Filtration, Water Parameter Control questions

[TMF89]

You guys might remember me from awhile back, I set up my parents' new 600 gallon garden pond and was trying to get help. Well she's up and running, and we even have a few fish in there! Two full-grown Comets, and three small Koi. We plan on raising the Koi and selling them off when they outgrow our pond. Well my two questions are: What kind of filtration will I need, and how do I keep water parameters in check? The pump for the waterfall has a hunk of fiberous material that's supposed to stop debris from getting into it, basically a 3"x12"x16" hunk of sponge, would that provide enough of a biological filter or should I add an additional filter, and if so what would you guys recommend?

And for keeping my parameters in check, with my aquariums I just do 10% changes every two weeks, and treat the new water I add to the system. Are ponds pretty much similar? I realized that since the pond has an auto-top-off feature to keep it from evaporating, there's constantly new water being added to the system, so the chlorine and what not in the water must not bother the fish in such small doses, and then just dilutes itself? Or should I be adding treatment chemicals on a regular basis? Also obviously since the water is evaporating the negative chemicals such as ammonia and nitrates stay in the pond, so I would still need to do regular water changes yes? That's all for now, I don't want to overdo this first post. Thanks guys!

 

[addy1]

Yes do regular water changes, with the top off trickle you do not need to worry about chlorine. I have the same set up in my arizona pond, which is city water. Add your dechlor with bigger water changes.

A filter would really help your pond, check the diy section, you could make one pretty easy, skippy, doc, fishin Esp since you have koi in it and they do poop a lot.

 

[TMF89]

Sounds good, I know if you let water sit around for awhile chlorides at the like evaporate? Or at least leave the water somehow, is there any scientific rule to how long you have to let water sit? For big water changes like this I think it might be cost-effective to do that instead of buying treatment chemicals all the time. Thoughts?

As far as a filter goes, what size would you recommend? The pond is pretty small, and the area surrounding it is really grown in with plants, so i'm extremely limited space-wise. I started looking through the builds in the DiY section, but since I'm a noob and everyone there is at a higher level than I am, a lot of the stuff went over my head. For example, what exactly is a "swirler" everyone talks about having in their filters? Thanks guys!

 

[bsr8129]

Depending how how much of a water cahnge you do you may or may not need to add Declorination, I do about 10% and dont add anything

 

[addy1]

Sounds good, I know if you let water sit around for awhile chlorides at the like evaporate? Or at least leave the water somehow, is there any scientific rule to how long you have to let water sit? For big water changes like this I think it might be cost-effective to do that instead of buying treatment chemicals all the time. Thoughts?

As far as a filter goes, what size would you recommend? The pond is pretty small, and the area surrounding it is really grown in with plants, so i'm extremely limited space-wise. I started looking through the builds in the DiY section, but since I'm a noob and everyone there is at a higher level than I am, a lot of the stuff went over my head. For example, what exactly is a "swirler" everyone talks about having in their filters? Thanks guys!

chlorine does evaporate, dissipate the longer the water sits around/splashes or gets aerated.

The swirler, at the bottom of your filter the pvc comes down into a t off the t are two short pieces of pvc, at the end of those two short pieces are pvc angles, it makes the water swirl in the bottom of the tank Take a look at fishin build he has a good picture of the swirler.

 

[TMF89]

Sounds good, I guess I should have asked this before moving ahead, but are there any issues I should watch out for with fish while vacuming a pond? My dad bought a shop vac and I just got through my first round of vacuming the remaining leaves and crud off the pond. The water's murky now obviously, and my plan is to run to Petco to grab some water treatment chemicals while the water clears so I can continue working, and then after I'm done, do a water change. The shop vac has a garden hose output so right now the water level/parameters are staying the same, except for any issues from mixing up all the crud on the bottom.

 

[addy1]

Don't vacuum up a fish! lol

Except for disturbing the fish they should be ok with muck being stirred up. Does it stink real bad, like sulfer? if so you could be sending anaerobic bacteria into the pond, so be slow about it so you do not hurt your fish.

 

[fishin4cars]

Be careful not to over clean, you want the muck off the bottom, but don't over kill, Try not to remove more than 50% of the water during any one vacumning and then let the pond settle for a few days before doing it again.

 

[TMF89]

Well guys I did a partial clean and probably a 10-15% water change (most of the water I sucked up went right back into the pond) and the fish are doing fine, although there's so much crap in there I'm going to have to go at it again. Also there's been a HUGE boom in hair algae over the last couple days, like I didn't even realize the stuff could grow so fast, so I'm going to try and add a filter. Right now the bioload is three small Koi and two adult Comets, and I have a feeling a lot of the food is going to waste as they're still hidden most of the time, in fact after owning them for a couple weeks today I finally saw them all out at once, and of course as soon as I moved closer to feed them, they darted back into debris (which I've been vacuming out but the shop vac I'm using doesn't have a whole lot of power).

So I have a couple of questions:

1. Did the hair algae just spring up because I've started feeding the fish more regularly? For the first couple of weeks I fed every few days, and only a small amount, because the fish would not come out of hiding AT ALL, and I didn't want to pollute the water quality with dissolved food. I know most fish hide at first, but at this point it's been half a month and these fish still hide most of the day. In fact today I finally saw the three Koi we added (6-7") for the first time since I put them in the pond a week ago. As soon as I moved closer to add food they disappeared of course. I highly doubt there are any birds of predators trying to get at them and force them into hiding, so I'm pretty stumped on why they're so skittish.

2. What's the deal with all this hair algae?? I went out today after not checking the pond yesterday and found it covering mostly everything, worse than it ever has been. The past couple feedings I've fed them regular amounts, but could that really provide the excess amount of nutrients necessary for algae this quickly?? And how can I solve this issue? My mom promptly "cleans up" all the aquarium equipment after I use it and store it where I think it should go, and then always forgets what she did with it, so I'm looking for test kits for nitrates and some regular algae-away conditioner right now, I'll let you guys know if I find them what the results are.

3. What kind of filtration do I need? I know the standard seems to be 55 gallon drums, but since my pond is so much smaller than the average forum goer's, I was hoping to make a smaller unit that would be easier to hide.


Thanks for the help guys!!

 

[addy1]

my fish hid for almost 6 months, did not even know any had survived. They are good at hiding.

String algae, hair algae, loves nutrients, hot weather warm water and when it grows it grows. excess foods, dirt, leaf debris, anything that can feed algae it eats and grows.
Shade, plant covering etc help keep it under control

more filtration helps even if your pond is small