I have plenty of frogs in my pond, which also contains goldfish. I seriously doubt goldfish would keep frogs away. The only threat is that goldfish eat frog eggs and tadpoles, but that's not going stop adult frogs from visiting a pond. The current tadpoles in my pond have grown large enough to be taken off the menu as fish food. I'm waiting to see if they are going to be green frogs or toads. Also, clear water and clean water are not always the same thing. A bio filter uses good bacteria to remove chemicals that can not be seen, such as ammonia.

I think you are right; it's probably turning the water over about every 1.5 to 2 hours. Is that not good enough for a very few koi (4 maybe?) in such a big pond? I do want the water to clear up first. Your advice is very sage, Horton. And I had read something like this at the Skippy site. I kept telling my "pond guy" who works for a koi guy that one is supposed to leave the filter alone and not clean it. The bacteria is supposed to settle in that filthy filter. I was glad he cleaned the bottom of the pool -- he did not scrape the sides. Glad to see that it really wasn't that bad, but there was some sludge. Now we can start anew. We have a handful of small goldfish and a bunch of mosquito fish in there now, and that's all. Every once in a while we see a frog. That is all the marine life. We have tested with the little test strip that tests for 4 things, and the water tests normal. So should I just wait about 4-6 weeks without any filter cleaning and see what happens? Maybe it was good to clean it that twice because the pond had no aeration for many many months. Now that it's quite aerated and hopefully filtered, maybe the bacteria collection can start. All my previous floating plants died off (when there was no water filtering). My lilies are very happy though, and some other plant that is reed-like with violet tiny bottle brush flowers is enjoying it too. I am starting to order more plants -- ordered some hyacinths this week and will attempt them again. I can't imagine starting to "winter" one's pond. Poor cold climate ponders! :( But then you get the beautiful seasons. I don't suppose we will have to ever do any wintering like that. I am curious how cold the water will get in the winter, but of course we never even have FROST here with our marine layer of cloud coverage. It keeps us pretty mild. We have not seen any of this stuff you all describe, this string algae. It always sounds so horrible. All we have is something clouding the waters. There may be a few inches of visibility but I'd hardly call it clear at this point. It used to be that the steps where the plants are would be actually clear, only around the plants. No longer. I will try not cleaning the filter. My "pond guy" will not agree, but hey - I can try this. I'm the boss. Though he is pretty wonderful and a very hard worker.

Old links are fine. You would be surprised that most people who want to ask what is essentially a new question like yours, instead post that question on a thread begun on a marginally similar subject from 2005; so thanks. I believe that there are some people who have large ponds who at least read this forum and might be happy to have something to share with a fellow semi-natural large clay pond fan. But I doubt a trash can bedding filter would help you much; it would just get overwhelmed. With minimal knowledge, I would still guess that time might be your friend. I do have a suggestion based on my experience with a small pond that might actually scale up well. I have a pond with a long/small recirculating stream. The stream does almost all of my filtering, and it is almost all I have. If you still have your equipment, I would suggest you create a stream to which you add lots of plants. I have plant clumps of 'sweet flag' that could be the size of a 20 gal pot or more. With a wider stream, you could generate huge root filtering masses that trap huge amounts of silt. I usually remove plants with their crud on occasion, but you could make it deeper than mine and just let the crud build up.

I asked how it was vented because that can effect drying time plus best way to clean. And if you have a bird guard over the vent outside, it can clog and you can remove it and clean it. Also add one or two old dry towels to your wet load. Helps them to dry faster. A blower( leaf) is the best way to clean out the vent pipe.