That looks a lot neater than mine. There are pipes going everywhere underground.
Jeri
I finally went to see the experts
A couple days have passed since Thursday's new pump/filter installation. The water is already becoming clearer. I can see the fish at the bottom now. Yesterday I opened one of the filters up to see how much dirt had been collected. It was amazing. I went to get the camera to take a picture.
The way the system works is that there are two pumps each with two mechanical filters and one bio filter. The mechanicals have valve so that one can run on just one and as that get's dirty, the other one can be switched to. That way one can clean all filters at once and have more time between cleanings. After I saw and cleaned one set of filter pads I went out and purchased a pressure washer to make the job easier and quicker. Will try this out on Tuesday and see if the same filth has come back.
I know my pond is messy right now and lots of stuff has to get filtered out. The entire pond was shut down all day Thursday and the algae became exposed to the sun and died. That stuff all washed down into the water once the new pumps started to run.
Here's one of the pads. There are two in each mechanical filter.
Fred
Naw, that picture doesn't do the dirt justice. It's too light. This shot of dirt vs clean works better
the entire setup looks like this
Now how you going to hide all that stuff.
Looks quite professional.
It's really already hidden behind my well and irrigations injection system. You can't see the filters except from the rear of the property where no one normally goes.
Fred
followed your link and the pictures on you walk, Fred. I felt as though I was on a personal tour. You truly have a garden of Eden and the attention that you give it and your sharing is wonderful. Thank you.
If you haven't yet been to Tropical Gardening, please give it a look-see. Caribblue and Islandshari have fantastic under water photos from snorkeling that I know you would enjoy.
I'm going to steer them this way.
This message was edited Jul 29, 2007 7:57 PM
Holy Crap! (to quote my friend azreno...)... that's graphic! Well done, Fred! Ya' know, when we built our pond (pretty darn big but I don't think it's as big as yours...), we were shocked at the cost of the filtration system that was recommended. (And, they really didn't give us enough information on the pump and filter system...sadly, we learned the hard way). Nonetheless, it does work quite well when we learned how to use it. Obviously, you have done a lot of homework, and it looks like the experts have led you in the right direction. Hoooooraaaaay! Isn't it great to see your fish??!! (Imagine if you had baby turtles... they are hiding experts!!! If it weren't for clear water, we'd never see 'em!)
Looking forward to pics of clear pond!
Brenda
Hey Fred!!! I see you've been busy. That thing is working good. You should be seeing a big difference shortly with that much coming out. That man must know his stuff.
Jeri
Jeri,
Rick Warren who owns Pond Solutions is an experimenter who prides himself on his work. I always like to deal with people who like their work and are proud of it. Money takes a second step if you find someone like that. His background is really landscaping in NY state. They somehow wound up in Florida as so many of us do and he set up a similar business here. Some of his customers had ponds they wanted him to take care of. Not knowing beans about that world, he built himself a pond at his business and found out that it's not as easy as it looks but he sort of got a pond using the prescribed tools to do it. (Now I saw all kinds of ponds there, even salt water ones.)
So he got into the pond maintenance business by default through landscaping. But then those pesky customers wanted better, cleaner or bigger ponds and he started to build them too. He ran into many ponds built by other landscapers who then walked away from them. Realizing that pond maintenance can be business all to itself he started taking service contracts of existing ponds. He did it by the book with UV filters and whatever the POOL equipment businesses sold him. He found out that sometimes this doesn't work so well. When he was commissioned to find a solution to a particularly pesky pond and get the water clean, he tried all kinds of different approaches to the task. He claims that practically everything for ponds is only modified pool stuff. So he modified some more and eventually came up with what has worked for him every time.
His website at the 'pond solution' lists various testimonials and many claim that after trying everything else only resulting in failure, Rick got them a clear pond within three days without UV lights. I asked him if I can expect the same. He hesitated and said that every pond is different but that my water was in much better shape then the norm and that I should see an improvement pretty soon. He was right. Tomorrow will be three days and we'll see what I can see.
