What do I need

I never worried about keeping a hole in the ice. But then I live in North Alabama and the pond never froze for more than a week at a time and then never very thick. The fish always came through fine.

The plants are a great idea. I always had problem keeping my pond clear. I though the water was dirty and I wasnt doing a good job filtering. Then one day I put in a pot of elodea (sp). Wha la, clear water.

Yankee Dog
 
Laidies and Gentleman, the Goldfish have left the building. And now they're in the pond. Funny, after acclimation they just sat there on the bottom kinda lookin' at me. I could read their minds, they were thinking, "And you've thrown us in here becuzzzzzz..." lol Still, they just sat there. I almost got worried when I dropped a few food pellets in and they just looked at them. Then one went over and sucked one up. He sucked it in, spit it out. Sucked it in, spit it out. Yup I thought, they're fine. :) Took a look at them this morning. There they were, sitting on the bottom. Then the sun broke the horizon and one of them shot off like a rocket... Yeah, I think they like their new home.
Peace :dive:
 
Yankee Dog. I wanted to make a big one originally. Take a big load of rock, make a stream and fancy waterfall. 400-500 gallon pond. Places to sit, bushes, arbors, lighting, the works. My wife just said, "We already have a pool." I thought, and your point is... :confused: No not really. Guess she's got a point. Sort of. It would be a hugh project and then there's the up-keep. Still...

id10t. Hungry critters, birds and such. Not sure yet. Thought about some bird net. The kind you put over a garden. I could make a simple cover to lay over the pond but that would be ugly. It would keep any birds out though. Cats too I imagine. Other critters like raccoons, well... I don't think there's anything you can do there. I they want in, they'll get there. Just hoping none will come around I guess. Any suggestions?
 
I use 2 whole house filters hidden under my pre-formed waterfall as my filer. They are plumbed up so the the water flows down to the bottom and up to the top. The first one has pot scrubbers, the second has crushed lava rock as the bio media.

Seems to be working just great. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, <20 Nitrate, Ph is about 8. I also have plants and hyacinths...
 
cmslick3 said:
I use 2 whole house filters hidden under my pre-formed waterfall as my filer. They are plumbed up so the the water flows down to the bottom and up to the top. The first one has pot scrubbers, the second has crushed lava rock as the bio media.

Seems to be working just great. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, <20 Nitrate, Ph is about 8. I also have plants and hyacinths...
Click to expand...

Looks pretty good. The directions I got for a filter says all that's necessary is a bunch of stuff like your pot scrubbers. I like what you did with the lava rock though. Certainly can't hurt.
 
If you are really interested I can give you some specifics on what I used to build my filter setup. I made some modifications last week and I think I've got it 100% dialed in!!

In short I used to have a cloudy pond, now it's clear. I wasn't allowing enough time for the big chunks to collect so they were ending up in the "bio" part.

I also added an aerator to the pond and that had a definite impact.
 
small pond filter

As promised here are some pictures of my filter and some basics on it's design.

First here are the pics: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/cmslick3/album/576460762403566822

Let me first tell you that I had a problem with dirt seeping from my planters into the pond so the filter picture is before I changed to rocks for the planters and vacuumed out 75% of the water and mud. As of today the filter has been going for 2 days and is no where near clogged.

Basically I bought 2 whole house filters, 2 4' foot lengths of 1/2" PVC, 1 4' length of 3/4" PVC (for inside filter housings), 8' of vinyl tube to fit pump output and filter input/output, as well as various elbows and threaded ends etc... Unfortunately it's not a one size fits all application, so you're going to have to make it fit your needs.

I put the input to the filter in reverse of the flow indicator on the filters so that the water would come in the center and out the outside. Normally it goes the other direction since that's the way the cartridges are designed.

I cut the tubes inside to fit firmly into the guides that exist for the normal cartridge, however they need to be slightly longer than the actual cartridge. If I remember correctly I ended up with 10 3/4" and trimmed down from there until I got a snug fit. I also used a piece of airline tubing to create a seal in the top and bottom guide, i think they were roughly 2 1/2" long and I shoved them into the channels with long screwdrivers. This insures that the water does not bypass the filter material and keeps things flowing smoothly. The holes on the bottom of the tubes are 9/16" which seems to be plenty of flow, believe me I went through multiple attempts before coming to that size. Also don't put them at the very bottom, you need about 1/2" offset.

The first chamber is the mechanical filter, and the filter material is offset from the bottom of the chamber to allow really big stuff time to settle. I also think this helps to reduce the pressure put on the water and allows more to be caught. My material of choice so far is round plastic pot scrubbers, a whole DOLLAR for 12 of them, I only use 9 and a bit of polyfill in there so it's quite affordable. I found that stacking 6 scrubbers, then poly, then 3 more scrubbers seems to work well. I don't put the poly at the top because it tends to come lose and clog the output of the chamber. Feel free to experiment with this.

The second chamber is basically the same except it's got a put scrubber on the very bottom, then marble sized pieces of lava rock to the top, finished with another put scrubber.


I can't think of anything else, unless there are questions.
 
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