- Joined
- Apr 19, 2020
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 6
- Country
I have a bog filter which I tried the upflow system with. Built it as instructed with the pipe perforated and ready to go. I had read up on this thoroughly before building and left it a year, this was a while back maybe 5 years ago or more. I had lovely Clearwater for the start, but it could not cope with the hot summer! I had a pea green pond. After another year it wasn’t working, so I dismantled it. All of the perforations were blocked, and it was a smelly mess. I ripped it all out! I didn’t do much with it for a while took away some of the gravel and just left it. The inlet which was originally feeding the underwater pipe, I just left dangling in the bog filter so that it still fed the bog and flowed out into and over the waterfall. I had some water lilies which were in the main pond, but the koi were eating them so I rescued all of the left over mangy tubulars. I chucked these into the bog, just to keep them out of reach of the koi. I also had some lava rock from an old filter which I had dried out and put in bags for use another time, so decided to chuck these in the bog too. I then just left it, as I only done this to keep things safe. To my amazement this year, the water lilies have grown, I have had pink and white flowers. Water cress has grown in it like mad, I think a piece of it got into it when I tried to grow some from a supermarket packet in the main pond in a floating basket. It has spread like mad and we use it in salads! What is the best and most amazing thing is that the main pond this year, in all of the full sun that shines on it, is crystal clear!! I have never had a pond like it. You can see every piece of tiny gravel, stone everything on the bottom. The water flowing over the waterfall into the main pond is crystal clear. It is what I have always wanted. So, my water just flows through my bog, not from below, just across and this is the result! I’m not touching it, it is beautiful!! I expect some will say there is going to be an awful mess/smell etc, but I will see to that when the time comes. I’ve also got thousands of those little shrimp things in there too. For now it is great! I was looking at some images of pools of water, streams etc on the internet, and they were just flowing too, and near the end where a pool had been created you can see straight through. I’m pleased just to leave what I’ve got for now. Upflow, downflow, horizoctal or upside down, I’m not interested. I’m leaving well alone.