literally, whoever you asked about a specific problem or issue I would never get the same answer 2 times in a row! Very frustrating
True on every subject. Everyone loves to give an opinion. So imo (pun intended) I've found it useful to ask them to explain their thinking. Many refuse, they're just repeating someone else's opinion. That narrows down the crowd. I listen to their reasoning and do a web search when I get home. Then I can form my own opinion and try a course of action. Right or wrong I'm going to learn something.
Forums are great place to get opinions. Question is how does that help? My Mother has the opinion that bees bury their hives at night and then dig them up in the morning. I was the one who told her this when I was 12 as a joke. It stuck in her head and to this day believes it despite me telling her that I was the one who told her as a joke. Opinions are pretty worthless I think because everyone already owns more than they know what to do with.
The feedback I'm getting from here is a little worrying, I really wish I hadn't brought all that stone now! The first pond guy a spoke with said it was important to completely cover the liner with stone to mitigate the heat gain on hot days.
Sounds like BS to me. Yes black liner would gain heat, but rocks are going to normally be covered with stuff that's dark. The follow up question can be "Oh, how much of a temp gain"? And then "where can I find more info on that"?
Not sure what to do on the stone front right now, as it would be such a pain to remove them. I think I'm going to give it a year and see how much of a maintenance problem they are.
Yeah they're already in, no point worrying about it today. People are either for rocks or against rocks in a pond. Both have no idea what their talking about. They just like to bash each other. Been going on in pond forums for many years. There is one and only one benefit to rocks and that's aesthetic. If you like rocks enough to make the maintenance worthwhile you keep the rocks. Otherwise they go. Lot's of people won't even put in a pond at all because of maintenance. It's just a line in the sand that you have to decide for yourself. For me I like the look of rock and mortar them in so maintenance even easier than bare liner. But OMG, can't say that to an anti rock person or a pro rock person.
No way is maintenance easier than bare liner!!! Ever keep a non-bare liner pond? Well, no, but I know for a fact all my opinions are true. Open mindedness has never been a human strength.
In a high fish load pond rocks are another matter. Those ponds have to be kept spotless or fish die. In these ponds rocks are not an option, nor are plants or anything other than fish and water.
I think I have to also give the Ionizer a full 4 weeks to see if it clears the green, if it doesn't I will take it back and insert it in the retailer!
I would too as long as I didn't have expensive fish. I would not be mad at the retailer, they were just doing what they're suppose to do, sell you stuff. I have no idea where this idea came about that retailers are experts on anything other than selling. If they're willing to take back the product and stand by their word I'd count them a fine retailer.
If I go down the UV road, how many Watts would I need for a pond of my size?
Don't ask here. Go to the UV web site of your choice and they'll tell you. If the info is hard to find move to the next. I like
AquaUV because they provide a lot of details and little hype. Good manufacturers don't have to hype products and hide details.
Another thing I'm taking a major guess on is the capacity of the pond, it does measure just under 30' at it's widest by about 18, but it slims down to probably 11' and the depth goes from less than a foot at the waterfall end deepening to about 4' at it's deepest at the skimmer end. If I take the average of these numbers and run one of the pond calculators it's coming out at right about 7500 US gals.
That's close enough for a UV. The specs you read will be for the max pond size and pump flow rate. So for the AquaUV as an example you would want the 80 watt unit. Also Google "UV wiper" to decide if you want a wiper on the unit.
You need to understand the difference between "sterilizer" and "clarifier" in order to compare apples to apples. Every UV can be used as either a sterilizer and clarifier, the only difference is the speed at which water goes thru the unit. As you reduce the speed the water is exposed to the UV light longer, killing more stuff. Sterilizer is just the term used to say 99.9% of all live things going into the filter are dead coming out. You only need clarifier speed to kill green water algae.
If you do install a UV be sure to follow instructions. Many people install them upside down. Also put a ball valve before the unit so you can control flow. Really green water will require slower water. So, if the water isn't clear in like 5 days you want to turn it down by say 25%. Repeat. If still not clear there is a problem with the install. After the pond is clear you can increase flow and see if the pond stays clear.
I have my 150 gal filter filled with 2 sheet of blue Matala pond filter mats, 2 layers of coarse / fine filter mats on top of that, then 3 large bags of lava rock and 3 bags containing a total of 2000 1.25" bio balls. My pump is flowing about 6500 gal/hr. I do have a bottom drain, but it doesn't have a settling tank, it's just piped direct into the filter.
That's a pretty bad filter system imo. 15-20 years ago it was state of the art. You will find many people today who still think it's state of the art. They also think hand crank party line phones are state of the art. Submerged non-moving media (lava rock, bio balls) is not a very good bio filter even in a decent filter. In filter that's connected to a bottom drain they're probably worthless. The lava rock and bio balls can be reused in a Trickle Tower or Bakki Shower. Google "Trickle Tower" for lots of info. Easy to make and you almost never have to clean them. So the build time pay back is pretty fast.
However, I don't know your fish load or how much food you feed. That's what drives a bio filter. You may not need any bio filter at all. Measuring ammonia (after pond clears) tells you whether you need a bio filter or more bio filter.
The other part of your filter is called mechanical, basically collects crap. That's the mats. Given your bottom drain is connected to this I would expect these mats will need to be cleaned every few days, maybe weekly depending on fish load, string algae, leaves, etc. For good water quality they would need to be cleaned daily. To me that's no fun. And also why better filters were developed. Current state of the art would be a sieve filter which is basically self cleaning, meaning crap is removed from the water column 24/7. It still needs to be dumped out. If you want really clear water or better water quality a sand and gravel filter would be added.
Your filter is what I call a combo filter. It's trying to do both bio and mechanical at the same time and can do neither very well. However they're well liked by new pond keepers because they're simple and sound good. It all comes down to the kind of pond you want and how much work you want to do. A lot of work on the front end in on research and pond building means a lot less work later. Yin and yang, pay today or pay tomorrow.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't have any Tangential Pond Returns (TPRs)? From everything else I'd assume not. These are what push crap to the drain opening. Without these crap still accumulates on about 90% of the bottom and so the drain is almost worthless. On the plus side you filter will require less cleaning. TPRs are easy to add after the fact.
No skimmer? Easily the biggest helper for little effort in keeping a pond clean.
