Thoughts on Filtration

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So I love really polished water. When I used a chemical flocullant, it was AMAZING. I'm not sure I want to use this regularly, so thinking of filtration.

I have two filtration systems, one bog, one "commercial" (but not pressurized). The bog system is fantastic. I installed it first, water chemistry is perfect. It's a safe, clean pool, albeit with tannins and imperfect water.

Bog system is fed from skimmer. Commercial system is fed from Bottom Drain.

When I added the commercial system, it was a game changer. They run in parallel. But I am looking for even cleaner water. Commercial system:
Bottom Drain -> Settlement Chamber -> Oase Biosmart 1600 -> Aquascape Pond Urn Filter

The Biosmart is great. Takes 30 seconds to clean the sponges, it's fantastic. The Pond Urn filter is probably where I have room for improvement.

I have a variety of ceramic bio material in bags. It flows into a mechanical filter that came with the urn. Then it goes through a small bag of activated carbon before the spillover.

I am thinking of reducing the bio material to make more room.

I was looking at: a Koi "fine" filter:

I am also looking at the Ultra High Density Matala filters:

Thought it to have teh water flow through a smaller biofiltration material bag, then through large activated carbon bag, then into the mechanical filtration: coarse pad -> medium pad -> find pad. Then it will flow into the water. My thoughts are that the Oase 1600 does most of the filtration, this is just bonus and polishing.

Any thoughts?

To the all-bog people, I get it, it's so amazingly low maintenance. It actually makes me happy I can use my second system entirely for vanity.
 

JRS

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Not sure how much fines the Matala will trap. I do not have experience with the smaller sizes only with the green which is very coarse. I use it to keep leaves from blocking my internal coarse sponge filter. I used the coarse sponge to replace the polyester pad in my Danner pondmaster filter which was clogging almost every day in my pond. Polyester pad looked similar to the fine filter you linked to.
 
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So have some pool filter socs and pvc couplings so I’m going to try to capture crap on its was to the settlement chamber. Then every once in a. While I can swap it out and have no “pieces” to clear the chambers.

I feel like more filtration is the key to everything.
 
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I was looking at: a Koi "fine" filter:
I'd go one of three routes.

Water changes . Remove build up of minerals from fish and debris waste, Which also will replenish minerals that are used by plants and microbes

Baki Shower for more anaerobic bacteria and dissolved oxygen.

Sieve is a micron filter for truly fine screening
 

Jhn

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As was mentioned, if you put in a finer filter pad the more often you will have to clean it, possibly daily. If that is a sustainable procedure for you then go for it. You have to decide what you enjoy doing to care for your pond or about your pond, otherwise you won’t continue to do it.

Never thought much on having crystal clear water, my bogs keep it clear enough also the man made/ store bought filter system for my size pond would be rather expensive.
 
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I'm not super familiar with some of the higher end filtration, but I do get your desire to have crystal clear water. Year 10 running our bog we realized we had a lot of floating debris - it made me kind of crazy. We bought a simple box filter with 6 or 7 Metala pads - worked great. Achieved our goal. But the aesthetic was wrong. We needed a waterfall rebuild, so we decided to add a bio filter to the system. Problem solved.

Bog filtration is great for biological, but you definitely don't get a lot of mechanical filtration out of it, especially as time goes on. We really need to clean out our rain exchange - when the water gets low, we start pumping "murk" from the bottom - but otherwise the biofalls gets us to the level of clean we enjoy.
 
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if you put in a finer filter pad the more often you will have to clean it
That's the advantage of a sieve it literally could be made so regardless of how heavy the fines are they are pushed down the screen/ micron filter and the water falls through. The larger the screen and the holding area or waste collection the less daily, weekly or even monthly cleaning is needed. The other option is the size of the micron screen like from 70 to 300
 
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That's the advantage of a sieve it literally could be made so regardless of how heavy the fines are they are pushed down the screen/ micron filter and the water falls through. The larger the screen and the holding area or waste collection the less daily, weekly or even monthly cleaning is needed. The other option is the size of the micron screen like from 70 to 300

I am intrigued by this option. Can you share a picture or link? It sounds like another filtration box with a. Metal screen. Very interesting.
 
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THIS IS ONE FILTER THATS VERY EASY TO DYI

I WILL PROBABLY BE ADDING ONE TO MY SET UP

THAT AND A SMALL BAKI SHOWER
 
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That looks amazing. That mechanical filtration is what I have the Oase Biosmart 1600 for. It comes with 2 Blue and 1 Red filter. I wonder if I added a Green sponge fro them if it would help.

The flocculent was a WOW, amazing when clean.

The sieve looks tempting. Something like that to replace my Oase is VERY tempting.

The irony, it's cheaper to buy a replacement box on Ebay than it is to get the sponges/UV light for maintenance.
 

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