Pond filtering questions

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Thanks for all the support everyone.......Today was a very stressfull day. My UV sterilizer is a Misty Mountain and I found a phone number on the bulb. To make a long story short, they are now called Sentry. It is a 40 watt. I've ordered a new bulb, I thought I needed a new ballast cause the cord is a little dry rotted, but hubby says he can put electrical tape around it.......whatever.......we almost killed each other today when we put the unit in line......I am exhausted. With all that going on, Thursday is family day and we had all three of our grandchildren today and the whole family for dinner.

I actually do think the water looks a little better. I can see deeper for sure. My husband even said so....
 

j.w

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Well that's a good thing baeya if you can both see deeper and you are still speaking to each other after your ordeal w/ the fixing of the unit. See it will even get better and better each day and you can both sit by your pond and relax and watch the fishies.
 
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Yah, I think he wants the pond clear as much as I do...at least he is helping me with it :)
Everyone just left, we had 12 for dinner, we do it every Thursday. My oldest grandson started kindergarden so instead of having him all day with his brother and sister, we pick him up at school at 3:15.

Thanks again everyone for the advice, pictures and encouragement. I really appreciate it.
 
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Frustrated by him not listening? A new pond owner not listening??? Given a bunch of advice new pond owners will almost always pick the most complex, most expensive, most proven not to work, thing. Hobbies are about spending money and time doing stuff, not so much about the long term results.

New pond owners are pretty screwed. How does anyone make a correct choice with no experience? We can't of course. So I think the best filter system for a new pond owner is whatever system "sounds" best to them. Later, if he's one of the few ponders that wants to actually learn something about ponds he'll have some experience and can start the process. Or, more likely, just play around and enjoy the pond.

And as Koiguy said the bio filter doesn't have anything to do with algae. There is almost no chance this pond will even need a bio filter so it's not like picking the "wrong" bio filter would do much harm beyond a hit to the pocketbook. But again, most people find spending money fun and part of the hobby.

I will disagree with Koiguy on one point, higher plants do not remove enough nutrients to affect single cell algae much. It's an easy test. Test the nutrient level in a green pond and then again after a pond clears. The nutrient level will be higher in the clear pond. Those billions of algae died and did what...released nutrients back into the water. So why isn't there another algae bloom given all the new nutrients? There are other things in the water that kill algae.

Algae, as pointed out, are plants. Algae take up the exact nutrients they need so they themselves would be the best plants for removing nutrients they need right? But of course this doesn't work, algae don't starve themselves. Limit growth of new algae cells yes. There's a difference.

Higher plants are at a disadvantage in the competition for nutrients. Single cell algae are floating around bumping into nutrients all the time. Rooted plant have to wait for the nutrients to come to them. And if a higher plant could remove enough nutrients to kill algae they themselves would in theory die also, wouldn't they? So the day your pond clears do all the plants die too? Of course not.

Algae blooms can grow much faster than higher plants. If a higher plant could take up and convert nutrients as fast as algae Cana would grow 8 feet a day. In a water environment algae is the 800 lb gorilla in the room, not the potted plant.

I think the reason this myth has been around forever, and will stay around forever, is a misunderstanding of how plants use nutrients. Basically most nutrients are used to build cells. And they don't need much as they get the most needed element, carbon, from carbon dioxide. They're not like us. We have to build new cells all the time to stay alive for more than a month or two. They're single cell, once built they're good to go.

Nutrients shouldn't be confused with food which is used to run the cells once created. Food of course is made by the algae using photosynthesis. Limiting nitrogen and phosphorus can reduce growth of additional algae cells. So you could get green water instead of dark green water. If you could remove all nitrogen or phosphorus new algae couldn't grow and slowly a pond would clear as older algae died. So would all plants. But removing all nitrogen or phosphorus from a water garden is far beyond reasonable. Just dust blowing into a pond provide enough nutrients for algae. Set a bowl of distilled water outside and keep it filled with more as needed. You're likely to have algae growing shortly, although this experiment is hit and miss. Throwing hands full of fish food into a pond, fish waste, plants, bird droppings, etc...you're talking about the most nutrient rich waters on the planet.

Blocking light to kill algae is also a myth. They need very little light. A fish bowl in a living room gets almost no useable light in the spectrum plants need but will grow lots of algae. Anyone have a swimming pool covered for the winter and find the water green when the cover is removed in the spring? Covering a pond 100% with water hyacinth might kill algae. But more likely other factors brought into the pond with the water hyacinth will kill the algae first. As with Norm Meck's experiments if you add green water to a container of water from a clear pond with water hyacinth the algae will die in a few hours. It wasn't the light.
 
