mariobrothersleeve
squirrel
I can't even respond when you keep deleting your post.
filtration help
- Thread starter philip_g
- Start date
While john huff does have a good point, his delivery is a bit poor. Are you looking for mechanical or biological filtration? Is your water greenish or does it just have floating debris?
The OP doesn't really say what his water problems are, but in most cases when people claim they need better filtration it's because their water is green or dirty, and adding extra bio-filtration generally has little effect on either.
I agree with Mario that "mechanical filtration is the biggest failure in this hobby". Most pond filtering discussions center around adding better or more bio-filtration, but for the most part water gardens bio-filtration takes care of itself, and if people focused more on building better mechanical filtration they would be even less need for any sort of extra bio-filtration. (this line of thought applies to low fish load, planted, water gardens, not heavy fish loaded koi ponds that have little or no vegetation). At this time we don't really know what sort of pond the OP has?
On the subject of mechanical filtration, one aspect that often gets over looked is the quick and timely removal of the organic debris from the pond. It's one thing to capture the organic debris that can cause cloudy water or settle as muck on the bottom of the pond, but as long as it's still in contact with the circulating water it is still breaking down and contributing to the nitrogen and other nutrients in the water. Part of a good mechanical filtration system should include a system for quickly and easy removal of the captured organic debris from the water cycle BEFORE they have much of a chance to get broken down and the nutrients added to the nitrogen cycle. This is one of the reasons I don't care much for pressure filters, or any filter that tries to combine mechanical filtration with bio-filtration. People tend to not clean them as often as they should, thinking that the bio-media should be just left alone to do it's thing. While this is true about the bio-media portion of the filter the organic debris captured by the mechanical filtration portion of the filter tend to get ignored, giving the organics ample time and opportunity to break down.
A good mechanical filter should be separate from the bio-filter, and quick and easy to clean so as to not to discourage people from doing it frequently.
I agree with Mario that "mechanical filtration is the biggest failure in this hobby". Most pond filtering discussions center around adding better or more bio-filtration, but for the most part water gardens bio-filtration takes care of itself, and if people focused more on building better mechanical filtration they would be even less need for any sort of extra bio-filtration. (this line of thought applies to low fish load, planted, water gardens, not heavy fish loaded koi ponds that have little or no vegetation). At this time we don't really know what sort of pond the OP has?
On the subject of mechanical filtration, one aspect that often gets over looked is the quick and timely removal of the organic debris from the pond. It's one thing to capture the organic debris that can cause cloudy water or settle as muck on the bottom of the pond, but as long as it's still in contact with the circulating water it is still breaking down and contributing to the nitrogen and other nutrients in the water. Part of a good mechanical filtration system should include a system for quickly and easy removal of the captured organic debris from the water cycle BEFORE they have much of a chance to get broken down and the nutrients added to the nitrogen cycle. This is one of the reasons I don't care much for pressure filters, or any filter that tries to combine mechanical filtration with bio-filtration. People tend to not clean them as often as they should, thinking that the bio-media should be just left alone to do it's thing. While this is true about the bio-media portion of the filter the organic debris captured by the mechanical filtration portion of the filter tend to get ignored, giving the organics ample time and opportunity to break down.
A good mechanical filter should be separate from the bio-filter, and quick and easy to clean so as to not to discourage people from doing it frequently.
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I think I 'll go clean out my skimmer net and hose off the filters now!
I have I think alright mechanical right now, I'm mostly thinking about bio filtering. If I stop the algaefix the water would be green in weeks. As of now it's quite clear aside from some string and a little green muck along the walls and rock.
The skimmer seems to do a good job trapping any particulate matter (it's driven by a 5k gph pump)
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it would be very difficult to hide a 55g drum, I could do something like I've seen mentioned and use a planter or some other type of container.
I guess I don't understand what I really need. Coming from a saltwater fishkeeping background I worry about the water quality for the livestock. my pond is pretty heavily planted, 90% surface coverage with hyacinths grown to about a foot tall that I've just removed a lot of, some iris, thalia, hibiscus, 2 big hardy lillies, and like I mentioned 3 koi about 12" each. I feel that's a heavy fish load for a pond of this size.
at least, I think the koi are there, I don't see them too often with all the plants and how timid mine are.
hey, I did that yesterday.
mariobrothersleeve
squirrel
I am an extreme s/w hobbiest!
