The filter for this can be done easily and cheap. I have read on filters made for going around a pump such as two colanders with quilting batting or nylon scrubbie inside. These will filter and add area for beneficial bacteria to grow. I have one that came with my set up and have altered it to my own needs. It's a 300 gallon setup that I put a bigger pump into since I went to a 1000 gallon pond. I also have made a skippy filter that is the waterfall. This is a rubbermaid storage tote that has a pipe put in the side for an outflow. I placed rocks around and over it to hide it although many people actual use the bin to grow plants in that will give you more room for growing. The pipe that comes out of mine is just pvc but since it extends out and over the pond I have cut up bamboo pieces only a quarter inch wide by 7-10inches long and glued them to the pipe to give it a better look. In doing this I made the bottom pieces in and extended and uneven manner to get the water broken up more and give a better sound to the waterfall rather than the faucet sound that I first had with all at the same length. You can find a info on the skippy filter hopefully attached, but if not a search on it will direct you to it. I follow the basic design but scaled it down from the directions. I ended up using the clear totes you can get for storage and a shower drain connection for the out flow connection then the pvc as said before. I will warn you that trying to make a clean and precise cut was much harder than thought. The container started to cut then ran a crack out about an inch some aquarium silicone and the fact that the drain kind of pulls it back together have kept it from leaking. If you do a search in this forum for colander filter you can also find the type of filter for building around the pump. As for the bridge I have looked at a few online and it seems that they are for decorative use only due to wood type or sizes. If possible you could cut some pieces and attach to the underside so they are hidden but are still reinforcing the actual structure. If this is not an option you could cut pieces to attach to the bottom but set back from the side and use it to contain soil under the bridge which should give you the support needed, but give the illusion of a void under the bridge. As my last suggest on the bridge you can fill the area under the bridge and use creeping jenny or some other very low growing plant to hide the dirt. One last thing I will mention is to test the amount of water you can push through any waterfall you might come up with. The higher the water has to go (head heigth) the less water flow you will get, and you want the entire pond to travel through the pump at least once and hour but twice an hour is best. You may want to do a test of this before getting everything setup. You can do this just by setting up a simulated heigth and timing it while it fills an old milk jug and doing the math that follows. Keep on reading on this forum and you will find a wealth of knowledge as I have, not to say that I am a pro at all but I'm much better off now than I used to be. Here is a link that might be useful: skippy filter

Thanks Denise! As the saying goes "We've got to start somewhere" -- so "let it begin in me." This is a response from my friend, Linda. She's full of good ideas: ~ ~ ~ Kiddos, HEB and Walmart sell the cloth bags and they are nice and big and $1. HEB's are green and Walmart's are black. I like the big square bottom of HEB's better because it holds it's shape better but both are nice for a buck. They are always in the trunk of my car. Take them inside any store with you when you are shopping. From Costco to Dilliards, they work everywhere! You can go on line and buy cloth bags of allllll kinds too. I keep my plastic produce bags in my cloth bags and reuse them over and over and over........... I guess we could buy the paper lunch sacks and use those but most veggies/fruits are wet or moist and the paper wouldn't last long in the produce section. For those who sew it wouldn't take much of nothing to make their own reusable veggies bags. You could even use left over scraps of material to make them or you could go designer. Walmart has TONS of cute, cheap material with veggie/fruit patterns on them. What a nice gift it would make! I would love a set of fruit and veggie bags that had been custom made for me. Christmas is around the corner. It would make a good fund raiser also for schools or churches. We could raise awareness for our kids on recycling! Old T-shirts would work great too. They stretch. Old pillowcases could be cut in half and 2 bags could be made out of one pillowcase for lettuce and potatoes for example. I wished I sewed and had a machine. It would be worth it just to watch people's faces as you pull out all your creations at the check out stand! ha We gotta start somewhere. The email Ragna sent me regarding the plastic bags was toooooooooo alarming. I have ALWAYS recycled like a maniac. I have a big 3 drawer Tupperware bin in my kitchen. The top drawer is for plastic. In this I put plastic bags, and alllllllllllll the plastic wrapping that comes off so much stuff! The plastic that covers your paper towels, toilet paper rolls, dry cleaning bags, retired Ziploc bags etc. goes in that drawer. I smuggle those into the plastic bag recycle bins at the store,it is all the same stuff. All can be recycled. I am shocked to have learned how expensive it is to do so, however. I am trying to get away from stuff like Ziploc bags in the first place. Any more ideas? I would love any suggestion anybody has. Thanks, Linda ~ ~ ~ And I too would love to hear any suggestions you all might have. Roselee/Ragna

I ask for paper bags when I go to the grocery store. They are great table covers for when the kids do arts and crafts and they breakdown in the compost bin wonderfully. They are perfectly safe to compost because they contain less ink than newspaper and haven't been bleached through chemical processes. Also, a gardening friend of mine experimented using the grocery store brown paper bags as a weed barrier in her gardens and it worked beautifully! The plants thrived and the weeds were down to a bare minimum. Next season I will be doing the same with the paper bags I have saved up over the winter months. What really gets me is as a stay-at-home mom of 3 boys, trying to save money is a big deal. Super Wal-Mart has the best prices for general food products however they do not use paper bags. If you want paper bags you have to actually go and purchase them in the store first. So I have cut back how often I shop at Wal-Mart and when I do I take my canvas totes - I just can't do my huge shopping trips because I don't have enough canvas totes. *sigh*

We can't use empty tissue containers around here. Those little 4" tubes wouldn't hold but a couple of bags, even folded neatly LOL. Some other places with might need bags. Our library takes them also. Our grocery stores have recycling bins at the front doors. Our local recycling center will take them. Our local animal shelter uses them for cleaning out their cat litter box and cleaning up after the dogs. You can check and see if charity gifts shops could use them. Some of ours will and some won't. They make really good packing material for cushioning breakable stuff. You could post them on Freecycle and suggest they would be good if someone is moving. Or close to the holidays when people ship items. My mom and I sent the same bags back and forth for several years in our shipping boxes. And when I'm tired of the kids, I give them each a bag and tell them to scour the neighborhood for trash. We weigh it on our postal scale and I pay them a dime an ounce. Gloria