Skippy Conversion

[MikeyToo]

Yes, I finally saw the light and converted….. or perhaps I should say my stock tank was converted…

This last winter I decided to convert my 150 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank into a Skippy biofilter for our 2300 gallon pond. Previously the stock tank has been used as a combo-settling chamber for fish solids and a veggie filter. The veggie filter (water hyacinths) coupled with many plants in the pond used to do a pretty good job of keeping my water clear. The key phrase is “Used to”….

My first mistake a few years ago was adding two mature red eared sliders to the mix. They pooped like crazy and pooped some more and then to make matters worse they ate my water lilies.
Did I mention that they poop a lot?…. Darling looking aren’t they…. Here they are basking on Turdle Island……and yes the spelling is correct….. Pay no attention to what appears to be green water. The color problem must be with your monitor…..

Well I managed to find a home for my turtles and yet the following year I still had less than clear water….. Whenever I saw the water I got this strange urge to have some split pea soup….

I thought that once my water lilies recovered and my water hyacinths grew back I would be okay. But no, a pair of raccoons somehow found our pond and liked it so much they added its coordinates to their internal GPS and they became regular visitors……or should I say marauders. They frolicked and dumped many of my potted plants into the pond and were busy eating most of the water hyacinths when they weren’t thrashing the water lilies…... All this, coupled with a neighbor giving me a bunch of his goldfish, resulted in another season of green water….. I don’t want crystal clear water but I thought it would be nice to see the fish again…… To make matters worse, last winter the raccoons chewed a hole in my liner beneath the bridge of our pond which resulted in a loss of about 12” of water before I noticed it….

Thus, after about 11 years of managing without a biofilter I decided it was time to build one. Here’s my conversion of the stock tank into a Skippy biofilter…..

The drain on the stock tank was located on the side and about 3/4” above the bottom. I have an outlet PVC pipe attached to drain the tank but of course it can’t drain that last inch of stinky muck. Well I wasn’t about to dig the whole thing up and install a actual bottom drain so I poured in a mix of concrete and raised the bottom so that it now drains pretty well. I painted the concrete to make it smoother. Here is a view from above. The black thing on the bottom is a saddle support for my discharge PVC .

Here is a closer view of the saddle support.

Below is the discharge piping in place to make a gentle swirl action.

Continued

 

[MikeyToo]

Below shows the added grating that will support the biofilter media.

I used Savio Springflo as my biofilter media. This media is ¼” wide ribbon-like material with ripples in the ribbon. To contain the media I used tree bird netting that I cut to the appropriate size and then I used zip-lock ties to “sew” the edges together to make pillow-like containers to hold the media. I made two of these, one for each side and stuffed them with the Springflo media.

On top of the biofilter media I placed egg-grate lighting grids to hold the material down. I had to put a red clay brick on top of each egg-grate to keep it from floating to the top. I chose not to add additional mechanical filtering media such as the Matala filters because I was happy with my water clarity. It’s not gin clear…..but then again I don’t drink hard liquor……

Continued

 

[MikeyToo]

Here’s a before and after view. The black ABS pipe is the venturi to add oxygen to the water and assist in the biofiltration.

 

[koikeepr]

Nice job!

Personally, I think you should not be overlooking the mechanical filtration aspect. Get them matala mats or some other trapping material. In that case you'd reverse the order of your contents inside, which would be to put the matala on the bottom and the springflo on top.

What is the grid material that appears to be black that you used for your bottom rack? Am curious about it. I'm always looking for a replacement for the grid light since it is brittle stuff.

But you've done a fine job on a bio filter! And, yeah, turtles are monster poopers! LOL!

 

[MikeyToo]

Why do you recommend putting the matala mats on the bottom? Is it to keep the biomedia from getting clogged? Most photos I've seen show folks putting cut up floor scrubbers and such on top. Thanks for the input.

The grating is dog kennel grating. I ordered it from Gene over at Koi Village. I liked it because it is pretty sturdy. I didn't know it was kennel grating until it arrived and I saw the labels. If I knew it was dog kennel grating I would have tried to find it locally.