90% covered would scare me for the worry of co2 exchange. Your plants are part of the biofilter and from being a s/w hobbiest, you are well aware that the plant nutrient exchange is minimal.
Are you running bb? If you could post a picture of what you have, we can assist you in the direction you need.
5g pump is alot for 800 gallons, you have enough flow to work with.
So your skimmer turns your pond water over 6 times per hour?
Likely not, since it's running uphill and pumping into the bottom of my waterfall Basin, but it's a 5k or 5.5k pump, I throttled it back some as well. I thought it would be too much pump, surprisingly it isn't.
Sorry, bb? Bare bottom in salt speak? No I have 3/4" gravel
We've already had a freeze here so I'm weeding out the lettuce and hyacinth but I think I have a leak AGAIN at the skimmer face plate so I was kind of trying to keep the evaporation down, I lose about 3" a day. It's back to about 50% I suppose now. With as much agitation as the falls provides I wasn't worried too much about o2. I'll attach what I can find on my phone for now and get better later
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mariobrothersleeve
squirrel
Yes, bare bottom!
I am still firm with the mechanical filtration. Your pond looks like a giant bio filtration system already. Not bad at all, I really think the socks will work.
I am still firm with the mechanical filtration. Your pond looks like a giant bio filtration system already. Not bad at all, I really think the socks will work.
Mario,
I have been using the "sock filters" in my system, too. I am using nylon "weave" and not cotton or quilted style. They are either 200 or 300 micron mesh and 4 inch diameter (the flange at the top ring) and 14" deep. I have ten of them arranged in a circular pattern around the outer perimeter of a plastic (HDPE) disc that I cut to fit into a 55 gallon barrel.
I bring this information to the table here because earlier in this thread you stated that your sock filter setup was "crude" as to how they were mounted or hung and if anyone had any suggestions for improvement, that you would welcome that.
What I did was cut a 24" x 24" x 1/2" thick sheet of HDPE into a circle that would fit inside my 55 gallon barrel, marked out ten equally spaced holes to fit the sock filters through around the outer perimeter. I used a 3-3/4" hole saw to cut out the main holes and then used a rabet router bit around the outer circumference of the holes to cut a stepped recess for the outer flange of the sock filter to sit down into and just deep enough for them to seat flush with the top surface of the HDPE sheet. These recessed areas ended up being approximately 4-1/4" ID countersunk to 3/16" for the filter flange sit down into and to rest upon. The filtering mesh part of the sock filter dangles below the HDPE platform and the flange supports it from the top.
It looks almost manufactured, and it is easy to remove and replace the filter socks and it wasn't all that hard to fabricate. Most difficult problem I had was cutting the HDPE disc in a perfect circle, finding the proper rabet router bit and setting the depth to my liking. I made a few trials and errors on scrap pieces of HDPE before I was satisfied with my workmanship.
Although I have not yet installed this assembly in my system, it is ready to go when I get to that point in my project.
I purchased these sock filters through Grainger, and they were fairly inexpensive.
Anyone could come up with their own ideas to use these sock filters for their system to mechanically prefilter their pond water before sending it into their refined filters and bio-converters. I would recommend using them for a couple reasons. They are cheap, they are easy to clean, they keep the major debris out of the rest of your system and they are very durable (as it was mentioned), you can toss them in the washing machine and they are ready to go again.
Even though I have not had them in use (except for prototype and test purposes), I have washed them. I put them through many cycles with my blue jeans just to see if and how well and how long they would hold up to the rigors of the washing machine. They were still fine after approximately 22 wash cycles. Of course, once they are exposed to UV and outdoor temps and algae and "gunk" they problably will start to deteriorate sooner.
I hope that gives you (Mario) some ideas to digest as well as anyone else pondering the subject. There is a merit to using these filters.
catfishnut