Help with a backyard pond

[Jasmine]

Hi All,
I’m new here, lives in Virginia. I’m so thrilled about this site because I inherited a small backyard goldfish pond with the house. I tried to get a quote from few companies but couldn’t find any less than $500. The pond has a small waterfall. The pump & filter ( I assume) was disconnected. Now I’ve to connect it back and do a clean up of the pond. I’ll attach the picture. The pond is 6 feet wide & 1.5 feet deep, have 2 goldfish in it. Please please help me with the basics of this pond.
Thanks a lot in advance.
Jasmine

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

You pond looks really nice.

What is under the gray fake rock? Can you get pictures of the type of filters, the pump etc.

 

[Jasmine]

Thank you so much for the reply. Yes, I love that pond. I was so happy that the house came with it. I’ve 2 cute goldfish in it. I took some pics of the filter.

 

[j.w]

@Jasmine
Your water looks pretty clear so you should not need to empty any water out. Mainly you just need to get the filters up and running. I'm not familiar w/those filters tho.

 

[Jasmine]

I was trying to figure out what those bucket size things are, both says tetra pond bio filter on it, so do I need 2 filters? I’m assuming my pond is 250 gallon from my research. I found the connection for 1 filter, both inlet & outlet. Do I need to do anything with it before I connect? I was thinking pic2 is the connection for 1 filter.what is picture 4,5 & 6?
Thank you again.

 

[Alice_Bee]

if you have 2 filters but only one set of hoses, one of them may leak, and have been replaced but not removed.

How many hoses come out of the pond.

Is there a hose to go from the output of one filter to the input of another? (daisy chain)

whatever you do, don't hook them up and then leave for work. they may leak, hopefully not, they were disconnected for the winter, something else might go wrong. just fix a pot of coffee, connect hoses, plug the pump in and sit down and watch

 

[addy1]

It looks like the filter on the right was the one used, has connections on it, the left one has no connections on it. The air pump is running if that is bubbles coming out of the white thing in the pond.
You don't need two filters for a pond that size. Like said above one may have broke and never been removed.

The pump is probably in the water, I don't see a pic of a pump. The second pic is the air pump. Try plugging in the pump if you see a electric cord going into the pond. Have someone hold the lines in picture 4 so the openings will send any water that starts flowing back into the pond. See if you have a working pump. Mine is a external pump, yours , most likely, is a submersible i.e. in the water.

The yellow cord has a plug coming out of the connection at the end, that might be the pump plug in.

 

[Jasmine]

Thank you Addy & Alice for taking time to reply.
I’ll try to do what you said and see what happens.
Thanks again
Jasmine

 

[addy1]

Good luck!

 

[poconojoe]

Yeah, it looks like the filter on the left is not being used.

I have one of those Tetra bio filters. The one I have doesn't have any filter pads, it's just bio material. Basically tiny wagon wheel shaped plastic things. Maybe thousands of them. The idea is that they provide a great amount of surface area for beneficial bacteria to colonize. Once you get everything running, you don't really want to wash out the inside of that filter. You want the beneficial bacteria to stay in there.

Maybe once every couple of weeks you can backwash the filter... unscrew that black cap on the one outlet that doesn't have any hoses. Then turn that black knob to the clean position while the pump is running. Water will shoot out where you took the cap off. It will be dirty at first. Let it run for maybe 20 seconds or until it clears up. Turn the knob back to pond and put the cap back on.

 

[Jasmine]

Thank you Joe, this information is really helpful.
I was planning to give it a try this weekend. Today evening when I went to the pond , 2 big frogs jumped out of the rocks into the pond. I didn’t know this pond had frogs. It sounds very silly that I’m so afraid of frogs. I’ve some PTSD from childhood. Now I really have to get some professional help to clean this pond and have to think how to keep frogs out. I know frogs are good and harmless, but I still haven’t relieved from the shock.

