uv lights

[hank]

Hi guys, new to the forum and looking for advice on finding some larger submersible UV lights. I need if to cover 55,000 gallons. And gosh it would be nice if it werent to spendy. I have to Savio skimmer boxes that hold two lights but I don't think that will be enough. My pond has zero shade and just turns sickly green in the summer.
thanks in advance
Hank

 

[kirscp]

That's a pretty tall order. You would need one heck of a boifilter. I found a UV Clarifier that covers 9,000 gallons for $136, otherwise they get pretty spendy. The largest I found was for 24,000 gallons with a price tag of $925. I don't know how well a UV filter would work with that much volume. You'd need one heck of a pump!

You would want to add some type of a veggi filter and biofilter. You could build a second shallow pond that is filled with bog plants, having your water flow from one end of that pond into your current pond.

 

[hank]

Yeah...I have a pretty good sized veggie filter already. It's filled with primrose, lettuce, parrot feather and iris. For the first year I used Algefix but it was running me 200 bucks a month. That stuffs exspensive. I use Captain now and it does keep my string algae down but doesn't do much for the floating stuff.

This month I started usiing a bacteria that my pond guy cooks up on Mondays every week. It helps a little but noe enough. EVerybody says UV are the way to go but I'm not seeing anything for big ponds out there. Plus it would have to be submersible.

Some info and the pond

55,000 gallons

14,000 gph in pumps

roughly 80 x 40 x 3

2,000 gallon bio filter

2 foot waterfall

11 koi

no shade

The original pond was 100 x 50 x 1 and was fed fresh water from the river. I don't have that luxury so I had to set it up with a closed system. It is a nice pond but hell to take care of.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[thejetskiqueen]

pics please

 

[hank]

Well, you can visit our website. If it won't get me in trouble it is chismhouse.com

It's mostly wedding pics but you can find some of the pond as well. I have and event center that rents out Fri, Sat and Sunday for mostly weddings. So its kind of important to have the pond looking nice. But this year nothing seems to be working. Im told UV is the ticket.

 

[kirscp]

Well, with dumping $200 a month on chemicals, I would spend a couple of hundred on a good UV filter(s).

 

[DrCase]

wow hank thats a large pond...and would be a big light. what do you have in your bio filter ?? how do you clean it ?? last how did you make it????

 

[hank]

Hello Dr,

Well the filter has about a foot of gravel over a wire mesh with the water coming up from underneath. There is quite a bit of iris and primrose in the gravel. Not as much parrot feather this year, and some lettuce and hiacynth floating on top.

I use a 2" trash pump to clean it. After I get down to about a foot in the deep end I use the discharge hose to clean all the rock around the edge. This results in quite a bit of sludge that I suck out with a shop vac. Then I turn the water on, add some dechlor and put the fish back in. But this year it was cloudy the next day and I havent been able to get it back.

I've tried some stuff called F20 this year and it helps along with the superbug. It goes from sickly green to more of a gray green. But still no clarity.

As far as building it. We dug the shape with a back hoe( the original pond was wider but very shallow) and put trenches from the shallow end to the deep end where the bio filter is. There are two Savio boxes at the shallow end, each with a 6900 GPM pump. A simple basket and a screen starts the filtering. After we ran the pipes from the boxes to the upper pond and covered them up I put down a 100x50 foot liner. Rocks surround the outside of the pond and we built a wall under the upper pond with 3 gaps for the waterfalls. So the water gets pumped into the skimmers at one end goes under the pond and up and over the edge of the upper pond. PVC pipe with holes in it sits under the wire and gravel, this gets the water into the upper pond. It took 3 weeks to build. We're on the river so there were a lot of larger rocks to deal with. There is also a fountain with a 3000 GPM pump sending water high into the air.

In response to Kirspc, I'm not using Algaefix anymore. 200 bucks was killing my budget. Captain is a copper based product and works great for string algae but getting enough into the pond to kill floating algae kills the fish, so I use an ounce per 10,000 gallons. It is very inexspensive. One more month and it will be cool enough that the pond will clear back up on its own. But I need to be ready for next summer some UV. Thats my goal anyway.

I don't reccomend anybody build a pond larger than 5,000 gallans. EVER!

 

[DrCase]

this just keeps getting better. hank send us some real pics. so we get a feel for it. weddings looked nice .

 

[kirscp]

I'd build a biofilter.

The following is a biofilter used for a 20,000 gallon pond.

5x5x4 deep with a conical
bottom. Upflow design similar to commercially sold vortex.
25 cubic feet of hog hair filter mats as media. The filter
has a bottom drain which is opened every few days.
That is the only maintenance on the filter.

It is similar to my settling chamber. 4x4x4 with a sloped bottom to hold the muck.

 

[hank]

That sounds interesting krisp. My dilema is I need to keep the area around the pond as is. Im also pondering an aerator to get the bottom moving a litte more. Today was a good day for the pond, somewhere between brown and green. I could make out the larger koi at the bottom of the deep end.

The tropical lillys I picked up this year are growing really fast and have some amazing purple flowers. I think with 4 or 5 next spring I could cover up a third of the pond. That would certainly help.

I'm hoping hogs hair mats aren't really made from hogs hair. I pulled up horse hair padding from under our carpets a couple of years ago and had the itch for a couple of weeks. I'll see if I can figure out flickr and get you guys some proper photos.

Stay frosty

 

[hank]

OK! flickr seemed pretty easy. Here is a link to some pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28943517@N05/?saved=1

Hope it works.

 

[DrCase]

Hank how often do you clean that filter???do you pump the filter out?? or was it the pond you pump out?? putting the fish back lost me.........is the filter under the water fall?? Kirscp is thinking filter,,,so am i,,maybe we can tweek yours...send a pic of the inside of that thing....did i see elvis behind the tree with the cops?

 

[kirscp]

I agree with DrCase, Pics of your current filter. Some additions / tweaking to it may work wonders.

You have one heck of a pond!

 

[hank]

Sorry guys, no pics of the inside of the bog. It's just gravel and lots of plants. The skimmers have a basket and then a screen on the front end. I just started using the screens again as when the string algae gets going in will clog a screen in about 5 minutes.

Well its off to work. Got a wedding set up.