5 replies to this topic

[chilligirl]

Soooo...I'm building my first pond (part above ground, part in ground, about 1500gallons), and am having trouble deciding between making a homemade skippy-style filter, or buying a premade waterfall bio filter type thingy.

I want to "over filter" the pond. I'm used to aquariums, with a minimum of 10x per hour turnover. Obviously I won't be quite that high with a pond, lol. But I want to be well above the standard of once every hour or two hours. I was thinking 3-5 times per hour turnover.

The water will be pumped from the main pond, to the filter (bought or homemade), into a bog garden, into a smaller pond, down a waterfall, back to the main pond.

Whatever "filter" I use, whether bought or homemade, will be crammed with mechanical filter media and biomedia (likely ceramic beads - I really like them). It will have filter plants (hyacinth or water lettuce) floating in the top of it. There will also be lots of plants in the pond(s) and bog garden eventually.

I know I can easily plumb up something like one of the waterfall bio filters. It would be much easier than making a skippy-style one (I'm not all that handy, have never done any plumbing, mostly just worked with wood). Does the whole round shape with the water coming up from the bottom really make that much of a difference? Or could I get good enough filtration with a ready made (or at least square) box that has the water going in one side and out the other?

[DrCase]

The skippy type is not hard to make ,,,,look at the pics and make yours look like it...up flow does help a lot

[koiguy1969]

turning over your pond thru the filter too fast will lessen the filters bacteria ability to do its job. the skippy style filter will out perform most any store bought filter, and like dr case said they are easy to build and there is a couple styles right on this site. easily adapted to other containers and sizes.

[chilligirl]

Yeah, I want to have a nice large filter, to increase the time the media spends in contact with the water.

So if I build a rectangular filter where the water moves from right to left through the media, that will still work? It doesn't have to be round with the vortex in the bottom like the skippy site says?

[c2c7390]

basically you can do whatever you want...when you do homemade as long as you have mechanical and biological...IMO chemical isnt really needed

[chilligirl]

Yeah, I'm not one for using Carbon, except now and then to polish the water. I am, however, planning on using lots of plants for "chemical" filtration (nitrates).

I had a productive day. Priced out brick/stone and firmed up my design plans. The hole is about 2/3 dug out. Hopefully I'll get the stone delivered by this weekend, and have the pond itself built by the end of next week.

My initial plan was for a pond with a bow-front, however, I've never worked with stone before, and was advised it would mean a lot of fussy cutting. So, I've changed the plan to a square. Not quite as pretty, but MUCH less work. I can soften the look with plants - should still work.