The only filter I use before the pond water goes to the bog is a standard exterior pump with its strainer basket.
I have both types of bogs the matrix bog and a pea stone.
When I first got the idea of the bog I was thinking as you are with pull the dirt down through the gravel in the pond. Which in actuality I am but only through larger rock not pea stone. Reason being I had a couple fish get to close and get stuck with there long butterfly fins. So a placed an aqua block panel atop the two main drains and buried them under from 3/4 to 8 inch rock. The water goes to the external pump hits the strainer basket grabs any rocks or plant matter and pumps to the bottom of a 7 foot deep pit with a 24 inch culvert that was cut out with 2 inch slits in the lower ribs of the culvert. This is where any large debris is allowed to settle with only approximately 4000 gph into a 24 inch tube 12 feet long that meets a second vertical 24 inch culvert. The idea is for the flow to be reduced to only displacement. So the debris settles in this area that can be cleaned but so far after 4 years I've got very little out of it.
The water in this area again is displaced by volume not flow and is allowed to rise up through baseball sized layer of rock about 8 inches worth. Where it then enters the matrix blocks or better known as aquablocks. There again the water is allowed to settle let anything that remains in the water to hopefully fall out of the water as a floater and sinks to the bottom of the aquablocks. I call this area the farm where the bacteria micro organisms , plankton , water creatures have a cave where they can swim without preditors such as fish they feed and break down the plant matter or left over food that makes it this far. All the while there is no chance of clogging at this point its gone through a 24 inch pipe and now it sits in matrix blocks 18 x 12 x 32" I belive they are, all placed together making a 8 foot wide by 14 foot cave we'll call it. It's at that point baseball sized and smaller are placed over the matrix and then they are covered with a foot and a half or more of 3/4 river rock . I have not used the 3/8 pea stone to me its just a little to fine for my liking. And in that 3/4 stone is the plants roots now if I had to do it over again I would go with 24 to 30 inches of stone ontop of the matrix blocks so that way even the deepest roots like found on cat tails can't grow into the blocks and while they wont clog the blocks flow they will restrict a little more then I wish I had at this point. Is there a problem now. Not that I am aware of but 24 inch would have insure no roots ever would be. If I needed to yank a giant papyrus for instance tie a rope onto it and yank it out it would only be in the stone. Now there is always going to be blockages within the stone and that's where the gravel sizes as they change and the pressures build up again as they get into the smaller gravel nature finds the path of least resistance. So as one area is allowing water to flow through today as it clogs very time the pressure will flush out an area that had little flow before. Nature finds a way. What has amazed me about the bog and it will only get better as it matures is the incredible diversity I see . I have found baby koi in that 24 inch culvert. They got sucked through the drain pipe past the impeller of the pump and pushed down to the 24 inch pipe where they live. I have seen worms what looks like water catapillars . Sand fleas Daphnia dragon fly lavea all kinds of stuff I never added to the pond. They are eating something and it's better them then algae. Ok so there's a bog in a nut shell . Oh and there's always the plants that pull out the extreme fines in the water the minerals and compounds that are in the water that mechanicall filters don't do so hot pulling out . Not like the way the plants can. So the faster the plants grown like creeping Jenny. Lotus. Penny wart though becarefull with that one. The faster a plant reproduces and grows the less chance algae has to grow.
Can I be done now . This was more work telling you about it then I spend working on the bog in three months
I have both types of bogs the matrix bog and a pea stone.
When I first got the idea of the bog I was thinking as you are with pull the dirt down through the gravel in the pond. Which in actuality I am but only through larger rock not pea stone. Reason being I had a couple fish get to close and get stuck with there long butterfly fins. So a placed an aqua block panel atop the two main drains and buried them under from 3/4 to 8 inch rock. The water goes to the external pump hits the strainer basket grabs any rocks or plant matter and pumps to the bottom of a 7 foot deep pit with a 24 inch culvert that was cut out with 2 inch slits in the lower ribs of the culvert. This is where any large debris is allowed to settle with only approximately 4000 gph into a 24 inch tube 12 feet long that meets a second vertical 24 inch culvert. The idea is for the flow to be reduced to only displacement. So the debris settles in this area that can be cleaned but so far after 4 years I've got very little out of it.
The water in this area again is displaced by volume not flow and is allowed to rise up through baseball sized layer of rock about 8 inches worth. Where it then enters the matrix blocks or better known as aquablocks. There again the water is allowed to settle let anything that remains in the water to hopefully fall out of the water as a floater and sinks to the bottom of the aquablocks. I call this area the farm where the bacteria micro organisms , plankton , water creatures have a cave where they can swim without preditors such as fish they feed and break down the plant matter or left over food that makes it this far. All the while there is no chance of clogging at this point its gone through a 24 inch pipe and now it sits in matrix blocks 18 x 12 x 32" I belive they are, all placed together making a 8 foot wide by 14 foot cave we'll call it. It's at that point baseball sized and smaller are placed over the matrix and then they are covered with a foot and a half or more of 3/4 river rock . I have not used the 3/8 pea stone to me its just a little to fine for my liking. And in that 3/4 stone is the plants roots now if I had to do it over again I would go with 24 to 30 inches of stone ontop of the matrix blocks so that way even the deepest roots like found on cat tails can't grow into the blocks and while they wont clog the blocks flow they will restrict a little more then I wish I had at this point. Is there a problem now. Not that I am aware of but 24 inch would have insure no roots ever would be. If I needed to yank a giant papyrus for instance tie a rope onto it and yank it out it would only be in the stone. Now there is always going to be blockages within the stone and that's where the gravel sizes as they change and the pressures build up again as they get into the smaller gravel nature finds the path of least resistance. So as one area is allowing water to flow through today as it clogs very time the pressure will flush out an area that had little flow before. Nature finds a way. What has amazed me about the bog and it will only get better as it matures is the incredible diversity I see . I have found baby koi in that 24 inch culvert. They got sucked through the drain pipe past the impeller of the pump and pushed down to the 24 inch pipe where they live. I have seen worms what looks like water catapillars . Sand fleas Daphnia dragon fly lavea all kinds of stuff I never added to the pond. They are eating something and it's better them then algae. Ok so there's a bog in a nut shell . Oh and there's always the plants that pull out the extreme fines in the water the minerals and compounds that are in the water that mechanicall filters don't do so hot pulling out . Not like the way the plants can. So the faster the plants grown like creeping Jenny. Lotus. Penny wart though becarefull with that one. The faster a plant reproduces and grows the less chance algae has to grow.
Can I be done now . This was more work telling you about it then I spend working on the bog in three months
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