don't know what the maintainance requirements are for your filter, but I'm wondering if it might be needing some sort of cleaning, and thats the reason it's not working as efficiently as it was. Also, most of the UV bulb's need changing every 12 months. Just had ours go green and after much fussing realised we needed to change our UV, within a few days it's begun to clear.
Hello Welcome to the pond forum.
Linda

ok thanks, does anyone know if my filter does need any maintenance, i can see the bulb is working ok, do they need regular cleaning? and is it ok to open unit at this time of year? i was under the impression that you could "kill" it as its active in summer

thanks again

Hiya... I am the least experienced on this site, but I would check whether your filter needs a clean (I thought they needed more frequent cleaning during the hot weather). Personally I don't hose down filter media with tap water, but use a bucket of the pond water to clean everything... this maintains the established eco-system / bacteria (not sure what to call it). Don't assume that my advice is good advice though... hopefully others can assist.

I don't know your filter but most need regular maintenance of some sort.
If you clean the filter with tap water you WILL 'kill' it. ONLY use pond water for cleaning.
As for the UV, the bulb will still light up but they efficiency and should therefore be replaced at least once a year, some will say every 6 months.
I change mine every spring.

Hmmm well 6000 ltrs is about 1300 gallons isnt it? so your pump is far too strong, you are pumping the whole ammount of water per hour, you need one that will pump half the volume of water per hour or your filter wont work, you are pumping the water too fast for the filter and the UV to do what it's supposed to do, you should have a pump that will shift about 600 gal per hour, about 2700ltrs, that seems to be your problem.

Hi,

Well with regards to flow rate my friend has a 2500 litres yet he is using a 6000 lph pump. Id say about 4000 of this was going to filter and UV and the other 2000 to the fountain. His water is crystal clear.

I'd say your problem lies with the fact that you havent cleaned your filter for nearly a year. It must be saturated with dead matter and fish gunk and the ammount of ammonia and nitrates in there could be dangerous if you arent areating the filter.

My advise is because its been a long time since its been cleaned is to put all your filter media into a bucket of pond water so the majority fo your benificial bacteria and microorganisms are kept alive (stick a small pump or air blower into the bucket whilst theyre in there.

Id then get your main filter box(es) and against recommendation give them a good spray with tap water as they must be filthy and full of bad bacteria and material the pond could do without that you simply cannot get rid of with pond water.

Id them get a few buckets of pond water. Fill your filter boxes up and swish it around then pour it away to remove some of he chlorine from the tap water.

Id then clean your biomedia and filter media in the pond water by ringing out any foam and swishing around and plasti media. Do not use tap water here as you will kill your benificial bacteria and disrupt the ponds balance.

Then replace your media into your filter box and then fit the hoses back on and wait a week or two and hopefully see a difference. You may find you need to remove just your filter media and bio media and wash them in pond water more often for a while as they will be collecting a lot of gunk now it is able to. Dont clean the actually filter box out as that should be ok.

If you see your water becoming cleaner with less solids in it means your filter is working but if you still have green/ brown water look into replacing your UV lamp as they normally only last a year.

Sorry for the mammoth post but I think its worth going into detail on how to clean a filter for this person.

Thanks,

Daniel

Ok, despite being completly against most of the things in this thread this is what I do:

Firstly the recommended flow rate for a filter is half your pond water a hour, but thats only any good if a) you are buying a new system, and b) you have no intention of extending your pond.

I have a pump that is pumping about 4000LPH, and my pond is only 2000L, so i am pumping my whole pond every half an hour, or to put it another way I am pumping my entire pond through the filter TWICE every hour. However I also bought an oversized filter that claims to be able to cope with a flowrate of 12000 litres an hour, (although I severly doubt it would cope with this as I'm not even sure you could get that much water into it through the connections!)

However my point is I think the "half the pond an hour" is a recommended minimum. As long as your filter can cope with it it seems to be fine to pump faster than that.

Now the filter. I find that as my filter system is fairly new it gets clogged fairly quick, (but then it has cleared the water from pea-soup to clear in about a week and a half!). The filter is a down-flow system, (the water goes in at the top, out from the bottom), with three layers of sponges on the top, and then loads of biomedia on the bottom, (in my case black corrugated pipes). As the filter is so mucky I always wash the sponges with the hose using tap water and 'pressure wash' the muck out. The bio media I just swirl around with my hand to mix it all up and then run the filter without the sponges for a few minutes to flush the water straight thru and flush the muck out of the bio media. Then I put the sponges back together and back in the top of the filter. All is well.

