Headfirst into ponds

[Grenage]

Hi there; I'd like to start by apologising for what I'm sure is the 15th million new thread by someone without a clue.

We bought our first house, which has a pond. We didn't think there were any fish in there at the time, but there are! It's somewhere between 150 and 200 square foot, with an external bio filter box containing a lot of foam media, and a UV chamber on the output. The pump in the pond has been attacked for a milk crate, I presume to stop it sitting on the floor and pulling in gunk.

While I've read a fair amount (I previously called it a weird black container with horrible stuff inside, I'm really clueless and would like to get some advice.

The pond water is reasonably clear, although there is a layer of silk which will cloud the water some when distrubed (such as pulling out the pump). While there was a load of duckweed on the surface, we removed a lot of it, then the fish decided they liked eating it, so sun exposure has increased. The fish recently had children, as I've spotted a fair few babies murking in some pond weed (hydra, I think) - I would hazard a guess at 20-30 fish.

What I'd like to know is how often I should clean the biofilter, and if I need to get a second one (one with foam, the other with plastic pieces/rocks/etc). Is the silt a problem, and do I need to empty the whole things and clean it?

Russell.

 

[addy1]

to our group!

I would not empty the pond, if you want to clean the bottom use a shop vac or get a fine net and just net it. The silt type stuff could be caught up in some quilt batting if it gets stirred up.

How often to clean depends on how often you feed your fish, how often it gets clogged up due to your water. That is hard for any of us to say. Clean it and see how soon after wards you need to clean it again.

 

[CountryEscape]

Are you asking about cleaning a pre-filter on the pump, or the outside filter? I have not cleaned my DIY biofilter at all this year. I know it has a lot of gunk in the bottom, but the idea of the biofilter, if I understand it correctly, is the good bacteria colonates in there and that is what helps keep your water clear. In the beginning, I thought I needed to drain it and rinse all the sponges, pieces of plastic pipe, and lava rock that I used for filtering media. Then I was told NOT to wash the filtering stuff off, just run some of the pond water through it if the water pressure is getting slow and I thought it was clogged. I cleaned it all really good this spring before I started up the filter (had to shut it off during the freezing winter temps) but otherwise have not drained it or rinsed anything. I have well water, it's not chlorinated, so I'm able to use that water to rinse if necessary.
I'm the same way with my indoor aquariums. Once you get the good bacteria load established, it pretty much takes care of itself. Not saying that you never need to clean it, as you do. Do water tests in the beginning for sure to see where the PH, Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrate levels are. Once they are good and stay that way, you have a cycled pond and it should do most of the work on it's own.
If you notice that your pump is running slower, it might be because of stuff sucking into the pump. What size pump do you have, and have you calculated the number of gallons in the pond? There is a "pond calculator" that makes it VERY simple, once you have the measurements and depth. Good luck, and WELCOME!!!

 

[Grenage]

Hi guys, thank you for the advice.

Addy1: I'll look into a vac for the pond; I had no idea such things existed, but they look like they can be quite handy. There's a tree by the pond, so I wonder if the previous infirm residents never cleared out the leaves, and they just broke down in the water.

CountryEscape: I was talking about the external filter, there doesn't actually seem to be a filter on the pond pump - it's just the pump into a bio filter, into a UV unit, back into the pond. I'm not sure on the pump model, so I'll yank it out again and have a look, cheers!

 

[CountryEscape]

The fact the pump is on a milk crate is a great idea. I have the same set up. Not only does it keep from sucking up stuff from the bottom, but if something breaks, it won't totally empty your pond if you're gone when the break happens! I've read too many posts where other ponders learned that lesson the hard way.
The only reason I asked about the pump size was if it's too small, that may be why it's getting clogged quicker. If it's a larger pump, they usually can take larger solids and send them through the lines. The size of volume of the pond is the most important part. Either search for "pond volume calculator" on the internet, or I'm pretty sure there is one on this site, too, just don't know right off where to find it. That will give others a better idea of how many fish would be happy in that pond.
But, remember, you can always add on to the pond. LOL You know, get your shovel and start digging a larger hole, make one pond flow into the next. Be careful, as if you get the "pond bug", which is highly contagious on this site, you will be doing just that!

 

[Grenage]

Well it looks like I have a 1100 gallon or so pond, perhaps a little less - I think I have too many fish! Time to see if anyone in the area wants some, order a testing kit, correct my fish food order (accidentally ordered 1.8 tonnes of food - curse you phone ebay app), start doing some water changes, check the pump rating, and change the UV bulb.

Work cut out! lol.

 

[CountryEscape]

OK, I have to ask again .... why the water changes? Wait to do any until you get your test kit, unless you have had your water tested at a local pet shop (around here, they do it for free) and know that you need to change out some of the water. Maybe the previous owner did the water changes because of the fish load. But, if you're able to keep the waste cleaned out when/if you have an accumulation on the bottom, you should be good to go.
That's another thing I've learned on here. I used to think I needed to keep all the gunk off of the bottom of my pond. I find very little settles there anymore, just the growth of algae. But, I've been told to leave it, as it is a great place for good bacteria to colonize, and that helps keep your water clear as well! Your pond should not be such high maintenance, and if you are able to rehome some of the koi, you may find that you will enjoy it far more in the future!
Yep, you have your work cut out for you. Good luck!

