Well, if you are going to just use the 2.5 acre pond to "fill" your garden pond it won't be too big of an issue. However, if it is going to continually be used to power the waterfall etc (IE a big loop) you will infact be filtering the ENTIRE 2.5 acre pond. I doubt that would be effective, or cost efficient. I think you need to have 2 systems both closed off from one another.

Debbie, it could easily be a formal tropical water garden with its rectangular look. It would require a pump and some simple filtering, but that could be made to look formal. Many water plants have that tropical look, like taros (colocasias), and tropical water lilies are so beautiful. Submersible pumps don't cost much, and your first job could be to pump almost all the muddy water out and refill with fresh. Leave just enough water in for the fish. Then set up a skippy filter in a large fake old-fashioned looking flower pot and put it in. Then go all out with the tropical plants! These pics from the Singapore botanical garden. :) Mary

Thx kindly unfortunately for me it takes a lot of words at times to really explain well. Best then be entertaining. Was it worth it? ________ Current 2017 Winter Spring yard plan We currently have an nice range of hydrangea getting underway in the yard as well as some being installed this winter through esrly spring. This is Hydrangea macrophylla 'Mathlida Gutches' with acid pH soil with Aluminum Sulphate added a few years prior. Electric Blue Division of same bush in new yard in the process of the root ball adapting to the new pH enviroment. Obviously there are local pH range variations working here. Over time it will stabilize to purple or pink, unless I act on it. Liking the effect I added dolomite lime to one side of tbe bush and Aluminum Sulphate to the other. Summer Yard Plan I'm going to add some serious Alocasia, Colocasia, Banana, Giant Canna and Giant Ferns this year. Many are hardy here or might be hardy enough and possibly survive a wet long winter too. That is if tricked just right. Others will need to be over wintered inside, until I have expanded enough stock to test for more effective outdoor methods. We have sodium vapor and T55 lights on timer and gas heater installed in an insulated side shed also an unheated 40 F garage holding Brugmansia planters, now in suspended animation. To have success as a zone shifter, one has to know why a (semi)tropical didn't work outside. Was the actual cause cold hardiness, drainage, rotting, or slugs or other pests eating roots and bulbs? Mulch type, tarping, soil amendments, correct bottom drainage, and/or correct pH* could make a huge difference on meeting challenges. I'm getting a little electronic temperature datalogger to help save me on making repeated measurement trips. For a highly desired buried rootstock survival outdoors, one could even lay a 20watt seedling heatmat over the crown area, dry mulch, and cover with a waterproof tarp (e.g., for a Colocasia 'Thailand Giant'). With our 50-ish F ground temp below and an 85 F small zone above, it just might work. 100 watts / winter for protecting 5 prize tropical plants zone would be much more cost effective, and last longer, than a tropical vacation. * pH could effect root health or function, fertilzer loading or type needed and possibly microbe aggression or pest range too. I've used so much commercial compost in my new yard that I better watch plants here liking either an acid pH or drier soil. I know this for sure because most of my purple to blue hydrangeas shifted to pink and red and I can also see that my ammended soil for hydrangeas stay more moist than before. Soil ammendments found here to shift hydrangea color and/or a pH test kit can teach me how to pH adjust here.. My soil is too dry, clay filled and rocky in fact to not add compost. My yard is not hardpan, having a solid clay layer, but is more of a glacial till. It has small to large rocks stopping most digging tools quickly. Having not pre-tested and already moved here, I must use an iron rod for initial digging. Then I screen out excess rock and add compost back, 20 to 50%, to make decent soil. I dig "root pits" and "bog pits (plastic lined) mixing the ammendents needed with my screened soil as I go. i dig a pit as wide and deep enough needed to support an adult plant size. My soil structure thus permits me to ammend, on a plant by plant basis, for that plants needs. For hydrangea, I can seperately adjust pH differently for side by side plants to display different colors. I can even try making a single hydrangea a bicolor red/blue or a have a mixed blue, pink and purple color range. The range is created with focused line addition of ammendmenrs lightly mixed into the soil, above the root ball. If concerned about eventual pH blending yielding a single color try a below ground water drip diverter(s) such as plastic edging strip(s). These effects work only becuase plants roots feed more verically than horizontally through the plant with major root zones feeding primarily above. Yes plants are more simply wired than our brain body connections. Or gardening success would be likely be thought to due to insightful plant psychology rather than plant physiology ... except for that Elf riden Butterfly Orchid that I'm growing under lights. Yes 'Hildos' rides again! Psychopsis Mendenhall 'Hildos' FCC/AOS Hildos' 'Papilio' clan was first seen by Westerners waving to them in the wind, while clinging onto trees in Trinidad and Tobago. Hildos' direct ancestor was promptly captured and brought back to England in the early1800s, where the seated Elf Rider likely magically initiated the craze for orchid collecting in Europe. An award was granted the butterfly in 1825. Interestingly, most viewing this stunning sight still only have seen the Butterfly and not Jockey rider. With plants you sometimes need to look closer to truely understand them.

it should clean itself out.