 

[PS3]

we put the matala mats or other kind of filter on the bottom to catch the crud
and to keep it to the bottom of the tank.. you did a nice job on this filter

 

[koikeepr]

right, the mats go on the bottom so that the crud stays below them and doesn't float up and back through the filter and keeps the bio cleaner. You want to trap that crud down and not let it travel up in the filter, otherwise it's a moot point.

Hmmm...I think I looked at dog crate grids, but found them too expensive. I'm always on the look out for something better than light grids to use.

 

[DrCase]

Nice looking filter you got there !!!

 

[y2kdejesus]

These pics really helped me understand this whole skippy filter that I plan on using in my pond. So the water doesnt come out of the venturi opening? and you pump the water up and over the tank down goes the water then gets pushed up thru media is that right? thanks mikeytoo

 

[Sunshine]

we put the matala mats or other kind of filter on the bottom to catch the crud
and to keep it to the bottom of the tank.. you did a nice job on this filter

How often do you have to pull the Matala mats out to clean them ?

 

[koikeepr]

I yank 'em out once every two weeks.You give 'em a good tap n the ground to get the crud out, and that about does it. I have well water, so a good spraying too. If you've got tap water you just yank 5g out in a bucket and pour it over them. They can't be easier to clear. I love 'em!

 

[MikeyToo]

These pics really helped me understand this whole skippy filter that I plan on using in my pond. So the water doesnt come out of the venturi opening? and you pump the water up and over the tank down goes the water then gets pushed up thru media is that right? thanks mikeytoo

I'm glad the photos help. I basically borrowed from what I saw on the Skippy website.

I was completely surprised that water didn't come back up air opening of the venturi. I was surprised because the water going through must go down to near the bottom of stock tank and I thought there would be some back pressure but such was not the case. In other photos you will notice a white section on attached to the venturi. That section is mearly a muffler. This venturi makes a gurgling sound as it picks up air so to muffle the sound I attached a short section of PVC and a an end cap with holes drilled into it for air flow.

Yes, the water is pushed out near the bottom of the stock tank and it flows upward through the media. I put my plumbing up and over the stock tank as that was the easiest thing to do with my set up at the time but I have seen others coming up through the bottom. When I installed the stock tank 12 years ago there wasn't much information available on the Internet and I hated drilling a large hole into a perfectly good stock tank.

 

[y2kdejesus]

Hey Mikey would like to see some pics of the other side of your tank where the water drains back into pond as I got my 100 gal stock tank today and wondering how I'm going to approach the outlet side of things. Ditto, I hate to have to drill/cut into a perfectly good tank if I dont have to. Maybe there's another way to have water spilling out without too much cutting. Pics would be appreciated.

 

[MikeyToo]

I believe most people now use a stainless steel spill-way that they either manufacture or purchase. What I used were two 2" bulkhead fittings. The liner is squeezed in between the stock tank and the bulklhead fitting. The stock tank was initially a "veggie filter" when I built the pond. To keep the openings from being clogged with water hyacinths I built the egg-grate screen that has the three sides and bottom framed with egg-grating.

I checked the website of a pond supplier that used to carry the spillways and he no longer carries them but he gave the name and address of his spillway supplier as being:
Economy Aquatic Gardens
2915 Preston Hwy
Louisville, KY 40217

Phone: 502 637-8927

In my case the water leaving the stock tank splashes down some stones into a small pocket-pond which overflows into a very short stream and then into a 2nd pocket-pond before going over a small water fall, under my bridge and back into the pond.

 

[cauzeneffeckt]

I believe most people now use a stainless steel spill-way that they either manufacture or purchase. What I used were two 2" bulkhead fittings. The liner is squeezed in between the stock tank and the bulklhead fitting. The stock tank was initially a "veggie filter" when I built the pond. To keep the openings from being clogged with water hyacinths I built the egg-grate screen that has the three sides and bottom framed with egg-grating.

I checked the website of a pond supplier that used to carry the spillways and he no longer carries them but he gave the name and address of his spillway supplier as being:
Economy Aquatic Gardens
2915 Preston Hwy
Louisville, KY 40217

Phone: 502 637-8927

In my case the water leaving the stock tank splashes down some stones into a small pocket-pond which overflows into a very short stream and then into a 2nd pocket-pond before going over a small water fall, under my bridge and back into the pond.

Check the classified section here, we have a DIYER that sells them pretty darn cheap