Should I drain the pond?

[Waterbug]

What is a "4in or 7 inch filter sock"?

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

Its a 200 micron bag filter, either 4 in or 7 in depending on your bioload

 

[Waterbug]

Oh, thanks.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

Things are what they are and it has nothing to do either of us as people. Best road if to figure out what is correct.

I want to make it clear that this thread is about djceney's pond.


By the color of the pond there is a very good chance that clay particles are clouding the water. Clay is around 4 microns and the finest filter sock I found with a fast check is 25 microns most 100 or 400.

Ok what is your point? What is the micron rating on batting? It costs 7 dollars for a filter sock. It would cost 10 times that on batting. Moving all the fish, doing a full days water change and pond cleaning seems very indepth. Not to include water temp changes ,ammonia spikes and more money for dechlorinizers. Its 7 bucks, not who is running for office. Did you know that if your particle size is 4 microns, it will never drop out. They use homoginizers in milk production to do this for blending in cream. Look it up, its my profession

 

[HTH]

Ok what is your point? What is the micron rating on batting? It costs 7 dollars for a filter sock. It would cost 10 times that on batting. Moving all the fish, doing a full days water change and pond cleaning seems very indepth. Not to include water temp changes ,ammonia spikes and more money for dechlorinizers. Its 7 bucks, not who is running for office. Did you know that if your particle size is 4 microns, it will never drop out. They use homoginizers in milk production to do this for blending in cream. Look it up, its my profession

You keep confusing what you think I said with what I have said.

I have used batting but did not suggest it in this case. I don't think it will do the job.

The filter sock at 200 microns will pass the 4 micron clay particles, useless to clear the water. So why recommend it?

I am not here to cause trouble or give people grief. But when something does not make sense I want to understand the logic behind it. Maybe I missed something and will be glad to pay my dues if I did.

The OP said

There are 12 goldfish in there, plenty of room I should think as they aren't big fish at all.

He could keep them in a kiddie pool while he drained the pond and fixed his problems. If the filter is cycled maybe he can run it on the kiddie pool. But he said he just extended the pond and the filter may not have cycled. As for the cost of dechlore temperature etc. Just fill the pond and run a pump or air for a day it it will be ready to go. Unless his water source has Chlormaine of course.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

If they were to do a water change, im 100 sure they will not use rodi water. So that being said, your tds will be over 200, pretty pointless to run a 4 micron filter on a pond application, dont you think? The water will clear up just fine without settling out if you use the filter. 4 microns is pretty pure, when talking about drinking water, take a test at your tap. Spend 40bucks and tell me that you read less than 150tds. How clear is your tap water, very clear, and your reading way above your "4 micron" limit.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

I found an article for you. In google, type tds vs microns. Click on the first header that pops up. I cant explain it well enough for you to understand. I hope this helps.

 

[Waterbug]

I wonder how quickly a 200 micron filter would clog with 1000 gal or whatever this is? How often would the sock need to be cleaned? How clean could you get it? When I used such filters I had a difficult time cleaning fixed sized filter material.

When I used a swimming pool DE filter on a pond it clogged in less about 15 seconds. DE is in the 2-5 micron range however, so that doesn't really tell us anything about a 200 micron filter.

Quilt batting works another way, mariobrothersleeve probably knows the proper terms for these different filter type, but batting type filters aren't a fixed micron size. It's more like panty hose and similar materials I experimented with as a pond filter. I call these "fabric filters" because many types of fabric can be used.

I think this is 100x mag, not sure, should have written it down. Any way, you can see various sized openings, some are huge. On the right image you can see a couple of greenish blurry alea particles in the top left quad. I took the pictures after filtering for a short time to see what was going on.

These materials, including batting, work more like a DE filter. Over time large particles get stuck, some get thru. As the large particles get stuck they make the larger holes smaller, smaller particles get stuck, on and on until the holes are so small not even water can pass thru and the material has to be cleaned. It cleaned very easy.

I found the build up on these fabric filters to be tremendous. The pile of particles is very thick, like 5-6 mm, on the surface of the material, not just in the material. The material I used was very thin, like tee shirt material. But cotton didn't work very well in my experiments which makes me think electric charges were playing a role.

Build up on the fixed sized filters wasn't very much. They clogged and that was that.

The downsize of fabric filters was that they required rather large particles (25+ micron) to build the filter matrix. So in new pond green blooms where algae cells hadn't clumped yet (colonies) the fabric didn't work at all. I never tested with suspended clay but my expectations wouldn't be high.

The other downsize was that fabric filters were very difficult to use. It required very slow, low volume water movement. Otherwise the material was basically just continuously washed. So the filter was pretty tricky to build. Not hard, but it has a narrow operating range so it had to be precise.

But when a pond had the right mix of particle sizes and I had the right water flow and filter design the batting type material filters worked like magic. It cleared a 7,600 gal pond in less than 24 hours from 4" visibility to read a newspaper at 4'. I've never seen anything so spectacular.

When the particle size wasn't right the filter would remove almost nothing. Worthless.

Fixed sized filters have the advantage of being dead simple to use. With a 200 micron filter all 200+ micron particles are stopped. Works every time.