With your problem, if your filter is over a year old, get a bucket and take a bucket of water from the pond, (I use an old white paint tub thoroughly washed). If the water in the bucket looks excessively green but there is nothing 'solid' in the bucket theres a good chance that the UV tube in your UV lamp needs replacing, (particularly if it's over 12 months old). If you see sort of cotton-wool like strands in the pond thats probably blanket weed. Some people use chemicals to fight this, others like myself, find that the Barley straw pouches work fine. If you do use the barley straw though you must give them several weeks before you expect to see a change.

NOTE: In my limited experience Barley straw will only treat blanket weed, NOT green water despite what the packaging might say. The UV lamp will treat green water, but won't affect blanket weed, (although might make it slightly worse as you have then removed one type of algea from the sunlight-competion).

Hope some of that helps! :)

Phil V

thanks for all your posts, very useful,
i will clean out my filter tonight as said with pond water and go from there,

does it make any differance then if it is a open tank type filter or a sealed pressure filter, i was told when i bought it, "as it is a sealed unit it does not require maintenance, only the bulb will need changing" sounds to me like a salesman going for a hard sale!!!

one more question then, should i be putting any additives back in the water when i have cleaned the filter, or do i just let mother nature run its course

many thanks

Hi,

Whatever the filter it will need cleaning. A pressurised / sealed unit just means it doesnt have to be positioned above your ponds waterlevel. It will still require cleaning.

You shouldnt have to add any chemicals or additives after cleaning. Clean the filter and leave it for a fortnight If by then everything is clear youre fine but make sure you keep cleaning that filter out. If the water is free of debres but still green or merky Look into getting your UV lamp replaced. If after your UV lamp has been replaced and you have no luck get a water test hit to test your water quality.

Also check your plants. make sure yu have plenty of oxygenators to provide more oxgen and plants such as Lillys to cover the ponds surface to reduce sunlight and algae growth.

Thanks,

Daniel

Ok Sorry guys for this ( i know im prolly gonna start a controversy)

I am by no ways an expert at ponds.. but with my experiance i have followed the following method. The filter gets cleaned with filtered water at the mid part of spring. This is done by removing each layer of filter medium and washing it (only half of it mind u. then spreading the remaining muck back over the clean half. I do this with all 3 mediums. the corrogated turbes i only clean 3/4 of them and leave the other 1/4 in the box. My maddness in all of this method is that your filter box builds up a colony of algy eaters, and these eaters take a long time to build up a colony sufficient to remove the agly.

Add to this that all my expelled water from the filter is run through a bog filled with reed mace (natures filters) i also have found a great use for the blanket weed too ... this goes into the forced bog and helps absore excess nutirents without spreading into the pond!. (and seems to ebe working well this year.

Plants are my next step. Waterlilys.. to cover as much surface area as possible (50-60%) other surface plants and pot jumpers (mentha aquatica). My maddness as i was saying earlier is the following....

A natural pond is never crystal clear... the obscurity of the water IMO actually helps calm the fish as they are largly unseen by surface predators. Added to this that the algy shows an imballance in the nutrient levels. Too much algy in simple terms = room for more plants. Now that might be just a misconception on my part. but last year i stopped using my UV filter and started using the mother nature way.. and yes i might not be able to see the bottom of my pond... im not that bothered.... because it makes it all the more special when the fish do surface... and the fatalatys to local cats (which have learnt to fish!) has rapidly dropped.

ok sorry for that (in re-reading it all it sound a bit flamish and is no way intended like that .. its just one other perspective.. and may be flawed but it works for me.. and might work for others who have the patience to harmonise there ponds and get the natural balance.

Good luck with the algy all .. mine is prevelant at the moment but the lillys will halt it in its tracks soon.

Regards
Richard

just to update, i cleaned the filter with pond water last night, and going to get a new uv bulb

dfinn, i will take your advice and leave it as it is for a few weeks, although the uv bulb was showing signs of age, element looked scorched,so i'll change it now

i will also get some more oxygenating plants, i had a few lillys but they attracted the algie and sunk!! will wait till it clears a bit more before putting any more in

many thanks

Hi,

Yup the Lamp sounds like it's done in. Definataly change it.