:-)
Brenda,
Today, I was in awe of all the fish in my pond. I have no idea where they all come from except that the tiny babies of March have grown up to be about 4 inches long already. Is that really normal? 3 or 4 months of growth? When I fed them there was a frenzy I'd not seen before when the water was murky. Are they just hungryer or can they see the food better? The little ones were especially aggressive in shooting for the food particles.
Fred
PS yesterday (Sunday) I wanted to leave a message for Rick before I forgot as one of the switching valves doesn't seem to want to switch filters. There was no urgency but Rick called me back from his vacation spot on Sanibel Island within 1/2 an hour. I apologized for bothering him but he said he's always at work even when he's not and not to worry about it. I remember many years ago when I had the same philosophy when I started my business. It works.
Fred I can go feed my fish 20 X's a day and the feeding frenzy occurred every time!!!! I call them Petronas!!!!
They all but walk on water. LOL!!! I have to throw the food away from the sides and any rocks in the middle or some fish would get hurt during that frenzy.
Jeri
Fred... congrats on seeing all your fish!! Wooooohoooooo! We put 116 baby koi in our pond around the beginning of May I think, they were all 1 - 1/2" long. Now, they are all 5 - 6 inches long! Growing like weeds! And yes, we have the feeding frenzy too. They're probably glad to see you, too (oh, and the food...). Looking forward to pics!
Brenda
Fred, just wondering how the pond is doing?
Me too!! when I saw there was a new post, I was hoping Fred had posted pics of his crystal clear water with beautiful fish!
Hi from NJ,
my koi are lonely :-)
Neighbor called yesterday about running out of fishfood. He fills the Koi Cafe more often then I did. I have a feeling he's feeding them on the side too. It's so much fun, right?
I'm told that on a scale of 1-10 the pond is not yet at 10. More like 8.5. The system draws water from two bottom drains (a tee) and one side drain, each into a pre-filter where twice a week cleanings are still necessary. I have four such tanks so that cleaning needs to be done on all once a week by using a switching valve. Still its a lot of algae and quite a mess. My skippy natural bio filters are probably doing very little now as the water they receive has already been filtered.
I have another line drawing water from a skimmer (on one of the two pumps) but as the rains keep the pond fuller then normal that skimmer seems to be doing very little. I noticed that right away and spoke with the Pond Solutions people about adding a separate pump just for the skimmer and pushing the draw into one of the pre-filters. Well, they were there today to do exactly that and reported no real success at getting more water into the pre-filter. The two pumps seem to be working against one another and the problem will have to wait until I get back to see what is going on. Perhaps I should just run the skimmer draw without further filtering just to get some suction there but that would mean running another pipe back to the waterfall. Crossing the driveway is always a mess. I was trying to stay away from a larger motor to run both the side draw and the skimmer but maybe that is the answer. I'll just have to try out various combinations until the pond is perfectly clear - if that will ever happen.
Fred
PS I'm just as anxious as you guys about what things look like.
I will be back during the second half of September and will report back with pictures.
It will get perfectly clear, Fred... ours is now. One thing we just learned (our pond was completed about the end of April, and we have the big filter with the little plastic black tubular media in it, that is supposed to never need changing, I think it's a bio-filter...) is that we weren't backflushing correctly or often enough. Like my Momma always says, when all else fails, read the directions! So, we've been having some issues with water pressure in the waterfalls decreasing. After reading the filter directions (epiphany!)... it needs to be backflushed, then "rinsed" (another position on the valve), then repeated for a total of 3 times each backflush. And, we should be backflushing as often as needed, which right now is about 2 - 3 times per week. I think we had so much gunk built up in the filter medium, that it is taking some serious effort to clean it out now. Also, (don't hate me people), we occasionally add a bit of the algae-cide. Recently I added far less than called for for our pond (as it was all I had left)... and it cleared the pond beautifully. Fish and plants A-Okay. It was good to know that not very much of it did a great job. Last time I followed the dosing instructions on the bottle, and it worked very well and everything was okay, but many of my ponding friends are very opposed to this treatment, as it reduces the amount of oxegen in the water, which in turn kills the algae... but understandably there is a concern for the fish. It was good to see it work so well in a smaller dosage.
Anywhoooo... hope that helps, and that your pond will clear up beautifully asap! September is just around the corner... looking forward to those pics!
Brenda