Water Gardening: Need SERIOUS large pond skimmer brand and purchase advice, 1 by darkmoondreamer

darkmoondreamer wrote:
Okay, I am working on rebuilding my 3,000 gallon koi pond that "died" last year due to a cheap liner that shredded. I lost about 25 huge koi :( Anyway, the main event in rebuilding is that the pond is directly under a pecan tree of all things, and gets a HUGE amount of leaves, fronds, and debris. A large pond skimmer is a MUST for the rebuild.

The problem is, there must be 1,000,001 sizes, brands, prices, and stores on the internet. I need serious advice on the best place/price to get a large pond skimmer that will run with it's own pump to keep the leaves out of this pond. A tiny one will be ineffective and I have no idea where to begin. The brands, sizes and types are too confusing for me. I found a commercial skimmer that looked like it will do the job, but it was only $4,700.00, hahahahahaha! My budget is more like $300.00 or less. I will appreciate any advice you have to give me! I will now show you before and after pics of my poor pondie........