Well my name is Jack. I am very new to having a pond. In fact I just got my pond filled up about 3 weeks ago and learned it is an 8000 gallon pond.
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j.w
I Love my Goldies
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Never used that stuff so can't help ya there. Algae comes and goes.
kougs
kougs
Welcome to the forum. If your pond is 8000 gallons You will eventually need a larger pump.
Kougs,
Mostly what I read was my pump needed to be big enough to cycle the 8000 gallons in a two hour time frame which is where I got the 4000 gph from. If that isnt correct would you be able to tell me what the proper size would be?
Mostly what I read was my pump needed to be big enough to cycle the 8000 gallons in a two hour time frame which is where I got the 4000 gph from. If that isnt correct would you be able to tell me what the proper size would be?
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Welcome to the forums :wave:
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With my bog filter, pond about 9-10k gallons, more or less, it stayed beautiful with a 4100 gph pump. Less than a once very two hour turn over. I do not have koi they are fussier about water.
sissy
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You could always go with 2 pumps ,if anything happens to one you have a back up .You could do both bog and filter and make it an experiment to see what happens .You may be happily surprised .I see a lot of veggie filters around here .
Welcome to the group! I am new here too
If your pond is brand new, green water is typical. Does it get any shade or full sun? The more sun, the bigger pain the green water will be.
Our main pond is about 6500 gallons, with a 2500 gallon bog that is connected via a water fall (the bog sits about a foot higher than the pond). We are only running ONE filter right now (but have lots of plants). The way ours is set up (for now), the pump intake is located in the 6500 gallon area, and discharges via a Laguna Filter Falls 5000 into the bog, with an 8,000 gallon per hour pump that is split... The filter falls 5000 has 4 outlets at the "falls area"... 2 are set up as the "water fall" as the filter was designed for, but 2 of the others run into a pvc grid that is buried in gravel (with lots of holes in it) and another line from the pump is running the UV to another waterfall... We do NOT have enough filtration by any means! We are getting away with it as is, thanks to the plants... WHAT you need for filtration depends on exactly what you are running.
General rule of thumb (IMO) is if you are going to have fish to "stocking level", for an 8,000 gallon pond, you should be able to filter AT LEAST the 8,000 gallons per HOUR, but better is 16,000 gallons per hour. With the help of plants, you can "get away with" less.
With the way we OVER stock, we need to get more filtration on our pond, but have been holding off, as we are adding a lower pond next year (40 x 50 liner minimum) and our design needs are very different...
I also refuse to use any chemical in our pond, nor do we do water changes....
Hope this helps,
Geri
If your pond is brand new, green water is typical. Does it get any shade or full sun? The more sun, the bigger pain the green water will be.
Our main pond is about 6500 gallons, with a 2500 gallon bog that is connected via a water fall (the bog sits about a foot higher than the pond). We are only running ONE filter right now (but have lots of plants). The way ours is set up (for now), the pump intake is located in the 6500 gallon area, and discharges via a Laguna Filter Falls 5000 into the bog, with an 8,000 gallon per hour pump that is split... The filter falls 5000 has 4 outlets at the "falls area"... 2 are set up as the "water fall" as the filter was designed for, but 2 of the others run into a pvc grid that is buried in gravel (with lots of holes in it) and another line from the pump is running the UV to another waterfall... We do NOT have enough filtration by any means! We are getting away with it as is, thanks to the plants... WHAT you need for filtration depends on exactly what you are running.
General rule of thumb (IMO) is if you are going to have fish to "stocking level", for an 8,000 gallon pond, you should be able to filter AT LEAST the 8,000 gallons per HOUR, but better is 16,000 gallons per hour. With the help of plants, you can "get away with" less.
With the way we OVER stock, we need to get more filtration on our pond, but have been holding off, as we are adding a lower pond next year (40 x 50 liner minimum) and our design needs are very different...
I also refuse to use any chemical in our pond, nor do we do water changes....
Hope this helps,
Geri
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My pond is full sun, bog full of plants, the water stays fine and little to no algae. Never have had green water. We do just have goldfish and shubunkins, around 200 probably more with all the spawning that has been going on.
Just my big bog for filtration, no uv.
So I think with good planning a pond can be taken care of without massive filtration. But again I do not have koi. I did not want to have to run a massive pump to keep the pond going.
Agree what you need for filtration does depend on how you set your pond up. I set mine up to self sufficient, we can leave town without worrying about it. Except when we make a goof like this time lol.
