Is this "skippy" setup crazy?

[skulkingghost]

I have a 4000 gallon pond with about 8 10" koi and a dozen comets. Currently being filtered by single 100 gallon skippy filter. It worked great last summer but after doing some research I was wondering about ways to improve it, is this a crazy idea?

My skippy currently has the water go in the bottom to a pvc "swirl bar" then hits a layer of quilt batting, then to bags stuffed with poly strapping.

My proposed idea:
Fill the bottom 12-18in with pea gravel for an upflow "trickle tower" effect then go to quilt batting with a few more rocks on top for. "Polishing" then go to the bags of quilt batting and stuff the top with water hyacinth.

Anyone doing anything similar?

 

[sissy]

Depends on if the water hyacinth will stay in the stock tank .Not sure how your outlets are set up but they will get sucked into them and clog them up .My filters are just down flow and then water comes up from midway and then out .I keep plants in mine .I had it just running back in at first years ago but hyacinth got sucked in outlets .front and back of filter last year and my other filter .The plant roots have to be trimmed .I tried the skippy idea and did not like the way it cleaned my water .Tried it for 3 months and took it apart and never looked back .My filters have been this way over 4 years now

 

[Shdwdrgn]

If you fill the bottom with pea gravel, you lose your swirl area. It doesn't look like much, but the empty area actually keeps the larger stuff moving around until it can break down, or until you drain it out the bottom. However if you could find some heavy-duty fine-mesh bags to put the gravel in, and lay them on a shelf about 6-8 inches above the bottom, this could be a very good setup... still allowing the swirl area, but then pushing the water up through the gravel for some great coarse filtration.

Hmm... now I gotta think about doing this in my filters...

Personally I feel the best way to use a skippy is to use it as part of an overall system. Mine only provides part of my filtration -- the rest is provided by a large number of plants in the water. Nature doesn't reply on only a single system, and neither should we!

 

[Koilady]

Hi King. Years ago we used to make our own bio-filters which were upflows. Some of our ponds were so green that we never saw our fish or the water had so much hair algae that fish were getting trapped and sometimes died. Not to mention the clogging of the pumps.
I was so happy when I saw the water start to clear and hair algae started to die back. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, the same old problems came back and the hair and suspended algae returned.
The reason for this happening was that when the water from the pond goes into the bottom of the bio-filter, up through the bio-media to the top of the filter and then out to the pond, in time, sludge covers the bio-media and good bacteria to remove ammonia and nitrites from the water start to die off due to a lack of oxygen. You end up with a dead filter in about six weeks or more.
A friend of ours found a diagram of a filter where the water goes into the top of the filter where debris from the pond is trapped in three layers of window screening. The water travels down the bio-media and up to the top of the filter through a pipe which is lifted about 4 inches off the bottom of the filter. The water goes to the top of the filter and out to the pond.
I have filters outside that are at least 28 years old and I have never hosed down my bio-media. Since I don't have bottom drains, I put my bio-media inside predator netting and I have two layers for easy lifting. I place the bio-media beside the pond and clean out the filter and then replace everything. Sometimes I will put the bagged bio-media inside the pond to swish it around to clear away the light particulate that floats inside the filter but I never hose them down.
I've got a picture of this bio-filter if anyone is interested. You can also use it in conjunction with the other filters you have.
When we first used the upflows we used lava rocks and I wasted so much water hosing down the lava rock to get the sludge off and then it would take another four to six weeks for the bacteria to build up strong enough to remove ammonia and nitrites from the water.

Your's Koily, Lorraine