Hi,
I've been building and planning my waterfall and biofilter for a while now, and now and again i would post questions on here, and received a lot of help and quite a few new ideas.
I'd like to share with everyone the results so far.
First, a bit of background. I built my pond - 5000 litres - 2 years ago, and started off with 3 fish. Right from the outset i had problems with green water and algae, and i'd been looking for a way to cure it ever since. Last year the fish bred, and i now have 170 which has not helped the algae problem at all!
Then a friend told me about biofilters and i started researching them, which eventually led me to this forum.
My problem was that i had very little free ground around the pond that i could build on, so i decided to add a waterfall with the biofilter being the reservouir and the feed for it.
This led to this design, and the build went like this....
pic pp2 - the start of the biofilter. This shows the barrel with the media spacer and the feed to the swirler. The spacer is simply the lid of the barrel with lots of holes drilled in it and legs to form a spacing from the bottom of the barrel. Underneath this is the drain outlet for cleaning, and higher up is the outlet to the waterfall.
pic pp4 - This is the corner where the waterfall is going. Two wooden walls need to be built, and the biofilter is standing on two bricks. The two large black pipes are carrying the outlet pipe from the biofilter and the supply and drain pipes from the filter.
pic pp5 - Filling the biofilter with medium. The pipe has a venturi fitted now, although it is not owrking as well as i'd like. I'm going to have to rethink this bit.
pic pp9 - A lot of weekends later! The second smaller pond is built and the liner fitted. Left and right of the pond is a small planting area. To the right of the waterfall is the enclosure for the pump . I've added a second outlet for the biofilter.
pic pp11 - The last pic. The lids for the biofilter, and pump housing are in place. The pond liner is trimmed and all the capping wood is in place, and i've added two plants. The smaller splash pond is leveled so that a medium size plant container can sit either side of the deeper splash area.
There is still a lot of landscaping and electrics left to do not least of which is finishing off the outlets from the two waterfalls. The two sections you can see at the moment are temporary. The first waterfall will be wood, but shaped so that the flow is better, and the second waterfall into the main pond is going to be a piece of metal so that i get a nice level flow into the main pond.
This project has been a lot of fun. I welcome any comments or suggestions, and i hope it inspires as well... :toothy12:
Cheers,
Andy.
I've been building and planning my waterfall and biofilter for a while now, and now and again i would post questions on here, and received a lot of help and quite a few new ideas.
I'd like to share with everyone the results so far.
First, a bit of background. I built my pond - 5000 litres - 2 years ago, and started off with 3 fish. Right from the outset i had problems with green water and algae, and i'd been looking for a way to cure it ever since. Last year the fish bred, and i now have 170 which has not helped the algae problem at all!
Then a friend told me about biofilters and i started researching them, which eventually led me to this forum.
My problem was that i had very little free ground around the pond that i could build on, so i decided to add a waterfall with the biofilter being the reservouir and the feed for it.
This led to this design, and the build went like this....
pic pp2 - the start of the biofilter. This shows the barrel with the media spacer and the feed to the swirler. The spacer is simply the lid of the barrel with lots of holes drilled in it and legs to form a spacing from the bottom of the barrel. Underneath this is the drain outlet for cleaning, and higher up is the outlet to the waterfall.
pic pp4 - This is the corner where the waterfall is going. Two wooden walls need to be built, and the biofilter is standing on two bricks. The two large black pipes are carrying the outlet pipe from the biofilter and the supply and drain pipes from the filter.
pic pp5 - Filling the biofilter with medium. The pipe has a venturi fitted now, although it is not owrking as well as i'd like. I'm going to have to rethink this bit.
pic pp9 - A lot of weekends later! The second smaller pond is built and the liner fitted. Left and right of the pond is a small planting area. To the right of the waterfall is the enclosure for the pump . I've added a second outlet for the biofilter.
pic pp11 - The last pic. The lids for the biofilter, and pump housing are in place. The pond liner is trimmed and all the capping wood is in place, and i've added two plants. The smaller splash pond is leveled so that a medium size plant container can sit either side of the deeper splash area.
There is still a lot of landscaping and electrics left to do not least of which is finishing off the outlets from the two waterfalls. The two sections you can see at the moment are temporary. The first waterfall will be wood, but shaped so that the flow is better, and the second waterfall into the main pond is going to be a piece of metal so that i get a nice level flow into the main pond.
This project has been a lot of fun. I welcome any comments or suggestions, and i hope it inspires as well... :toothy12:
Cheers,
Andy.