produced by the bacteria and the black dots are the bacteria. Arrow is water movement.
It doesn't take long to see that water movement thru these skyscrapers of bacteria is important. When dirt starts to clog these fans the black dots are cut off from ammonia, carbon and O2. Heterotroph (bad) type bacteria would grow in those clogged areas because it can live in low O2 and the stuff doing the clogging is mostly organic which it feeds on. Going by the population census of 90% heterotroph it's reasonable to guess 90% of "clean, washed" media is still 90% clogged with dirt (dead bacteria, old bio film, etc.)
Translate this to a pond environment, a tremendously more dirty environment, and it's reasonable to say the film in even a moving bed contains less than 10% ammonia converting bacteria compared to heterotroph. Static submerged media must be way less, almost none. And that is proven by the many studies, both formal and informal, that demonstrate orders of magnitude better ammonia conversion rates for non-static media. Increased water movement = increased conversion.
It also shows how few ammonia converting animals are actually needed. Submerged media filters may be converting ammonia only on the surfaces of pipes and near inlets and out flows. That would fit the 30x conversion rate seen. About 1/30th of a Skippy could be have fast moving water keeping media clean.I've never read of anyone testing this but it would be interesting to see how a Skippy performed with and without media.
The concept of the TT was a way to compress a stream into a smaller space, important in Japan, fish farmers, etc. Once people understood why a TT was more efficient they developed moving bed and Shower filters. Today Shower filters are considered the best bio filter as measured by conversion rate. And once again we do not completely understand how they work. Some people never measure nitrites which means the ammonia is going some place else. And some people measure reduction of nitrates which I haven't even heard any good theories to explain that result. People also haven't been able so far to reproduce results like nitrate reduction. So far it seems it's the crashing water, it must be violent. Could be as simple as keeping the bio film even cleaner. Someday we'll know.
To me the definition of a Trickle Tower is media that is not submerged and has water running over it. That's it. Some people over the years have said it has to be a certain size, shape, or media, be shaded, have extra air holes....you name it. But none of those configurations were ever shown to be clearly better (until Showers). A stream could be considered a TT. A small pile of rocks with water running over it is a TT. Beyond that we would be talking about increasing conversion rates. Different size rocks, amount of water, size of the pile, etc., would effect conversion rate. But we'd be talking about something that is only 20 times better than submerged or 35 times. Bottom line the worst TT is many times better at conversion than static submerged media.
The Shower filter, which is basically several TTs stack on top of each other, are better conversion than TT. Current wisdom says a Shower increases O2, but this is based solely on what we learned from TT. In TTs increased O2 increased conversion. Therefore Showers' increase conversion must be due to increased O2. Narrow thinking and history repeating. Data coming from Showers doesn't seem to be pointing to O2. Ot could be more O2 is doing something other than feeding bacteria. Maybe bacteria aren't the primary converters. Nothing definitive yet.
To me a filter is a tool. It isn't my child that I have to defend at all cost. As long as I let data show me attributes I'm free to pick whatever filter system that's right for the pond owner's goals. Ammonia conversion is only one factor.
I picked the story of Trickle Towers only to show one element of pond keeping. These things didn't just appear out of the blue the moment you first read about them. There's a history. There have been lots of debate, some even constructive. Opinions can be whatever a person likes. Data can proven or disproven. When you buy a car which should you care more about what your neighbor says, that his car runs on water and gets 10000 mpg? Or data from actual tests? Why should ponds be any different?
Most ponds I've ever run had no constructed bio filter of any kind. But still nice to know what tools are available.
