Water Gardening: Re-using a above ground pool filter and pump?...help please!, 1 by randbponder

randbponder wrote:
I am not a know it all, and I do respect your thoughts. I think it would work, however I don't believe the pump is enough for the amount of water, unless you have a lot of pond cover. Lilies, lettuce, hyacinths and such. All of those will also help the filtering process, by digesting what the bacteria in your bio filter dosen't. You may still have some algae buildup.
I use a quite a bit of barley straw, in my falls filter, to help correct that. As far as the suction, as long as you have a filter between the fish and the suction end of the pump I really don.t know of a real problem.
I am useing a torpedo type, 7500 gph Cal pump, To operate my water fall. I have a home made strainer that takes water from all levels of my pond. I have lava rock for the water to pass through, along with two layers of filter material then a layer of barley straw then more lava rock. I clean this twice a year. I also have a 4000 gph pump drawing through a skimmer . and is pumped up to another smaller pond, then flows back to the first pond. I have been useing a furnace filter that looks like plastic woven mesh that comes in a universal size it is about an inch thick and comes in 20"x25" sheets. These are under $4.00 each, I clean them 2 to 4 times a week. They wash easily and I reuse them over and over. and at $3. something, I can keep extra on hand. so if the algae gets ahead of me- I can use two in my skimmer and clean them a little more offten. I get these sheets of filter material from our local bomgaars store it is a farm & home supply store. They are made by Flanders...PrecisionAire.
I don't think there is a 100% algae free pond when the weather is so changeable, and with all this heat especially.
Although with the addition of a good UV filter is a big help.
I bought a small inline one with its own filters, that needed constant cleaning. It was such a hassel that I don't use it anymore, However if I could find room in my budget I would have one as long as the only maintenance was an infrequent changeing of the UV bulbs. Guess what I'm saying is I would try it. and then if I found a part of the system wasn't good enough, IMPROVE it. One pic of my falls, and my give or take 3000 gal pond.