LOL I know what you mean. Our largest pond was 13 thousand gallons and we had 60 Koi in there ranging in size from about 6" to just over 2 feet. We tried everything that we were told to do. 60% coverage of the pond didn't work because the Koi would get into the Lilies and dig around in there so that we could see 1/3 of their bodies and all of their tails sticking up in the air. Dirt on the bottom of the pond, oxygenators everywhere and water hyacinths torn to shreds and the water was 5 feet deep and so green we could have had it for lunch as pea soup.
We were shown the upflow bio-filter using lava rock and that worked great for about a month and then the ponds that used to have hair algae before the filters were added started to come back again and the other ponds started to get suspended algae again. Not only that, I didn't have bottom drains on these 45 gallon drums so guess what, I had to dump the filters over and we had 14 ponds at the time.
The sludge buildup on the lava rocks was unbelieveable and now I know why the filters quit working, it was because the sludge was starving the good bacteria of oxygen and a food supply.
One day a friend called up with this downflow filter and we were so desperate that we asked him over and Hubby and him put together the filter we're using now and I couldn't believe it. I added a freeze dried bacterial seeding product called Crystal Clear and the next day I could see that the consistency of the water wasn't as thick as it was the day before. Each day after that I could see a couple of inches more until after the 10th day when I came outside to the pond it was crystal clear and the clarity of the water actually hurt my eyes. After that, we've never had a problem with suspended or hair algae. Cleaning time now was about and hour maybe a bit more when I had to clean all those filters when it used to take me pretty much all day to clean the other upflow filters and now I'm not wasting any water at all because the only thiing I have to clean now is the window screening at the top of the filter, never the scrubbies.
Your's Koily, Lorraine