Geri your bog sounds like mine, mine is around 2400 gallons, loaded with plants.
Just my big bog for filtration, no uv.
So I think with good planning a pond can be taken care of without massive filtration. But again I do not have koi. I did not want to have to run a massive pump to keep the pond going.
Agree what you need for filtration does depend on how you set your pond up. I set mine up to self sufficient, we can leave town without worrying about it. Except when we make a goof like this time lol.
Geri your bog sounds like mine, mine is around 2400 gallons, loaded with plants.
welcome Jack, would that be clarksville md? i used to live in ellicott city... and i too used to try chemicals and just decided not to subject the plants to those kinds of water changes/swings..i am full sun from 8 am or so till 6 or so.. algae will come and go and will usually take care of itself once the pond has cycled fully...sometimes it may be a couple of months or less and some people it can take a full year... try not to get frustrated as everyone in this forum and would think everywhere have had their failures and successes...stick with it, read and "experiment" and you be smiling before long
To All,
Clarksville, TN
Thanks for all the info/advice. Originally the pond was in full shade when I started but some severe storms removed three of my trees. I am down to just one that gives it partial shade. I do plan on begining construction on a good sized bog in the near future.
I am very excited about my pond and do anticipate some frustration and a huge learning curve. Right now I am happy that I have water in it and the pump is going. As I mentioned earlier I had 3 trees fall that provided shade. Trust me they didnt fall away from the pond. It was right after I had installed the $1000.00 epdm liner and after those trees fell on it the liner was litterally shredded, so that was a big disappointment from the get go. These days money is tight so It took me 1 1/2 years before I could afford to get another one.
So a little algae may be frustrating but its not bringing me down.
Thanks agian all
Clarksville, TN
Thanks for all the info/advice. Originally the pond was in full shade when I started but some severe storms removed three of my trees. I am down to just one that gives it partial shade. I do plan on begining construction on a good sized bog in the near future.
I am very excited about my pond and do anticipate some frustration and a huge learning curve. Right now I am happy that I have water in it and the pump is going. As I mentioned earlier I had 3 trees fall that provided shade. Trust me they didnt fall away from the pond. It was right after I had installed the $1000.00 epdm liner and after those trees fell on it the liner was litterally shredded, so that was a big disappointment from the get go. These days money is tight so It took me 1 1/2 years before I could afford to get another one.
So a little algae may be frustrating but its not bringing me down.
Thanks agian all
I think most of us know the deal with money being tight. Our present set up is only a couple of months old. Just couldnt get the money together to do what we wanted, so said the hell with it, and made a "small pond" happen (aka 6500 gallons - roughly 12' x 18' that goes from 4' to 5' deep), which was bigger than what we had. Didnt think we would get to the bog til next year, but then managed to make it happen. We still need more plants by far (and more gravel in the bog). I was only able to get 250 water hyacinths, and maybe 25-30 small plants (4" pots), and I have a friend that is mailing me all her parrots feather prunings, and we still look naked LOL. We dont even have all the rocks around the pond yet that hide the liner LOL. Still fighting a LITTLE bit of green water (FULL South/Southwest exposure with NO shade at all), but as we get more plants (aka the water hyacinths multiply like rabbits) to shade the pond, it is much better. At this point, the top 24-30" of water view is clear, but cant see CLEARLY all the way to the bottom.
Geri
Geri
hehe, you said naked... wow 250 water hyacinths? i hope you have a really good connection for those as that certainly would add up to a lot of money
I was only able to get 50 initially, and then got 200 more from ebay (offered the seller $180 w/shipping included). The auction said they were 6 - 10" in size, but most were 12+" with lots of attached babies.
Here's a pic I sent some friends the day I put the water hyacinth in... they did NOT cover much LOL. The second pic, is just to show the size of the pond... the man in the hole (hubby) is 6' and 225 lbs for ratio. Far from done, and as you can see, the pond needs a LOT more plants, and rocks LOL. You can also see how green the pond WAS.
Here's a pic I sent some friends the day I put the water hyacinth in... they did NOT cover much LOL. The second pic, is just to show the size of the pond... the man in the hole (hubby) is 6' and 225 lbs for ratio. Far from done, and as you can see, the pond needs a LOT more plants, and rocks LOL. You can also see how green the pond WAS.
yes, nice job you two did/are doing... maybe you could talk hubby into doing a greenhouse pond so you can grow plants during the winter and transfer to your main one