Tiger1 said:
LOL!! I am a filter junkie!! My pond is crystal clear, but I just love researching filters. I have the skippy.......in several places. And I love building them. Even have a tiny one on my 30gal barrel pond. Oh wait, I just turned that into a tiny gravel bog, just because. The sand and moving both sound fun. I leaning toward the moving bed, because I think it's better from what I gather, and after rinsing all that pea gravel for the bog, I kinda don't want to loll at rocks right now.
My motto is: Every water feature has to function as a filter.
Well, a bog is actually a S&G (sand and gravel) filter sans a blow for clean outs plus plants on the top.
S&Gs do incredibly well at improving bio-diversity and helps to clean your water. They are also a very good way to integrate inorganic activated carbon products and calcium carbonate products such as aragonite, crushed oyster shells, crushed coral, or any of the many other formulations. Must be sure they are blown out at least every 4~5 days or once a week, depending on how dirty it gets. The blowout process encourages the proper biological processes to thrive rather than the biological processes that can harm the fish. S&Gs promote a different type of bio-diversity that a highly oxygenation filter, such as a moving bed filter, can not provide. I often read of folk replacing their expensive bead filters with multiple S&G filters. For a S&G DIY startup kit including a proper blower (sans the container and medium), check out
High Desert Koi S&G DIY kit. At the least, this kit gives you an of what can be used or you can buy them directly from the owner.
Only disadvantages to the S&Gs is the expense of the blower and, once filled with the various medium, the filter is extremely heavy so it will have to be set in a good perament spot.
Moving Bed (MB) filters are excellent high chemical pollution oxidizing filters. These filters can refine much more pollution than a S&G.
High Desert Koi Fluid Bed Kit gives you an idea of what materials you would need to build one. The disadvantages is that the floating kaldness medium is expensive and you will have to split off your current air pump to supply the MB with air or buy another air pump.
OR.... Rather than a MB filter, build a wet/dry shower or trickle filter in the container.
Wet/dry simply means that the medium is not entirely submerged in water such as the MB filter. Shower or trickle indicates the water flow rate you want to push through it. Shower wet/dry filters tend to be more eloborate, with multiple containers; so, I would call the 55gal container to be a wet/dry trickle filter. You simply create a water diffuser at the top of the container, it can be a pan or lid with drilled holes or a pipe manifold with holes drilled into it. Then, this water diffuser will shower or trickle down a pile of medium, which can be lava rock or cut up sponges or hair curlers. A medium that allows a significant amount of air flow and allow the water to trickle down and around it. Build the water diffuser so it is a good, even dispersion on the top of the medium. Then, the water gravity flows out of the bottom of the container.
The wet/dry filters perform just as good as a MB filter in regards to being an excellent high chemical pollution oxidizing filter and it is cheaper than a MB, but it definitely still has disadvantages that should not be ignored.
Disadvantage is the location of the outlet and the water's exposure to air and noise. So, you would need to set the wet/dry filter a little off the ground, above the pond's water level, to allow the water to flow back to the pond. Since the water is more exposed to the air, then the water will experience more of a temperature change. This type of temperature change is quite often found in particular hydroponic grow bed builds, if you are familiar with nutrient film trays or vertical grow beds. The temperature change could be a good or bad thing depending on your weather. Also, these filters can create an additional noise; however loud will depend on how you build it.
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