How often do you clean your filter?

[Derkmajirk]

I recently acquired a koi pond and was wondering how often your suppose to clean the filter. I take mine out of the water about once a week and hose off all the sludge that's inside it.

Each week the inside of the filter is covered in sludge. Is this normal? Am I cleaning it enough?

 

[sissy]

You must be talking about a prefilter .Some need cleaned every day or 2 and that depends on what other filter system you have and how many fish and how much you feed the fish .I use stock tanks as my main filters ,I don't have a prefilter

 

[Derkmajirk]

You must be talking about a prefilter .Some need cleaned every day or 2 and that depends on what other filter system you have and how many fish and how much you feed the fish .I use stock tanks as my main filters ,I don't have a prefilter

Should I get a main filter or will the pre filter work fine as long as I clean it?

 

[peter hillman]

I recently acquired a koi pond and was wondering how often your suppose to clean the filter. I take mine out of the water about once a week and hose off all the sludge that's inside it.

Each week the inside of the filter is covered in sludge. Is this normal? Am I cleaning it enough?

Absolutely normal, and the thing is you don't want to get it too clean. That's where tons of good microbes live. I usually monitor the flow of my small waterfall, I can tell when the pads getting full. If it's been real windy I need to clean more, but I usually go two weeks.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome to our group!

Basically, frequency of cleaning will depend on how many fish you have and things like how often you feed them, if there are leaves or other debris in the pond, etc. So, can't answer exactly until we know more.......

Do you have a picture of the filter? Or can you describe what it looks like. We will be able to tell you more once we are on the same page and know that we're talking about the same thing. As Sissy said, this could be your pre-filter. Is there another filter that is OUTside of the pond in addition to this one?

How big is your pond, how many koi......

 

[Mmathis]

@Derkmajirk ....and especially if this is the only filter, be sure to rinse it in treated water, not plain tap water -- the chemicals in the water will kill your beneficial bacteria. You can dip out a bucket or 2 of pond water as rinse water, then pour that in your garden.

 

[Marshall]

Well my layman approach is clean it when it becomes dirty enough to effect flow rates. Cleaning everytime you see a green slime is basically gonna either kill you from exaustion or make you hate the pond altogether.