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I have spreading yews around the edges, pulled out most of my plants, and all the water Iris. Had the water tested, only thing off was the PH (per the fish lady)
murky pond
- Thread starter Joan Jarmon
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She's wrong if your pH is 8. That's fine. And as @Mmathis said - more important is that your pH stay stable.
I really didn't do a great job of explaining the filtering concept did I? In your situation the best set up would be a plastic tub or trash can with holes drilled near the bottom - one side only. Fill it with batting and set it OUTSIDE the pond. (I guess you could put it in the pond, if you had somewhere to set it where the drain holes would be above the water level in the pond. Pump water from the pond up to the container and let it drain down through the batting back into the pond through your drain holes. A laundry basket would work best if you could put it under your waterfall and just let the water flow through with most of the basket out of the water.
I really didn't do a great job of explaining the filtering concept did I? In your situation the best set up would be a plastic tub or trash can with holes drilled near the bottom - one side only. Fill it with batting and set it OUTSIDE the pond. (I guess you could put it in the pond, if you had somewhere to set it where the drain holes would be above the water level in the pond. Pump water from the pond up to the container and let it drain down through the batting back into the pond through your drain holes. A laundry basket would work best if you could put it under your waterfall and just let the water flow through with most of the basket out of the water.
do we know if it's algae or particulates in the water? Filtering will do no harm, I just wonder if the pond is cycling. Plants will help clear to water, if its algae, the plants will take up the nutrients and starve the algae. Thus clear water, love how nature works.
also keep an eye on birds visiting your pond. The netting you a using is pretty ineffective for heron and others. They look like the ones used for deer protection for bushes. I've seen strong knotted nets with large holes created by those crafty fellows
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Welcome Joan 
You have a lovely pond and koi!
@Lisak1 is right, your PH is fine. Keeping it stable is the most important thing.
You have a Savio skimmer, I do too. For awhile I thought adding extra filter pads inside the skimmer would help, until someone more knowledgeable then me, said I'd be better off running it the way Savio designed it. I would advise you to try using just the Savio skimmer pad and cleaning it more frequently if it's dirty....I also clean out the leaf basket. I think you'll pull more water through the skimmer without the additional batting. It looks like you have a Savio UV light, do you know if it's working and when it was last replaced.
I think trimming back the yews and taming the water iris was a good idea. You mention activated charcoal, do you have additional filtration besides the skimmer? Good idea on getting an aerator, I'm a firm believer in aeration.
Your koi are beautiful
You have a lovely pond and koi!@Lisak1 is right, your PH is fine. Keeping it stable is the most important thing.
You have a Savio skimmer, I do too. For awhile I thought adding extra filter pads inside the skimmer would help, until someone more knowledgeable then me, said I'd be better off running it the way Savio designed it. I would advise you to try using just the Savio skimmer pad and cleaning it more frequently if it's dirty....I also clean out the leaf basket. I think you'll pull more water through the skimmer without the additional batting. It looks like you have a Savio UV light, do you know if it's working and when it was last replaced.
I think trimming back the yews and taming the water iris was a good idea. You mention activated charcoal, do you have additional filtration besides the skimmer? Good idea on getting an aerator, I'm a firm believer in aeration.
Your koi are beautiful
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No pump in the basket???
Water gets pumped into the basket
Very pretty pond @Joan Jarmon !
Like @qclabrat mentioned, it could be an algae bloom. My pond sometimes gets a brown suspended algae that looks like your pond. And when I clean the filter mat there is a coating on it that looks like 'muck' that you describe. Did the pond get murky after you removed all the plants? When I have divided my yellow flag iris, sometimes I don't put enough back into the pond and I cause an algae bloom in the spring because there are not enough plants to take up the nutrients.
Like @qclabrat mentioned, it could be an algae bloom. My pond sometimes gets a brown suspended algae that looks like your pond. And when I clean the filter mat there is a coating on it that looks like 'muck' that you describe. Did the pond get murky after you removed all the plants? When I have divided my yellow flag iris, sometimes I don't put enough back into the pond and I cause an algae bloom in the spring because there are not enough plants to take up the nutrients.
Correct. The pump would be in the pond - the container filled with batting would be out of the pond. The water gets pumped out of the pond, into the container, and flows back into the pond - hopefully free of suspended debris. Of course this all depends on one of two factors: 1. You have an extra pump or 2. you can re-route your plumbing from your waterfall to the container. You're basically just creating a DIY fines filter.
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How???
Read my last post @Joan Jarmon - it may not be possible if you don't have an extra pump or you can't re-route your waterfall line.
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Earlier I thought you said run-off was getting in your pond. Have you corrected that? If that's the root of your problem, why not correct that instead of trying to constantly filter out the dirt? Perhaps a berm or trench to guide the run-off away.
@poconojoe - see post #8. She believes that problem is resolved.