Noobie Here - An I'm Lost

[vertigo72]

I'm a geek, therefore I monitor everything.

Here are a couple of photos of my filter. The black foam is course and the green foam is a bit finer. Both foam pieces fit on top of the gravel tray. There are 3 of these gravel trays.

The water comes in and passes under the UV light, then down through the course, then fine foam, then through the 3 gravels trays, then back to the pond via the waterfall.

Filter looks pretty good size for the pond. Keep it. Just that by keeping it dry (apparently), you will also have killed all bacteria. Get some filter starter bacteria and even then it may take weeks or even months before its running at full capacity.

But while you're at it; I think you mentioned you had some plastic filter media? Id use those instead of the rocks. They never clog. Depending on what it is, they might not be quite as effective as lavarock or similar rocks (IIRC fine plastic media like K1 Kaldness is as good if not better tho), but your filter is big enough and its nice if it needs virtually no maintenance. You might have to rince those mats once in a while, but thats not as bad as cleaning rocks. Always use pond water when cleaning the filter, and dont overdo it.