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Thanks for your input, Waterbug. I did read the article that you provided the link for. I'm not sure what to take from it, though....
I'm thinking in simplistic, very simplistic, words that as the algae dies it produces an "antibotic" in the bio filter that kills algae and if you disrupt that process too much the process won't work....

A waste product of the decomposition process of the cell walls is an antibiotic that is toxic to algae. The presence of this antibiotic in the water causes other algae cells to die, the heterotroph bacterial colony increases in size as more "food" becomes available, and as more antibiotic is produced, more algae dies. This continues until an equilibrium point is reached where one of the requirements for the sequence becomes limiting (remember good old Liebig's Law). If the limiting factor is the amount of "food" for the heterotroph bacteria, the water has relatively few remaining algae cells and appears quite clear. If the limiting factor is the amount of space available for the bacterial colonies and the capture of the dead algae (i.e. insufficient amount of filter media) then the water may still have sufficient algae concentration to retain some level of turbidity. This turbidity level (how green it is) will be determined by a combination of all the different characteristics of a given pond and filter system.

I'm trying very hard to understand all this. So I'm a little confused, sarcasim and big words do that to me, am I on the right track with the bio filter? I can see my fish a lot better this morning, so is it starting to balance? Balance is what I'm looking for, right???
 

koiguy1969

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baeya... most people here (by far) would agree your on the right track..........even if it is true that you may not 'need' a biofilter....how can supplying all that additional surface area for aerobic bacteria be a bad thing...its cant! keep your filter as clean as you can with out disturbing the aerobic bacteria, by regular flushes...run the filter for a while, do a flush and watch the crud you will be removing from your ponds eco system. look at the color its gonna be dark green from all the suspended alge thats accumulated in the filters sump area...this is removed from the equation and lessens the burden on the filter and the ponds eco system in general. and is no longer there to die and help feed a continued or another alge bloom. as far as articles go...i take them with a grain of salt...theres so many conflicting opinions in them.who knows which ones to beleive. my belief is that if it works.. it works!! and if it aint broke down fix it! all these years and youve never had a clear pond...its time to try something else....
 

addy1

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You are on the right track baeya, it takes time for you new filter to kick in. If you are seeing better each day it is heading in the right direction.
 
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Whew :)
I can definately see down further! I'm at work today, after several days off, and I can't wait till I get home and relax by my pond :)
 

koiguy1969

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baeya... i have built several of my version of the skippy filter for others (sold them)...and instructed many more people on it. between here, facebook, and youtube. and have recieved many thank yous, and comments on how their ponds have never been easier to maintain, or never looked better with crystal clear water. and excellent water parameters....so no matter the science behind them they do seem to perform quite well...like this one....on my 55 gal filter.
Quote[ i fallowed koiguys design almost exact design and i couldn't be happier with it.
what has been an absolute burden to keep my pond clean is now a pleasure to finally enjoy.
great design]quote....this is post #70 in the build thread.
https://www.gardenpondforum.com/topic/2766-koiguys-55-gallon-bio-filter-skippy-style/page__st__60
 
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I just got home from work and it's too dark out to see my pond :( I can't wait to get up in the morning and have my coffee and SEE my fish and turtle! I sat out there this morning and my shy turtle actually swam up close to me to feed! I could see his whole body! LOL
I do think I'm on the right track....
I ordered a new bulb for the UV, and we've already got it plumbed in line. I do still need to put a hole in the bottom of the Skippy for draining the yuk out. Maybe a Sunday project. I'm going to try and winter over my water hyacinths, that should be fun...

You would have laughed your A$$ off yesterday if you saw my husband and I trying to put that UV in line!! Your drawing was great, but our light has the intake off the side of it not in a direct straight line.......we were like a couple of idiots trying to figure out where the T's and elbows went!! OMG!! It took us two hours!!!
 
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baeya, the only thing I took away from the article is the experiment on combining water from a clear pond with water from a green and the algae dying. What I liked was it's so easy to reproduce. Anyone can do the experiment and it seems to almost always work. It knocks out many "facts" about green water.

The article is just theory based on some facts, but Norm was never able to identify the exact species of bacteria. My theory on string algae clearing water is also a theory. Very hard and expensive to prove this kind of stuff.

Koiguy is absolutely correct that adding bio filters does no harm. I like building filters, it's a hobby, so why not have fun. But I do think telling people the reasons behind the use of filters isn't a bad thing. Most people don't care of course, but there can be one or two who don't have the money to build filters or want to understand their hobby a bit more. If you want to add up the number of people in forms saying Skippies clear water as your answer then absolutely there's no question. 99% or more of people in chats would agree.

Interestingly, if you ran say a dozen or two Skippies in a series it would indeed stand a chance of clear green water. It would act like a stream.
 

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