However 200 micron is very large when talking about water clarity. The max particle size the fabric filters needed was in the 25-100 micron range. Meaning if the water had 25-100 microns particles the fabric would work. Under 25 micron and the matrix wouldn't be created.

So to me, it's not as simple as this or that.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

Im sorry, i dont understand your pictures at all. If you take a human hair and have is side ways, that would be 50 microns. 200 microns is only 4 human hair side ways. Have you ever seen a 50 micron filter? They are typically under pressure beause it takes pressure to flow through them, in a pond application you are simply going to flow over top of your filter media at 50 micron. I am sure industries who spend millions of dollars a year would have used cheap "batting" long ago. It is so far from the truth if you honestly think your going to flow through an open system.
Dehydrated earth (de) filters we abandoned many years ago from the food industries because they actually put more de dirt into the system then what they took out. Systems now use ultrafines (uf) sytems, as what they use in making wine, but their 50 micron filters at 6ft by 2-1/2 o.d. are running at 2100 dollars in a 60psid closed system. But, i guess if you wanted a good system, westphalia seperators would be a good choice too, they a pricey a 1 million dollars.
Water coming into your house at the tap is at the least 150tds (total dissolved solids) please tell me if im wrong, but if i took "batting" i could actually bring my tds to 4 microns if i intoduced mulitple particle size? I guess i just dont understand that post. Very well put though

 

[Waterbug]

Im sorry, i dont understand your pictures at all.

Seriously? The image on the left, with the word "Pantyhose" is a picture of pantyhose under a microscope. When I wrote "100x mag" that meant 100 times magnification. What part is unclear?

If you take a human hair and have is side ways, that would be 50 microns. 200 microns is only 4 human hair side ways.

Seriously? I don't know what a micron is? And thanks for multiplying 4 x 50 for me as I would normally have to take off my shoes to use my toes to handle that twister.

Have you ever seen a 50 micron filter?

Seriously? No, I mean seriously? Do you don't really need to have a license to buy a 50 micron filter. They're pretty common. So yes, I've seen a 50 micron filter. Not really sure what a 50 micron filter has to do with anything. No one else is talking about a 50 micron filter.

They are typically under pressure beause it takes pressure to flow through them, in a pond application you are simply going to flow over top of your filter media at 50 micron.

A Brita water filter is 5 micons and water moves thru it via gravity only. Slowly, but no pressure.

Pond sieve filters use 300 micron screens and sometimes 200 micron, again just gravity. And they're flowing 3000-8000 GPH thru it.

Pond water flows thru a 50 micron filter easily with just gravity.

I am sure industries who spend millions of dollars a year would have used cheap "batting" long ago. It is so far from the truth if you honestly think your going to flow through an open system.
Dehydrated earth (de) filters we abandoned many years ago from the food industries because they actually put more de dirt into the system then what they took out. Systems now use ultrafines (uf) sytems, as what they use in making wine, but their 50 micron filters at 6ft by 2-1/2 o.d. are running at 2100 dollars in a 60psid closed system. But, i guess if you wanted a good system, westphalia seperators would be a good choice too, they a pricey a 1 million dollars.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Who's talking about a 50 micron filter? Wine? You're talking about completely unrelated applications that have their own requirements and no one here is discussing. Unless you have some specific way this is all related to ponds.

Dehydrated earth (de) filters? In the context of swimming pool filters DE refers to diatomaceous earth. A very common filter and in wide use today.

You say this filter stuff is your profession.? What profession would that be?

please tell me if im wrong, but if i took "batting" i could actually bring my tds to 4 microns if i intoduced mulitple particle size?

I think you're a little confused. First to be considered a TDS particle it must be under 2 microns in size. So 4 micron particles would not be included in a TDS measurement. Second, TDS levels is measured by weight, not size other than whether a particle is included or not.

However, if you're trying to ask if a fabric filter can catch 4 micron particles, then absolutely. And much smaller, like say 0.01 micron, maybe 0.001, maybe smaller. It's hard to say for certain, but when a fabric filter is covered in particles to the point that water can no longer pass I assume some pretty darn small particles have been trapped since water is about 0.0001 microns (depending on which side). So if a 0.0001 particle (water) was stopped I assume at least some slightly larger particles were also stopped given out the filter works. It is possible that if only large particles were present that they alone would clog the filter. But that's impossible in a pond environment which would certainly have a range of particles.

Having said that I doubt seriously if any significant amount of sub-micron particles are removed. Some sure, but a majority would be in the 0.5 to 100 micron range imo. But that's just an assumption. I've never measured a sample.

 

[djceney]

Hi again guys

After following this thread and reading some of the suggestions, I have in the end decided to drain the pond as the amount of mud in it was just too much. I've been to the aquatic store and purchased some planting soil for ponds, and have re-potted the plants and all looks well now, I've treated the water and it's testing ok at the moment, and I've also taken on board the suggestion that the soil may still come in from one end, so I've dug that out and replaced with a nice enough waterfall, still needs a bit of cosmetic work but I think I'm getting there. I really do appreciate all the comments.....
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