What's the obsession with Skippys?

[Priscilla]

morewater, do you have a flushvalve on your filter? i too only clean my media once a year. a lite swish in a baby pool of pond water.
do you prefilter? i use prefilters, this minimizes the amount of debris even making it to the filter.
look i by no means claim skippy filters are best. but i know they work. and i dont need a 50 page scientific study to show me. i have used my 2 skippys, one inside, one outside since 2008. i keep hundreds of fish in my ponds. my outdoor pond is 1200gals, my indoor pond is 800gals. i feed more than a cup of food a day, even in my indoor pond. i have never had water quality issues. i have never lost a fish to anything but a heron attack. this is my experience, others may have had different. but like my daddy always said...:IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT"! so if the time ever comes to give me reason, i will consider changing my filtration. but till then,.....

Hundreds of fish! Love it! I would love to have more fish ..... I just need a better filter set up. Plus cleaning ONCE A YEAR! Love that too! I clean every week. I definitely need a better filter set up.

 

[koiguy1969]

i clean my prefilters about every 10 -14 days... heres a video of my basement pond ...1 55 gallon "skippy" style filter...230+ fish as it is right now... except all the young fish are bigger now. sinse this video is from last october....guess i could do a newer video; maybe this week.

 

[JohnHuff]

Hundreds of fish! Love it! I would love to have more fish ..... I just need a better filter set up. Plus cleaning ONCE A YEAR! Love that too! I clean every week. I definitely need a better filter set up.

koiguy cleans his Skippys once a year because he has prefilters which he cleans every 10-14 days.

You can't get away from cleaning your mechanical filters. If you have good enough pre-filters you can get away with not cleaning your biofilter. In my case I have an old wet/dry filter set up (inherited from the previous owner) that I never clean because I have 4 pre-filters that feed water to it. So I can say I never need to clean my wet/dry, but I still have to clean my pre-filters.

Moving media is simple little pieces of plastic that have neutral buoyancy. They float in the water and the beneficial bacteria live on it. Post some pics of your waterfall bucket here. Maybe you can simple add some moving media to it.

 

[Sunshine]

I have a back flush on mine. I'm like Pecan and Morewater. I only clean it once a year. Take out the Matala mats and clean them with the garden hose, I have Bio Balls, clean them with the hose. Take a shop vac to suck the bottom out. I clean it all out in the Fall. I don't have a pre filter. But, by Fall, the mats are full of nasty gunk. It does take me a few hours to clean it all out. I like the once a year cleaning and the rest of the year, enjoying it.

 

[addy1]

Priscilla, keep reading about filters, and just decide what will work for you. We all have different / similar set ups. I, like you know, use a bog for my main ponds and have a sort of skippy for the 1000 gallon subunkin tank. Which flows into the big pond. I chose my setup which takes almost zero care from me, healthy fish, good water tests. I do drain the sort of skippy maybe once in a summer just to flush the bottom muck out.

You will read a lot of different opinions, some informative, some sarcastic, some will trash certain filters others will just post what they have and how it works for them. Your choice, keep reading and your solution will come to you.

 

[koiguy1969]

i have to remove my media from the filter to move it inside anyways...so a couple extra minutes to swish it around in some pond water just makes good sense. ...
my filter media has 6 years of continuous non stop use on it.(24/7/365)

 

[addy1]

Mine is more like a tiny big of filtering stuff and plants. but it did keep the subbie tank clean. No collection of muck on the bottom

 

[Priscilla]

i clean my prefilters about every 10 -14 days... heres a video of my basement pond ...1 55 gallon "skippy" style filter...230+ fish as it is right now... except all the young fish are bigger now. sinse this video is from last october....guess i could do a newer video; maybe this week.

Now you're just plain showing off! Lol! LOVE all your fish!! Jealous! I am going to vamp up my filter system, so I can add some new fish. I just saw this video on a trickle filter

Looks easy enough to do, but how in the world would you hide this monster?

Just so the newbie can be clear: Is my pressure flo considered my bio filter? My water fall bucket has the quilt batting etc ...... I wash that stuff off about once a week or every two weeks. For the pressure flow I just back wash it and have never opened it up yet.

Do I have this in reverse? Should there be another filter BEFORE it gets to the pressure flow?

 

[JohnHuff]

That's the problem with trickle towers, they need to be tall to work well. A short trickle tower won't work well. I didn't build one before because I didn't like the idea of raising the water that high and the problem of evaporation.

What kind of pressure flo filter is it? It's probably both a mechanical and bio filter. Take some pics of your water fall bucket for us. I think you can simply just put some moving media in it.

No, I don't think you need a prefilter for your pressure flo. But if it has mats inside, you will need to clean them.

 

[Sunshine]

This was my small (way small) version of a trickle tower. It was was more for looks than actually working. But, I did have Dragonflies lay eggs in it.

 

[JohnHuff]

A trickle tower should be open on all sides to the environment to allow air flow to the surfaces of the media.

 

[addy1]

This was my small (way small) version of a trickle tower. It was was more for looks than actually working. But, I did have Dragonflies lay eggs in it.

That would look neat with some impatiens planted in it too

 

[morewater]

Ah, impatiens......my faves.

Can someone send me a groundhog pelt for my dart board?

 

[Sunshine]

My ponds in full sun, would Impatiens grow? I tried them in my bog, they died

 

[morewater]

I've grown impatiens in full sun, it's not the sun, it's the soil.....they need moist feet. They probably drowned in your bog.