Sound off: How many gallons is your pond?

[digginponds]

not necessarily. My info just gives the measurements of the ponds not the gallons

that was a joke:regular_waving_emot

 

[digginponds]

not necessarily. My info just gives the measurements of the ponds not the gallons

that was a joke:regular_waving_emot

 

[Squidhead]

I had pea soup until I built the "Doc Filter". I could not see 1" into the water. See my web page for details on it's construction...
48 hours after putting it into service, my pond started to clear up and the past 3 years has been crystal clear.
The Skippy folks say right on their web site that 55 gallon drums don't work. Either they don't know what they are doing or they are getting a kickback from rubbermade because mine works awesum.
Build a good bio filter, either my design (55 gallon drum) or skippy (rubbermade) and save your money on the UV. You will find I am right.
Back in 1968 I built one of the first UV filters. You could not buy one anywhere. If you had a saltwater aquarium they were a blessing. They are not needed in a pond, it is a lazy persons way out of getting clear water.

My ponds are open for anyone who want to see for themselves, I also have several youtube videos.

Someone else hyjacked this thread, sorry for my participation.

OK, DrD you have a great pond particularly love the plants. The filter is also very effective looking. The thing is a bio-filter is for removing toxins like ammonia and nitrite. It does not remove nitrate, it "makes" it. Your lush plants eat those toxins before they get a chance to cycle into nitrate. My planted tanks hardly ever got a detectable reading of nitrate. More then likely your plants are responcible for the clear water, biological filtration alone wont do it though. You need those water changes and the blessing of no phosphates or nitrates already in your water supply. In an aquarium where your dealing with small volumes of water it's easy to correct phosphate with chemical anti-exchange media, pulls that crap right out. It would be very costly to use in a pond though. RO/DI is a great remedy, again a little impracticle for a pond. It would take a couple days to produce 250 gallons of water for a 25% waterchange on a 1000G pond. You would have to store it in tanks until it is ready to go. I don't fault pond keepers for using UV as a last resort, a polish filter would do the same thing though and could be used weekly or as needed. If the green water algae bloom is caused by lack of maintenance, then I would agree maybe lazy, but possibly uninformed.

Just thought I'd chime in to keep it acurate.

 

[Squidhead]

I had pea soup until I built the "Doc Filter". I could not see 1" into the water. See my web page for details on it's construction...
48 hours after putting it into service, my pond started to clear up and the past 3 years has been crystal clear.
The Skippy folks say right on their web site that 55 gallon drums don't work. Either they don't know what they are doing or they are getting a kickback from rubbermade because mine works awesum.
Build a good bio filter, either my design (55 gallon drum) or skippy (rubbermade) and save your money on the UV. You will find I am right.
Back in 1968 I built one of the first UV filters. You could not buy one anywhere. If you had a saltwater aquarium they were a blessing. They are not needed in a pond, it is a lazy persons way out of getting clear water.

My ponds are open for anyone who want to see for themselves, I also have several youtube videos.

Someone else hyjacked this thread, sorry for my participation.

OK, DrD you have a great pond particularly love the plants. The filter is also very effective looking. The thing is a bio-filter is for removing toxins like ammonia and nitrite. It does not remove nitrate, it "makes" it. Your lush plants eat those toxins before they get a chance to cycle into nitrate. My planted tanks hardly ever got a detectable reading of nitrate. More then likely your plants are responcible for the clear water, biological filtration alone wont do it though. You need those water changes and the blessing of no phosphates or nitrates already in your water supply. In an aquarium where your dealing with small volumes of water it's easy to correct phosphate with chemical anti-exchange media, pulls that crap right out. It would be very costly to use in a pond though. RO/DI is a great remedy, again a little impracticle for a pond. It would take a couple days to produce 250 gallons of water for a 25% waterchange on a 1000G pond. You would have to store it in tanks until it is ready to go. I don't fault pond keepers for using UV as a last resort, a polish filter would do the same thing though and could be used weekly or as needed. If the green water algae bloom is caused by lack of maintenance, then I would agree maybe lazy, but possibly uninformed.

Just thought I'd chime in to keep it acurate.

 

[stroppy]

Squidhead could you perhaps tell us more about these polish filters on another thread ... i for one would love to hear more

 

[stroppy]

Squidhead could you perhaps tell us more about these polish filters on another thread ... i for one would love to hear more

 

[DrDave]

When I built the "Doc Filter", I had no floating plants and the trees and bamboo did not provide any shade since they were just planted.
From December until May, all the floating plants are mostly gone they only start to take off after Mid May.
So the plants, while are great and helpful do not contribute during those 6 months of the year.
I believe that the success of the "Doc Filter" is the vortex produced by the spinning water, the distance it has to travel up and the resistance of the media. In short, gravity and design working in harmony.
Single cell algae, as I understand it, also feeds off of the algae contributing to the success of the system.

 

[DrDave]

When I built the "Doc Filter", I had no floating plants and the trees and bamboo did not provide any shade since they were just planted.
From December until May, all the floating plants are mostly gone they only start to take off after Mid May.
So the plants, while are great and helpful do not contribute during those 6 months of the year.
I believe that the success of the "Doc Filter" is the vortex produced by the spinning water, the distance it has to travel up and the resistance of the media. In short, gravity and design working in harmony.
Single cell algae, as I understand it, also feeds off of the algae contributing to the success of the system.