Help with Pond Skimmer and Pump Problems

[acleme1]

hello all. my wife and i recently bought a new house that has a large (2500 gallon) koi pond in the back yard. we absolutely LOVE it, but we've recently started having some problems with it. i was hoping someone here could help me out. here's what is going on...

my pond has a skimmer with a pump in it. the pump pushes water up to a waterfall about 30 feet away. lately, the skimmer ha snot been staying full, and the pump is pumping lots of air with the water in the bottom of the skimmer. the koi pond is plenty full of water, but it just seems like the pump is pumping faster than the skimmer can supply water. what could be going on?

another quick question: my pond is dirty, and i want to filter the water. my skimmer doesn't have a place for the filter material, and i want to put a bio filter into the waterfall. can i just stuff filter material in and around the inside of my skimmer?

thanks so much for reading through this. kind regards, aaron.

 

[DrDave]

Welcome to the forum. You will find lots of help here. I'm not a fan of skimmers so you will hear from someone shortly on that subject.

 

[acleme1]

thanks for the response guys. i talked with a guy this afternoon here in town (river city koi), and it looks like my skimmer is too small for my pump. i pulled the pump out, and it's a 3360 GPH pump with a 7' head. it's a stainless tsunami, i believe. so i have a great pump, and a small skimmer. their recommendation is to buy a larger skimmer. a big bahama, i believe.

in the meantime, i have decided to put a good bio media in the skimmer, and i put my mechanical sheet filter material in the waterfall above. putting the filter material in the waterfall also helps regulate the amount of water flowing through that big pump.

so far, so good. the skimmer is staying full, and it looks like a lot of debris is being caught by the filters in the waterfall. i know it's kinda bass akwards, but i'll just have to see how it does.

what do you guys think?is this a solution that might work?

thanks again for the input. aaron.

 

[koikeepr]

If you see that it's working, then the solution might be a fit. See how it does and report back to us with how you think it's doing.

 

[addy1]

As long as it works like koikeeper states, it is great. A lot of things work out well that are not the standard way of doing.

 

[bthis]

thanks for the response guys. i talked with a guy this afternoon here in town (river city koi), and it looks like my skimmer is too small for my pump. i pulled the pump out, and it's a 3360 GPH pump with a 7' head. it's a stainless tsunami, i believe. so i have a great pump, and a small skimmer. their recommendation is to buy a larger skimmer. a big bahama, i believe.

Aaron, if there's a valve between your pump and the waterfall, you can reduce the flow so your skimmer won't drain so quickly. Good luck!

 

[bthis]

thanks for the response guys. i talked with a guy this afternoon here in town (river city koi), and it looks like my skimmer is too small for my pump. i pulled the pump out, and it's a 3360 GPH pump with a 7' head. it's a stainless tsunami, i believe. so i have a great pump, and a small skimmer. their recommendation is to buy a larger skimmer. a big bahama, i believe.

Aaron, if there's a valve between your pump and the waterfall, you can reduce the flow so your skimmer won't drain so quickly. Good luck!

 

[addy1]

Aaron, if there's a valve between your pump and the waterfall, you can reduce the flow so your skimmer won't drain so quickly. Good luck!

LOL good idea, and simple fix, like the say KISS principle.

 

[addy1]

Aaron, if there's a valve between your pump and the waterfall, you can reduce the flow so your skimmer won't drain so quickly. Good luck!

LOL good idea, and simple fix, like the say KISS principle.

 

[digginponds]

+yea I was gonna mention a adjustable valve between filter and pump.I use a 1horsepower sump pump,so it's a must to control the water flow,so I don't blow the seals on the filter system

 

[digginponds]

+yea I was gonna mention a adjustable valve between filter and pump.I use a 1horsepower sump pump,so it's a must to control the water flow,so I don't blow the seals on the filter system