 

[poconojoe]

Frogs are great! If you can stand it, just leave them. They are part of the natural ecology of your pond. We get them all the time. They seem to come out of nowhere. They can get quite vocal though at times. I saw one by my front steps last week. There were some feral cats nearby. I'm not sure if they were messing with him, so I netted him and placed him in the back yard near the pond. Ponds attract all kinds of critters. Some good, some bad. But I guess that's nature!

You mentioned cleaning the pond. Unless you have a real stinky swampy mess, it's best to not do any major cleaning. Your pond should have all kinds of beneficial bacteria growing all over. On the liner, rocks, etc. This growth is part of the pond's natural cycle. In effect, part of a natural type of filtration. It is not advisable to drain and scrub out the pond. If you do that, it will take a while for your pond to get back up to it's natural state. Basically you'll be starting from scratch.
Just get your filter going and everything will be ok.

Not knowing the exact size and gallons of your pond, but from the pictures, I'd say the pump and filter you have will be be quite adequate. We all get a period of green water during our Spring startup. So get everything going and be patient. That's one of the keys to good ponding...patience. things don't happen overnight.

Another point...stay away from any chemicals. You don't need them. If your home's water is chlorinated, you will need a dechlorinizer before adding any water to the pond. But that's the only thing you will need. There have been so many horror stories about people who add "fish and plant safe" algaecides and finding they have killed their fish.

If you lean towards doing everything the natural way, you will find things will pretty much run themselves. Then you can sit back in your lawn chair and enjoy your little piece of nature.

Read through this forum for an education. Any questions, just ask. We are a friendly bunch and there are some real geniuses here.

 

[Jasmine]

Frogs are great! If you can stand it, just leave them. They are part of the natural ecology of your pond. We get them all the time. They seem to come out of nowhere. They can get quite vocal though at times. I saw one by my front steps last week. There were some feral cats nearby. I'm not sure if they were messing with him, so I netted him and placed him in the back yard near the pond. Ponds attract all kinds of critters. Some good, some bad. But I guess that's nature!

You mentioned cleaning the pond. Unless you have a real stinky swampy mess, it's best to not do any major cleaning. Your pond should have all kinds of beneficial bacteria growing all over. On the liner, rocks, etc. This growth is part of the pond's natural cycle. In effect, part of a natural type of filtration. It is not advisable to drain and scrub out the pond. If you do that, it will take a while for your pond to get back up to it's natural state. Basically you'll be starting from scratch.
Just get your filter going and everything will be ok.

Not knowing the exact size and gallons of your pond, but from the pictures, I'd say the pump and filter you have will be be quite adequate. We all get a period of green water during our Spring startup. So get everything going and be patient. That's one of the keys to good ponding...patience. things don't happen overnight.

Another point...stay away from any chemicals. You don't need them. If your home's water is chlorinated, you will need a dechlorinizer before adding any water to the pond. But that's the only thing you will need. There have been so many horror stories about people who add "fish and plant safe" algaecides and finding they have killed their fish.

If you lean towards doing everything the natural way, you will find things will pretty much run themselves. Then you can sit back in your lawn chair and enjoy your little piece of nature.

Read through this forum for an education. Any questions, just ask. We are a friendly bunch and there are some real geniuses here.

Thank you Joe for this valuable information. So based on your input I decided not to clean the pond. Is it ok to put barley straw? I still haven’t got over on the frog situation, I’m so afraid of frogs. My dad is a farmer and one day in his barn I was picking up something but I what I thought I was picking was a frog and it jumped. There wasn’t enough light so I didn’t see it very well and that panic attack still continues when ever a frog jumps. This pond is near to my backyard patio and I’m losing my mind when I think about going and sitting there knowing frog is so near me. I know it sounds silly but it’s real fear to me.

 

[addy1]

Unfortunately, if you have a pond with water, frogs will move in. I am not sure what to tell you to do about your fear of frogs. Have you tried sitting and just watching them. They can't harm you. They are great to have for bug control. Our crickets flies mosquitoes etc have decreased dramatically since we put our ponds in and the frogs moved in.

 

[poconojoe]

I used to hang those net wrapped barley straw bails and have even used the concentrated liquid form. I don't know if it really helped much. Barley straw certainly can't hurt.