 

[Fishylove]

Welcome Grenage! Glad to have ya. If the previous owners didn't cover the pond with netting ( I use what's called dear netting ) before the leaves started falling, then I'm sure that some of the muck on the bottom is tree debree. Yard and tree debree, as it decays, it turns your water into a tea color and can alter the Ph balance of your pond, which is not good So you should think about what type if netting you can cover it with.
To keep your bio filter cleaner and put less stress on your pump, you can make your own pre-filter. ( I use a rubbermaid container) Choose a container close to the size of the pump, cut 2 inch holes in the top and cover it with quilt batting and window screening. This will filter out a lot of the bigger debree before it gets to the bio filter. This way you can clean your prefilter every week or two ( depending on how hot it is and how much you feed them) and leave your bio filter to do its job without having to disturb it your bio filter will have what looks like " horrible stuff inside" lol, but it's supposed to be there, I promise! So try not to clean it unless it gets clogged, and then do as Country has said, and carefully clean it out in pond water.
Good luck!

 

[Shoestring Ponder]

Did I read correctly, you ordered 1.8 tonnes of fish food? That must have cost you a pretty penny! That's a lot of fish food unless I misunderstood you.

:goldfish:

 

[Fishylove]

Wow! Surely you can work something out with that eBay seller, lol, I'm sure they didnt expect such a large purchase of food!

 

[Grenage]

Thankfully the seller just let me cancel, so I reordered 10kg.

Oh I thought that one was supposed to change out 10% of the water once a month or so, if that's not the case, bonus. We'll see what the test kit says, I guess; I'm assuming 'Danger, Will Robinson'.

The pump is a Heissner P4400, which looks like it's just about up to the job, although it's not a fierce throughput on the waterfall. Cheers for the tip regarding the pre-filter, I'll have to try and knock one up. I was a little dubious of the biofilter, mainly because it looks like there's more room for media, with a reasonable gap between the input and water level. I've added some image links, which aren't as clear as I'd like, but you can see the sediment that was stirred up, and the pond itself. I've not added them as images to the post, beause they're quite large!

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six

 

[CountryEscape]

Hint about uploading photos. Before you do so, open your photos with some type of editing program. I like Microsoft Photo Editor. Then, resize them. When I download my photos, they are too large to attach. I choose to resize them to 25% of original size. That way they look the same as original, just smaller as far as memory space it takes up. Try it! Otherwise, it takes a long time for us to open your links, too. I'm being patient ... but that's the key to being able to upload them. And, if you experiment, you will figure out what are the correct numbers to get the file downsized to. On mine, it's about 1200 x 900 or so. I start out with the pictures at about 4300x3200 and 5.87 MB (so the single file size of 8 mb must be incorrect ...) and resize them down to about 1200x900, which gets them down to 650 kb. Hope this makes sense! If not, PM me and I'll walk you through it clearer. Once you figure it out and do a few, it will be easy from then on! Trust me, I hated to try, but once I got the hang of it ... well, let's just say some are probably tired of all the photos I post. LOL

 

[CountryEscape]

OK, got a good look at your photos. You have some really great plants in there! They will help keep your pond clean and adding oxygen to the water.
In my opinion, all you need to do is either use a fine net (smallest holes) to net out the stuff on the bottom, or stir it up, have your pump run directly through some quilt batting then back into the pond for a while, closely monitor the batting, keep some extra to exchange it out, and keep rinsing it out. That way you can get most of the silt out of the pond, as that seems to be what you're trying to do. If not, your water seems to be very clear, so leave it be. If it was from leaves, it has decomposed down to very fine small particles. If it bothers you, though, just get rid of it. Take a plastic tote of some sort, run your hose from your pump directly into the tote with quilt batting, several layers of it. Then let it drain right back into the pond. Either put it on some sort of a ledge that is on an angle so the water will for sure get back into the pond (you don't want it to accidently drain out your pond!!!) or put it on your waterfall area. When the batting gets full of gunk, exchange it for clean, rinse out the dirty, hang it out to dry, and wait until next change out. Then go ahead and stir up the pond somewhat to get the silt moving and out through your pump.
Also, if you do a prefilter for your pump, with the silt you have in there, it may clog the prefilter pretty fast, which would mean pulling the pump more often to clean it off. To me, pulling a pump is more of a hassle than pumping dirty water through quilt batting. Your choice, though.

 

[Grenage]

Thanks for the tip, I've resized and compressed the images slightly.

I'll definitely do that with the batting, to at least see how long it stays clear for - it was a hell of a lot better when the pond was covered in duckweed, but now that the fish are eating it, it doesn't stand a chance. While I imagine it's ok, I'm looking at batting such as this. It's got fire redardant properties, so I was slightly worried that it might contain chemicals that would filter through to the pond.

I might make a second biofilter later on and feed one into the other. It'll be cheap to do, and they're out of the way in the shed! Thanks again for your advice, it's much appreciated.

 

[sissy]

we get it here in a bag and it is not expensive and since you can rinse it out and reuse it alot .I have been using my 1 bag for a year now .