Yep add some more oxygenators and leave it for 2 weeks. But keep an eye on how quickly your filter fills up with gunk as now that it's clean it will collect gunk more quickly than before.

Also once your water has cleared up with the UV check your pond floor for sediment and debris. If your filter has been saturated with gunk the sediment and debris may have collected at your pond floor instead of in the filter where it should be. This layer of gunk at the bottom of your pond can cause a rise in ammonia which isn't good for your fish. If you have sediment at the bottom of the pond it could do with being vaccuming out.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Daniel

"Whatever the filter, it will need cleaning". Not quite true - you don't clean Skippy filters, that's why I built one...!

About flow rates, I think the thing about using more than the "pond volume every 2 hrs" guideline is that your filter must be able to cope with that rate of mucky water going through it. It might clog quickly (and so you might end cleaning it a lot more often), or a lot of stuff will fail to be trapped - this plus the high flow rate might mean the water is always "stirred up" and you get a constant suspension of particles that is just as opaque as green water... I think this may be what was happening with my old filter.

Hi,

I apologise. I remember now about the skippy filter, how come they dont need cleaning? Do the bacteria break down all the gunk?

Surely with the flow rate you dont want sediment settling as this provides a place where ammonia can collect but if the stuff is being moved a bit it wont.

Actually I think we all know the solution to this problem.

BOTTOM DRAIN lol

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel, yes bacteria breaks down the gunk in a Skippy filter. They need to be pretty big to work properly I think (that's the disadvantage!) I think what happens is, due to their size and design they are able to form a kind of complete ecosystem in themselves, and once they achieve balance, the accumulated muck is broken down at a rate that matches the "fresh" incoming muck. Cleaning them destroys their natural balance.

The broken-down gunk becomes nutrients, which feeds more algae so ideally you put something fast-growing in the top of the filter or pond return, to use up the nutrients before they get back to the pond (A veggie filter in other words).

Yes, I think you're right about not letting too much sediment settle, I just think its possible to go too far with the flow rates. As with most things, I think you need a balance - high flow rate might "work" better but also mean you need a bigger or more efficient filter (and/or more cleaning!), and a low flow rate might not clear up your water properly...

My knowledge is minimal, but the guy that fitted my pump has reduced the flow of water travelling to the filter. So, one pipe goes from pump, then further along splits in 2... one goes to filter the other returns to pond unfiltered. So have 2 splashes! Not sure if this helps.

Did you say you plan to ait 2 weeks before putting oxygenators in? If so, please don't. Put them in as soon as possible.

Hi,

I said put some oxygenators in then wait two weeks lol.

Thanks,

Daniel

hi again, i have changed the uv and added loads more oxygenators and am glad to say its virtually crystal clear now!!!
i will clean filter again this weekend because no doubt it will be clogged up again after shifting all that gunk

about pump sizing then, i was lead to belive that the flow rate dropped with the height you had to pump,although i cannot remember the calculation, it was calulated to be the right size with the size of pond and a 6 foot climb from the bottom of the pond to the top of the waterfall,
but then again, he also said the filter does not need cleaning!!!!

anyway, just one more question then, i have a ph testing kit and all is well now, but is there anything else i need to be looking for,i have read some of you check nitrate levels, what does this effect?

my long term plans is to keep koi, but i want to make sure everything is stable before introducing them

thanks to everyone for your help

Hi,

Glad to see its back to normal now.

Happy ponding,

Thanks,

Daniel

I think its the nitrite level (not so much nitrate) and amonia that you need to keep a close eye on

The main four that NEED to be checked are, PH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate.

Nitrate is a lessure problem but high levels can also cause unhealthy water if your ballance isnt right, so it still needs to be checked, their are other tests too, oxygen that can be of use in the summer months, just to make sure your water holds enough to keep your fish safe in a heatwave and storm.

And those who have the flow to fast will see the results in time, your filter isnt working to full capacity and you WILL have probelms and they will hit hard when they do, the recomendation of half volume per hour was learned by the lives of several exspensive fish and it is tried and tested over 30 years by hundreds of now well experienced fish keepers who shared thier knowledge learned from thier mistakes, always your choice how you filter your pond, but not a lesson to be ignored.