Need Help Identifying Old Pond Equipment! Anjon Bio & UV Filter?

[revchristinejday]

My friend Becky just moved into a house built circa 1960 here in the southern tier of NYS that has pond and no instructions or documentation.

It is approximately 3,200 gallons with a 8 ft waterfall, with a liner and faced by rocks. It is home to about 20 five inch shubunkins, goldfish and maybe young koi . It has a skimmer and a 32 gallon skippy filter made from a garbage can. I got the skimmer and the skippy working.

Then there's the mystery equipment with a serious pump and the other end. I think it is a bio filter with a 13 watt UV. It has a rounded top with large levers with arrows pointing "clean" and "working". There are two 2" connectors to the pump and another waterfall (input and output). There is a third connector attached to an aqua blue folded up hose. (Probably for cleaning?) It is impossible to move the levers. This is set 1/2 way into the ground. The ballast of the "filter UV" is marked Anjon 60 13 watt UV. The Anjon website has nothing that looks like it now. I'm sure the model number is buried.

Within 3 feet of the also buried skippy filter there are two protruding pieces of PVC pipe (same size as connecting input pipe to skippy). One appears to have a stopper on, the other, about a foot away has a stop cock. I dug down a bit but could not find where they went.

Help!

Here are photos of the above,

Thanks,
Chris

 

[RobAmy]

The pictures are not showing up

 

[sissy]

anjon products are still sold .No pic so may need to try again like said

 

[revchristinejday]

Here's my second attempt with photobucket.....http://s1210.photobucket.com/user/revchristinejday/library/Beckys Pond

Sorry,
Chris+

 

[crsublette]

@revchristinejday , I think your description of what you have is right on...

The device with the levers is most likely a pressurized filter that allows you to clean the filter without having to remove the foam pads. These are pretty common devices. The devices are sold to remove large and small particulates floating in the water although also does some biofiltration. The biofiltration on these devices are not very good so this is probably why the previous owner built a garbage can Skipper filter, which does a better job. The lever on the pressurized filter probably has some gunk in it, preventing it from smoothly moving, or the filter has not been "purged" for a long time preventing the lever from moving. You may have to take this pressurized filter apart to better see what is happening. I am not for sure what those protruding PVC pieces could be... Sorry that I am not more help...

This type of filtration setup generally involves more maintenance. I see this type of very common filtration system often with beginners in the pond arena and it is not really necessary. There are different other approaches you can take so you or your friend will need to do some research for a while and ask questions.

There is always going to be some maintenance to keep a pond healthy... whether it entails trimming plant growth or once a month vacuuming the pond bottom or make sure there aren't too many fish or adding more plants through a container like a bog.

One common beginner mistake is feeding the fish... In a pond this size, there are actually more algae and bugs and snails and other healthy food for your fish so the fish do not really have to be fed much. Feeding the fish too much can actually create more algae and water problems if the pond is not prepared for what follows after the fish are fed alot.

Hope this helped.

 

[sissy]

And a good reason not to overfeed fish also .Plenty for them to eat and help clean the pond .I only feed mine 3 or 4 times a week .I would make a filter first and save yourself the headache of trying to figure this stuff out .May cost you more money than it is worth and you may find out it does not work or is to much work to clean .Plus a lot of those filters over time split and leak and may end up killing fish if you do not catch it