my parents just installed a new pond/water feature in their backyard. i decided they needed some fish so i bought them 5 feeder goldfish the other day.

i already have a couple of questions:

1. There are two pumps in the pond for the waterfall. One is about 1.5'x1', the other is smaller. I am sure they cycle enough water for the fish to be happy, but are special filters needed? (bio-filter?) There is some mesh type stuff in the bigger pump that catches debris like leaves and fish food and stuff. Is that sufficient?

2. I read a couple of articles which seemed to suggest that if you have a balanced ecosystem in your pond, you don't have to feed your fish very much if at all -- that they can live off of algae and plants that are in the water. Opinions here? Can fish in a good pond be left for days without feeding (if on vacation for example). There are already some snails on the pond edges eating stuff, the plants are healthy, and the fish seem to enjoy eating from the bottom of the pond.




...and here's a couple photos of the setup. I estimate that the pool is somewhere around 100 gallons in volume.

Thats a lovely little pond! Good location for a pond to.

5 goldies is really quite a lot for a 100 gallon pond, it'll do while the fish are small but once they get to be 8-10 or more inches there might be a problem. I had 6 goldies in a 100 gallon pond and I recently upgraded to a 350 gallon pond and my fish are much happier, the upkeep is a lot easier to The pond will be needing some sort of filtration, UV filters are great for keeping the water clear, you also need to have some sort of biological filtering. We've got a fishmate UV filter for our pond and it has a series of big black sponges (not your typical household sponge, a much better type that won't break down over time) that remove debris from the water while the UV light kills all the algea in the water.

I know a couple people that don't feed their pond fish at all and they do just fine, you've just got to make sure that there is stuff for them to eat and keep an eye on them.

I love your pond pics! It is very preatty!

From looking at some more websites, I think the filter that is on our large pump is similar to some of the black carbon pads in some systems (pre-filter/bio-filter).

Is a uv filter required? The pond gets some sun which of course has some uv light rays, and if the pond doesn't get really green with algae I'd imagine it would be ok without one (plus don't the fish/snails eat algae?).

So far as better biofilters and uv filters go, are they to be attached to existing pumps, or can you just plug them in and drop them into the pond or what? I have been unable to find any websites that clearly describe the purpose, neccessity, and setup of various pond systems.



and thank you for your appreciation lola

If the pond is in the shade you do not need a UV light, you shouldn't have much trouble with algae because the algae needs sun light to grow. You do need some sort of bio filter to filter out the ammonia and nitrites. I'm assuming that you have submersable pumps? If that is the case then your pump is generally incased inside the filter. You can make a box that will hold your bio media plus pump or they make boxes with the bio media that will hold your pump.

The uv rays from the sun are different than the UV light. Algae loves sun light and will grow rapidly in full sun, does not grow so fast in shade.


The pond is beautiful nice job!

Scott

Scott (or others): I read the algaefix thread, including your information on the microbe-lift products. I am wondering if it would be possible to not have a biofilter in place and to just add some of a product like this on a regular basis to keep good microbes working to clean the pond? (Perhaps some of the gel stuff in the pre-filter as well?)

All the microbe filters i have seen so far are quite pricey. Are there small ones that could be fixed in-line with the pre-filter and pump?

Microbe Lift is around $90 a gallon and you'd need to put it in more than what it specifies because you wouldn't have anyplace for the micro organisms to live, grow, and eat ammonia and nitrites.

You can make a bio filter a lot cheaper than buying on anyhow. There are several places where you can get good ideas on DYI stuff. Roarks experimental puddle has a lot of good stuff for DYI. One really good filter is the trickle tower filter which not only cleans the water nicely but also adds lots of oxygen, which of course is very benificial, and by the way will clear that water up really good.

Scott

Get a good bio filter and move a bunch of water. You could do less - but doing it right from the start will save you tons of trouble in the future.

Very nice pond - take care of it,

I haven't been able to find any good DIY info on Roark's Experimental Puddle...is there a certain section I should be looking in?

So far as a trickle tower goes, it sounds like a great, and beneficial idea, but I'd really like to keep things as simple as possible for my parents, and would like to just use the equipment they have already.


As I mentioned before, there are two pumps. The larger pump has a pre-filter on it which is roughly 1.5'x1' in size. I opened it up today, and found that there are two sheets of the material in the following photo, as well as a layer of the stubbly plastic balls (one shown) beneath them.

The balls don't really seem like the type of media which would be in a bio-filter. I am thinking that i'd like to just put some better bio-media into the filter box in place of the plastic balls in order to promote the growth of good bacteria.

Would doing this work, or would having bio-media in the current pre-filter drastically reduce water flow or something? Or perhaps this would not be a good way to set things up for bacteria to thrive?

The balls are meant for the beneficial bacteria to grow on, they don't do any filtering. Based on experience the pre-filter acting by itself won't to a sufficient job in keeping the pond clean. Everything will get stuck to it and it will need to be rinsed out quite often. When I had a 100 gallon pond I had to rinse the pre filter every single day because it got so mucked up that the pump couldn't get water through.

Your very best bet would be to get or make an external filter or a skimmer. The trickle tower is a great idea. You could also build a mini "skippy" filter. Heres the link for that http://www.skippysstuff.com/biofiltr.htm . Skippys sound like they'd be easy to make and according to the website they don't need cleaning. ( I wish I knew for sure, I've never built one but I've heard they're good)

I have a 1500 gal pond that I have been running for 10 years. My fish don't feed from about Nov to April. I don't run the filter or water fall during that time. Around April they get interested in feeding. I always throw in a few pellets first, if there is a big race to get them I feed. I have left them unfed for two weeks at a time in the summer months and they do fine on whats in the pond. During the summer I feed every 3 to 5 days.

I run a large bead filter and UV lites during the summer/warmer months 4pm - 7pm and 3am to 6am. I notice from your photo that the edge of your pond gets full sun. I think it is important to run the waterfall from around 3am to 6am to prevent oxygen trouble if you get a sudden agle bloom. My pond is almost fully shaded, but before I turn on the filter, it only takes a day or two of warm weather to get green water. UV is hard to beat for keeping the water really crystal clear.

During construction, I bought a lot of stuff from Aqua-Tec in Florida. I haven't had a new catalog from them in years, but they used to have really great technical articles on pond keeping. Maybe their web site does now.

thanks for the information stephen!

the waterfall runs 24/7 for aesthetic purposes.

I talked to the guy at the place where the pond materials were purchased from. It turns out that the filter I have is a biofilter. I purchased some de-chlorinator, some pellet koi/pondfish food, and some powder bacteria booster for the biofilter (I would have preferred some of the liquid products I've seen, but this place didn't carry any).

I have read that store-bought bacteria might be somewhat pointless, but I thought it couldn't hurt to try since most of my original 5 fish didn't survive their first week in the pond.

Now that I know a little bit more about maintaing a healthy aqua-system I am hopeful that future fish can have a nice long life.


Curious if most people use floating pellet food or flake food?