sure it's low tech, but it appears to work!

my little pond was getting pretty murky with algae, too early for the lilypads to cover the surface...

so I played around a bit with a couple of old pillow cases from the rag bag, a plastic basket, and voila! extremely low tech pond filter.

I've had it running for about 48 hours all together, and can already see the tops of the pots the waterlily and papyrus and duck potato are planted in.

I just have the fountain on when I'm home.


OOOHH, another pleasant surprise, all six frogs are back in the pond this evening....

closer up of the 'filter'

"Necessity is the mother of invention." Obviously the frogs have given it their stamp of approval.

what is that hairy looking hanging plant in the first pic?

lol the rubber ducky...

the hanging plant is rhipsalis pilocarpa, it blooms a nice little strawflower like bloom, creamy white with blush of pink on the tip.

it reminds me of a tarantula spider....

Okaaaay well then, now that you mention the spider thing, never mind lol

Need to figure out how to do that with a rock water fall. Altho the lilies are finally starting to cover my algae got built up too quickly. Thank you for the tip.

Very clever drivenbonkers.

Very clever, so much so that I, too did something similar last year because there was a ton of dirt and mulch that washed into my pond. My pillow case worked great BUT ripped in a few days time. It couldn't take the wear and tear of the water going through it in my water falls. BTW: I used large rocks to keep it in place in the falls/stream.

I just looked at your pictures again and wonder what is underneath the box that houses your waterfalls. Could you incorporate something in there to do that same job as the water rises so it could filter it out? Even a bunch of new sponges would probably do a good job as well.

Home Depot sells rolls of the sun screens of different sun filer values. (50, 75% sun screening). I wonder if a few layers of this material would work as a water filter? I know its incredibly durable as our uva rays did not affect it when I had it erected as a shade canopy. Light and easily moved to wash it out. Maybe bagging it into the inside of a plastic netting for easy remove and wash-out?

I used a weed mulch barrier, like the kind that comes on a roll at walmart. It is kind of a greenish tan color. sort of a fabric, not the plastic kind. I think it was about $8. It is really fine, and I lined my filter with it.
worked fine. didn't seem to harm the fish

all these comments really give a gal something to think about!

When I dug the pond and built the frame, bench and fountain, I did not allow for a filter, I just wanted a simple hole in the ground filled with water and fish and plants.... I'm a low tech kind of gal. this little pond is the test for a bigger pond..... However, I will have to dismantle the fountain for the winter.....

The fountain is a shallow plywood pan lined with the remnant of the pond liner. The hose from the pump runs under the bench and up through a hole in the top of the fountain pan, then back down between a couple large stones that form the base the biggest pot sits on. The hose ends in the upper pot. When the pump is on, the water rises thru the hose, fills the top pot, overflows into the second, that overflows into the third... and the fourth overflows onto the rocks. When the pan is partially filled, it overflows over a popbottle spout back into the pond.

I think the challenge is to figure a way to allow easy change/cleaning of a filter, without requiring dismantling of the fountain...... mmmm looking for large ceramic pot (or other suitable container) than could be stuffed with filter media.......

I do have a roll of fabric mulch....

The weed barrier and the sun screens sound like great and inexpensive ideas. We are having HUGE downpours here in Illinois as I write and my pond is totally full of mulch, clay and dirt that I may stick something else in there to clean it . . . I have also heard of people going to fabric stores and buying quilting material as a filter.

we are limited only by our imaginations!

and the depths of our pockets ;(

Quilt batting works very well, but needs to be replaced or cleaned from time to time. It's not expensive, so in my little pond I wrap my "too small filter" with a piece of quilt batting and secure it with a rubber band, I replace the batting whenever it's getting clogged up (this time of year it's about every 4 or 5 days). One purchase of batting (one package) has so far lasted me several months, and I still have quite a bit left. This was a good tip provided to me by one of my DG SW Gardening friends.

Brenda

I did pick up a roll of quilt batting and started to fiddle around with making up a filter using that, but ended up frying my little statue pump...... so that project is set aside for now.

however, I notice that the pond is clearing on it's own, I haven't had the fountain running all week, and the water continues to become clearer. This morning I'm able to see the rocks on the bottom of the pond. I noticed how much my little baby bass have grown! and the goldfish are fat like little sausages! I can see new little lillypads waiting to break the water's surface, and that makes me HAPPY!

I wonder how much of this clean up can be attributed to the snails I dropped into the pond a couple weeks ago? I really wanted to put tadpoles into the pond, but settled for snails 'cause tadpoles were not to be found.