another nooby with filter questions

[Waterbug]

OK, the purpose of the filter is to help the plants. In general filters are no help to plants. A bio filter will convert ammonia from the fish into stuff the plants like, but from the plant's perspective that conversion is going to happen anyways so bio is no win for the plants. Any filter that you have to clean removes stuff plants like, stuff that provides nutrients.

You will get vastly different opinions on filters. The issue is the type of pond you want to run. "Wildlife" pond owners don't want filters, they want the entire food chain. "Koi" pond owners want tons of filters, they want water, O2 and Koi in the pond and nothing else (basically). In between are "Water Gardens". These can range from a pond just for plants, maybe some Mosquitofish and a few Goldfish. And these can go almost to being a Koi ponds containing Koi and a few plants.

If plants are your focus you should think about getting rid of the Koi and maybe the Goldfish. There's lot's of reasons why Water Lettuce and Water Hyacinth don't do well and one reason is the fish easting the roots. And of course now temperatures are getting too low. Elephant Ears don't do as well at the depth I see in the picture. For optimal growth they do better with wet feet rather than covered crown. However, given a large container and lots of fertilizer (fruit tree plant spikes are great) they can do very well with the crown below water, but would still do better a littler higher.

I'm guessing the next response will be that you don't want to get rid of the Koi? Koi eat most plants. To keep the Koi and the plants you have to protect the plants with cages or pots or something. You can also try feeding the Koi a lot more, may be an auto feeder. But, if you increase food in the warm months you'll probably then also actually need to add bio filtering.

Knowing the type of pond you want determines the types of filters, etc. Otherwise you'd just be adding stuff that maybe helps, maybe hurts, maybe works at cross purposes.

 

[Hxckidd]

That is great info... i really had no idea the koi/plants would be working against each other. as you have guessed a nice mixture of both would be great. i was worried about the elphant ears being submerged so low. But also didnt want a big ugly container sticking out of my pond. Any recomindations on how to get around this?

 

[addy1]

Well you will get all sort of different opinions on your ?

So back to my original question. If this was your pond, would you continue to put faith in a pressure filter? or try a different route. Or maybe just add a 2nd pressure filter to the waterfall and hope it does okay?

I would dump the pressure filter, have not read good about them. If I had room I would do my favorite type filtering, bog/up flow gravel filter. If you don't have the room for my favorite filtering, look at the diy section for the doc/ skippy filter builds, easy to build and maintain.

My plants and fish do well together, but I do not have koi. Goldfish and shubunkins, the hyacinths, lilies etc all grew well, started growing better once my fish load increased. The fish left the plants alone.

Others will have different ideas.

 

[Waterbug]

I do kind of what it looks like you did with the Canna. As a retro fit you'd have to drain the pond. I build a mortar rock enclosure, put liner in so the top is above the water line, a layer of mortared rock cap to hide the liner. Fill with soil out of the yard and plant. In the spring stick a couple of fruit tree fertilizer spikes into the soil around the edge. The larger the container the better the plants do.

These type of setup works better for all marginal plants like the Canna, etc. Downside is this takes up a fair amount of room. The structure can be on the side or an island.

I'm not sure of the kind of elephant ears you have, I assume you're using that name in a generic way. Anyways, some get very large, as in so large you might not be able to see much of your pond. There are small types of taro.

An easier option is buying a large ceramic pot, so it sticks a foot or two out of the water. I don't know if you consider them ugly, most people like them. Filled with soil. Water will wick up and keep the entire pot watered. I assume you're not in a hard freeze (like below 32F for days) area.

As an option the pot can be filled with pea gravel instead of soil and you can run pump water up to the top. Add plants and the gravel works as a good bio filter, which you may or may not need for ammonia. These can also kill green water algae, but that is very hit and miss. This setup isn't as good for the plants, depends on variable factors, but in general not as good. Different plants also respond differently.

There are lots of other options which require a pretty large remodel. When building a pond I keep the plant and fish areas separate, but to an observer they appear to be the same body of water.

 

[Hxckidd]

now we are getting places... really have no idea why i didnt think of putting the plants in something other then a black plastic pot... Thnk i can find something to work..

So as a seperate filter... would it be possible to use the waterfall? its about 4-5" deep by about 2ftx8".. with using something like lava rock or pea gravel and pumping water through it give any sort of added filteration that would be worth while?

 

[addy1]

In my opinion yes, but I am a bog up flow gravel filter lover. My pond stays perfect in water tests and lack of massive algae attacks. All I filter with is a large bog, full of plants. Or as some say an up flow planted gravel filter

If you do it read this, https://www.gardenpondforum.com/topic/6894-bog-building/ it might give you some ideas

 

[Waterbug]

So as a separate filter...The question is still the same, what kind of thing are you trying to remove? Ammonia? Clean the pond bottom? Dissolved organic compounds? Unicell algae? I'll take a guess at your response..."What's all that stuff?" or "I just want a general filter for my size pond".

I figure there's been some issue in the past base on your O2 comments, adding a waterfall for O2, and I see an aerator.

99.9% of all pond filters are sold to people in your position. All these filters are 99.9% effective. If you measure ammonia levels an hour after installing any of these you will find zero ammonia. Of course that's because ammonia levels were zero before the filter was install. How could I possibly know this? Because a pond with an ammonia problem the fish will be dead.

All these filters also clean the pond bottom. You can tell because when you look inside the filter there's dirt, so it must be working. Of course the bottom of pond will still be covered with muck. But that's not the filter's fault right? It only said it would clean your pond, not that it would completely clean your pond. Same with bacteria in a bottle.

Unclear water...most filters are about 50% effective, given enough time. Of course many ponds will clear without any filter. If an owner puts in a filter to clear a pond and a year later it clears guess who gets the credit? The only exception are UV filters if the unclear water is caused by unicell algae. They will clear a pond of this problem in a couple of days. To me that's actual measurable results.

To most this will all sound like sarcasm, unfortunately it isn't. Based on my experience it is the reality of filters for almost all water gardens. Without knowing the goal for the filter it's pretty much impossible to tell if it's effective.

Ask a general filter question and you will get a list as long as your arm of filters people have used and they like. Great for their pond. Will it work in yours? Maybe. Depends how lucky you're feeling on randomly picking one.