Filters

[butterflycld]

Ok, now I am sounding like a newbie, but I thought I had all this figured out and now I am second guessing everything. We are planning on building a bigger pond roughly 10'X15' and 3' in the shallow end and 5' in the deep end. My pond now is 4'X6'X2.5' and I am using the skippy mini barrel filter that we made. I was planning on continuing to use that kind of filter, maybe make it bigger, but now I have been looking at all these other ponds and ideas and I am getting into the bottom drain and skimmers and all that. What do you all recommend is the way to go? Would just the bio filter in drum work or do I need to put in all the other things too?

 

[jason081180]

i am no expert on this but i do know that if you don't have a bottom drain stuff will collect there. seeing as your pond will be 5 ft deep how are u planning to suck the stuff of the bottom? the skimmer is to remove surface stuff. do you have a lot of trees around where your pond will be? if so you will probable need a skimmer. depending how big your shallow and deep parts are going to be your going to have about 4500 GL. so i would get about a 6000GPH pump. one 55GL barrel filter is good for about 1500 GL so you would need at least 3, i wold go with 4 55GL barrels. you would probably want a settling chamber as well. as i said I'm no expert and others can explain this in more detail.

 

[koiguy1969]

its true you will be in the 4500 gal range... would you like to have a waterfall? how about 2 waterfalls? a 150 gallon skippy style stocktank filter or even better, a couple 100 gal stocktanks will do a fine job of keeping your pond and fish happy. and can be put pondside for 2 nice waterfalls like this:
https://www.gardenpondforum.com/koiguys-70-gal-skippy-style-filter-t5089.html
skimmers are convenient, but just a matter of preferrence.. i keep 90%+ plant coverage so a skimmer would be of little use. but the amount of filter needed is more of a fishload consideration than pond size.

 

[butterflycld]

The hubby and I sat down last night and really planned this thing out. We are going to put in a BD that runs to a screen filter that I can clean out and then will go back to the pond. Then I am going to up my skippy to the 150 stock tank style. Debating on the filter media for that. Right now I use the cut to size filter material from lowes or home depot. Thinking about going to the tubing that I saw suggested or the strap material. I am going to also install a skimmer. I don't really need one now, but with uping the size of my pond greatly, I am concerned that I would need it then. So better to just plan on it then regret not doing it later. We rough drew out the shape on paper and mapped all the plumbing. Now to get parts in and start!