Pond filter and silt build up question

[sparksy]

hi everyone, so we have had a pond for about 10 years now, we moved to our workplace in 2019 but are now back and have been tackling our pond which was in need of a bit of TLC. we have a round pressure filter fed by a pump with 3 sponges in it plus a uv bulb in it.. this used to keep our pond nice and clear without issue. so we did a part water change in December and hoovered out leaves ,sludge etc and all looked good for a day or so but then the whole pond had silt covering it. i flushed the filter to clean it out and left it alone after that. so a couple of days ago we repeated the process only this time made a real effort to hoover the deep end to get as much sludge out as possible and drained off nearly 2 thirds of the pond... this killed my pond vac motor as well. so lovely and clear for two days but the dreaded silt has returned and settled on everything again.
so any tips or ideas to try and get it nice and clear full time, cheers lee

 

[JRS]

Sounds like you let the mulm build up and are still in the process of clearing it up. Usually silt will settle out after a few days unless it is being blown around by or bypassing the filter. Is it just silt on the surfaces or is it suspended in the water also, sound like the water is cloudy also? How fast are your filter sponges filling up? Coarse sponges may not trap fine debris, whereas fine filtration with filter floss for example, requires constant maintenance/rinsing.

Size of pond, fish load and pics might be helpful.

 

[sparksy]

Thanks for the reply, so the sponges are filling up about 3-4 days after the big clean out, it comes out slower then and I will flush them through via reverse pumping . I've only done two clean outs and it does look better but in the deeper part it looks like it's still a bit cloudy with silt suspended in water. I've got a tiny pump for a water feature the other end which is shallow, it has wadding wrapped around the pump and it now choked up with silt reducing the flow right down to a trickle.

 

[sparksy]

Sry 9000 lt pond deep end and shallow end
Fish only went in in November last year, 19 fish altogether.. I'll take some pics tomorrow
May just need doing a few times as it hadn't been done for 5 years. Need a new vac now I've killed our old one

 

[sparksy]

Had a look today the water coming out of the filter doesn't look to bad at the miniute, silt has settled all over liner again .

 

[GBBUDD]

Thats not a large amount of water for 19 fish unless they are minnows. is it like 6 inches deep as it appears in the photo

 

[sparksy]

No one end is shallow the other end with the waterfall is 6ft deep , it's been fine for years unltil we had to move away , the fish apart from one are only average size and were rescued from another pond .

 

[j.w]

No one end is shallow the other end with the waterfall is 6ft deep , it's been fine for years unltil we had to move away , the fish apart from one are only average size and were rescued from another pond .

Are they koi or goldfish?

 

[sparksy]

Are they koi or goldfish?

Goldfish mainly , all rescued from a pond someone was getting rid of. Had bigger goldfish in it before ..until the heron found them

 

[sparksy]

A pic of some of them , biggest one may be a koi or some koi x goldfish mix

 

[j.w]

A pic of some of them , biggest one may be a koi or some koi x goldfish mix

So about 2300+ gals? Kinda on the small side if you have more than a couple koi and a bunch of larger goldfish. Might be why you are having the water issues but not sure. Koi or koi mix need like 500 gals each for best results unless you have a super duper filter set up. Add goldfish and you need even more water volume and better filtering.
Fish were smaller when you started and now bigger and put out more poo which can cause big water issues. Might need to make the pond larger or find homes for the bigger fish.

 

[sparksy]

So about 2300+ gals? Kinda on the small side if you have more than a couple koi and a bunch of larger goldfish. Might be why you are having the water issues but not sure. Koi or koi mix need like 500 gals each for best results unless you have a super duper filter set up. Add goldfish and you need even more water volume and better filtering.
Fish were smaller when you started and now bigger and put out more poo which can cause big water issues. Might need to make the pond larger or find homes for the bigger fish.

Believe it or not we had some chunky goldfish before that produced a load of offspring, but it was crystal clear. Most of the fish in it now are pretty small , the one in the pic is the biggest. I'm thinking 5 years of not hoovering and cleaning is gonna produce quite a bit of muck so I'll persevere with the cleaning for now and see of it gets better, if the fish get to much ill maybe donate some elsewhere..

 

[j.w]

Believe it or not we had some chunky goldfish before that produced a load of offspring, but it was crystal clear. Most of the fish in it now are pretty small , the one in the pic is the biggest. I'm thinking 5 years of not hoovering and cleaning is gonna produce quite a bit of muck so I'll persevere with the cleaning for now and see of it gets better, if the fish get to much ill maybe donate some elsewhere..

Maybe you could add a second filter or add a bog filter. They are big on bog filters here. I don't have one but I wish I did. Not in the mood to dig one and not really any area that would look right for one either. I only have about 12 goldfish in a 2400 gal pond tho.