First home, first pond.. water is dirty!

[lynntran]

Hmmm, what about a piece of cardboard wrapped with plastic taped to a broom?

At this rate I'll use the lid to my Pringles can. Haha.

 

[tbendl]

Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[sissy]

you could use a flocculant or clarifier but you will need the water well aerated and need to do itt first thing in the morning .Also koi clay works and makes the koi healthier .I turn off my pumps and add koi clay wait 15 to 20 minutes and turn pumps back on and it clarifies the water

 

[MitchM]

Welcome.

You have a nice pond setup there, but it's going to need a LOT of cleaning.
I think after you get things cleaned up, you'll be an expert on pond filtration.
If it was mine, I would completely empty those 2 tubs, have a look at the plumbing setup, add some filter media and be prepared to clean them out very frequently.
At the same time, I would try to increase water flow so your cleaned filter setup can remove as much as possible.
I don't like it that your pond is starting to smell.
That tells me that getting a working filter is priority number 1, as soon as possible.

I would turn off the pumps to the tubs during the cleaning, but at the same time add aeration to the pond so the fish don't run out of oxygen.

.

 

[MitchM]

Also, I'm a little surprised that someone left their 2' koi behind without ensuring proper care for them.

 

[sissy]

Could you take the net and see what is on the bottom of the pond .Don't disturb it to much ,but check to see what is down there that may be making the water smell

 

[lynntran]

Could you take the net and see what is on the bottom of the pond .Don't disturb it to much ,but check to see what is down there that may be making the water smell

Theres some black brown goop that comes up the net when I scoop around 2 feet depth. I'm going to figure out how to drain the two tubs without making a mess on the side of my house.

 

[addy1]

If you don't find a bottom drain except that port, if you open that port you may want to install one while it is empty. If it is like mine (if I remember right) it is a one inch or slightly larger screw in. I would get a screw in pvc connector, and misc pvc parts, and a ball valve. Add a drain to the system. Then you could drain anytime you wish.

You could 45 or 90 out of the port into some pvc with the ball valve to open or shut as needed.

 

[johan]

Just wanted to chime in to reemphasize that carefully is the order of the day. Green water is mainly a cosmetic problem rather than a fish health problem, brought about by having too many nutrients in the water. Nutrients make algae thrive. But that also means you do have a successful cycle going, as nutrients are the end product of such a cycle.

But, clearly you have a tremendous amount of accumulated goop in the pond, and by removing this accumulation you'll set yourself up for a cycle that doesn't have the burden of this extra nutrient source, which is a sensible maintenance thing, as well as cosmetically nicer.

The thing to bear in mind though is that the goop is full of badstuff for the fish, especially if they're Koi, so you'll want to make sure that you remove it as carefully as you can without diluting goop into the water that the fish swim in. That won't make them happy at all, nor you if they fall ill. A sump pump to remove it from the pond sounds like a great idea, as does draining the goop from the filters and letting it exit your pond system. Other people have also chimed in with things like Koi clay that I have no experience of, but googling around folk do seem to rate it highly. Good luck, let us know how you get on!

 

[addy1]

I have used a sump pump to clean my small ponds while building them, they work great to take the muck out of the bottom without really stirring up the water, They do suck out a bunch of water pretty quickly. One thing to be aware of. She could also sump pump out the filters if she could get the pump below the filter medium.

A sump pump to remove it from the pond sounds like a great idea

 

[sissy]

I got past cleaning the bottom of my filters by putting a pump in the bottom of it and just plugging it in when I need to clean the filter .Pump does need a cage around the inlet and you need to take out any prefilter foam pad that may be inside the cage

 

[pecan]

Hi and welcome! I haven't read every post in this thread but I looked at your pictures and read your concerns.

It sounds like your set up is similar to mine, so I'll try and provide some tips based on the set up you have.

I net out the bottom of my pond once in the spring and again in the fall, sometimes Ill give it a third netting out in mid summer if I feel ambitious. I use a pool net and dump the "gunk" into a wheel barrel, take it back to the garden and dump it in the soil.

I have two skippy filters and a small bog. Two pumps sit in the pond. The hoses to the skippies should take the water into the bottom of the skippy in a circular direction. The water should spin in a circle up through the filter media then out the top into the pond.

I have clean out valves at the bottom of the tanks so I can flush the gunk out of the bottom when needed. This is the only cleaning I do to mine. The tanks come with a drain. I simply added a fitting and ball valve to the drain. Then I hook a hose up to the drain and turn the valve. The gunk flushes out through the hose to whichever flower beds gets lucky that day.

I do wonder about the one tank flowing into the second tank. It seems if the water enters and exits the top of the second tank you aren't getting much filtration from it. You want the water to enter in the bottom then force its way up through the media and out the top.

This year I drilled a small hole in the pvc that takes the water into the bottom of the skippies and ran air hoses from a small air pump. I actually think that made a huge difference in water clarity this year though I wasn't really having issues to begin with. Oxygen in the filter media helps promote the growth of beneficial bacteria.

If I were you, I'd start by scooping out the bottom of the pond, and flushing the gunk out of the tanks. I'd probably do this several times since each time you will stir stuff up and it will settle again. Maybe 2-3 times to get it fairly clean. I'd also do small water changes frequently. After that I'd watch your system to see if changes should be made.

Changes I might consider is putting a separate hose to each tank (you can either get a splitter or a second pump) and making sure the water enters through through the bottom.

I'd inspect the filter media to see if maybe its old and has degraded over time. Depending on the media that can happen.

I'd pump oxygen into the bottom of the tanks.

I'd look at the amount and size of koi and see if it's possibly over stocked.

Maintenance, I'd do small weekly water changes and larger water changes in the spring and fall when I scoop out the bottom. That's all I do since when I do the water changes it flushes the skippies. I added a picture below for you to see my set up. The water from my skippies overflows out the top into the small bog. The small bog also has water pumped under the gravel, then all the water flows down the waterfall and into the pond. I built a deck over my skippies with access panels from the sides and top to open and close valves when needed.

I have 9 koi in about 5000 gallons with this filtration. I also have about 15 comets in there.




Edit: I'll add before I added the drain to my skippies I cleaned them with a shop vac. I let as much water drain from them as possible using a siphon, then stuck the shop vac in the bottom to get the gunk. This was not ideal and messy and annoying so I added the flush out valves. Now I simply open them and leave every thing running. Let them drain about 10% of the water volume of the pond through the drain valves and set the garden hose in the bog to add the 10% back.

Second edit: Also I noted that you said you could see gunk in the top of the tanks looking down. I can as well as the gunk coats the filter media. that doesn't necessarily mean the tank is filled solid with gunk up to that level. But either way with the smell of the tanks I'd definitely clean the gunk out.

 

[pecan]

I also would not go buy additional pond equipment at this time until you get your current equipment cleaned and running properly.

 

[pecan]

I just took a couple pictures looking down into the top of one of my skippies for your reference and drew a quick sketch of how mine are set up.

Hopefully this helps. I used a pvc table to hold the florescent light grating up. the grating keeps the filter media in the middle of the tank where you want it. So you have water space below where the water enters, then the water pushes up through the media and out the top. The gradting on top keeps hte media from plugging the outlets.


This is where the air enters

And here you can see it bubbling up.

 

[addy1]

Fantastic help Pecan! great helpful post.