watercress rootlet grow through Skippy filter medium

13 years ago

Hi, everyone! Thanks to this forum, I discovered skippy filter last winter and made one with my existing preformed small pond. It had worked very well. After running it for several weeks, the water became crystal clear.

I use birdnetting, blue furnace filter(from home depot and lowes) and quilt batting as filter medium, and grow watercress, water hyacinth, parrot's feather on top of the filter.

The water has become less clear lately and it has been over a month since I last cleaned the filter, so I started to clean the filter yesterday. What I discovered is that the watercress rootlet(?) has grown through all the layers of filter medium and made it all the way to the bottom of the filter pond.

Since the watercress has really flourished and spread, there are a lot of rootlets in the filter medium. I think the rootlets will clog/are clogging the filter medium and reduce the effeciency of the filter.

Has anyone seen this before? How have you handle it?

Comments (2)

sleeplessinftwayne
13 years ago
It just goes to show the filter is working. The roots should be consuming excess nutrients like crazy. Since the good bacteria grows everywhere there is good water flow supplying oxygen I doubt the watercress is hurting anything. If it worries you, rip some out. You may leave a lot of roots behind but they will either provide a source of nutrients for the good bacteria or will send up new plants. What you have right now is a combination Skippy/veggie filter.

The questions I would ask are: has there been a heavy rain?(even not so heavy rain can mess up the PH), are my fish flashing?(Milt in the water can cause cloudy water),am I overfeeding?(this is the most common problem.), what does my test kit tell me( testing is important)? All of these things and more can be pertinent to cloudy water. If you don't have a test kit, get one and use it. It is a lot better than guessing and getting the wrong answers. You should use it at least once a week.

Get a jarful of pond water and allow it to settle for several hours. If the problem is soil or other material has gotten into the pond, it will either settle out or float. That would mean you need to do a little more filtering and water changes to make it go away faster. Otherwise you can just wait it out.
squirelette
13 years ago
I have watercress growing in my spillway, it does get a very heavy mat of fine roots. I find that I have to rip out sections 3-5 times a year. It may start to block the water flow and cause a backup, otherwise I would leave it and pull it all out next year and divide it, clean out the dead stuff. Mine winters every year in the spill way
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watercress rootlet grow through Skippy filter medium

Comments (2)

sleeplessinftwayne

squirelette

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