Plants & Patience is the key. Follow Anne & Jenny's advice; their experience is invaluable. Trust me on that, they have both helped me immeasurably (thanks ladies:) Do.not.give.up. The skippy is a great start. Now on to the plants. It does NOT have to be wallet-draining. Start w/the watercress from the gro store as suggested. Sprig a few in your skippy & put the rest in the pond. You will be amazed. I'm not familiar with your zone so can't offer specific suggestions. I will add I like to experiment with terrestrial plants in the pond to see what works. Some do, some don't, but I have been amazed at some of my successes. (yeah, and the *experts* who say it's not possible miss it sometimes;) I just dig up what's thriving in my yard & try it...hey...the price is right...FREE! I'm adding a link below. Hopefully, something there will work for you. Stay away from chemicals & additives (other than declor) unless you have an emergency in which your fishies are in danger. They just drain your funds and are temporary measures at best. Always better to correct the problem itself rather than treating *symptoms*. You'll be enjoying your pond soon...have faith! blessings, ~digger Here is a link that might be useful: terrrestrial plants in pond

Sounds good but the inside of the pipe in the skippy can get pretty gunky with microbes growing on the inside and snails, debris, etc.That will close up a small hole pretty fast. I prefer to keep the larger diameter tubing clear above the water surface. I sometimes clean out the entire pipe using the vertical tube as access.I do this if water starts coming out of the vertical tube which indicates the tubing is blocked. That really cuts down on the force of the flow through the pipes. A fairly soft cleaning sponge attached to a not very stiff wire to push and pull it works well as does a small scrubby or flexible piece of coarse sponge type filter. You are just loosening caked on gunk, not scouring it clean. Someone should have jumped on my comment that the T was installed horizontally. Sorry, I must have been half asleep. The air intake tube is of course perpendicular to the surface of the water which makes it vertical. The whistle that can be so annoying is reduced or eliminated by running 14 to 18 inches of air tubing down through the vertical pipe, downstream, keeping the near end above the level of the pipe opening. Don't let the tubing get sucked entirely down. The near end must be free in the air. Or you can simply place a bamboo stick down the vertical pipe to break up the suction that is causing the whistle.

Hi George. I am a new ponder myself, with my first pond made this year. This site is so informative and the people here are very helpful. I know it's hard to have patience when you are so excited about seeing your fish. I too got depressed when I went through the stinky, bug infested, thick, algae, pea soup syndrome. I got spoiled by the first week of my pond, when everything was new and the water was clear. But then when it got icky, and then disgusting looking, and it seemed like it was taking forever to see my lovely creatures that I paid for, I started to get impatient too. But I spent that impatient feeling reading up the articles on here, soaking up information like a sponge. Patience is mentioned over and over again. I eventually after reading up on how the ecosystem worked and balancing act of the pond, I realized I needed to look at the pond like a new science experiment and learn from other ponders as "experienced" scientists("experienced" by what they have tried, gone through, or what worked for them, as far as the ideas and experiences that they share on here). I learned to look at my pond for what it was, and what it was going through. You will see, when it does clear up, which it will "with patience" and mother nature, you will appreciate all the creatures, microscopic up to the the large critters and plants, including healthy algae, that makes the wonderful balancing act possible. From what I learned on here, the good stuff that your pond needs has to grow from the bad stuff to make its existence possible, to complete the cycle. Chemicals are only temporary. The right bacteria/s will help your pond for the long run and help maintain your water for you, like ponds of the lucky long time ponders on this site. Patience is free. It will be worth it in the end.. Happy Ponding : )

I maintain 700 gallons of aquariums in my loft apartment (I'm obsessed, I know.) The water in our building is poor due to the building's age, so I have always used RO water which I remineralize manually. I have a 165g storage tank with a well pump to account for the slow RO production rate. My system was originally a 4-stage: 1. sediment filter 2. pre-filter 3. 50GPD RO 4. Permeate pump 5. Water tank 6. Polishing filter 7. Output I wanted increased output, so I was sold a 75GPD module and a boost pump. The boost pump went between the sediment and pre-filter. I removed the flow restrictor from the 50GPD unit and connected the waste line to the input of the 75GPD unit, then placed the flow restrictor on that module's waste line. The RO membranes have been in use several years (though the other filter elements have been changed several times) and flow had dropped off considerably, So it was time to change them. I saw no reason not to upgrade them to 100GPD membranes. For good measure, I decided I would add a third membrane. I was never sure whether the RO membranes should be daisy chained or run in parallel. Most diagrams online have them in series, but it seems like the downstream units would see dirtier water and be likely to wear out faster. I also don't know what the flow restrictor rate should be. If you're feeding three 100GPD units, a single 1000mL flow restrictor that is meant for one 100GPD unit doesn't seem appropriate, but 3000mL doesn't seem right either. So I decided to do it in parallel. I put check valves on the good water lines and have 1000mL flow restrictors on each waste line. I left off the pressure storage tank since I should get decent flow in this system and it doesn't get to fill much of the time anyway. And I left the permeate pump out because it says it's limited to 120GPD and I wasn't sure what would happen if I drove it at a higher rate. I did find this http://www.permeate-pump.com/doublepump_systems.htm which describes using dual permeate pumps and says it's capable of using two 150GPD units to drive it so it should work in my scenario. But I need to get a second permeate pump if I want to do that. The other problem is it recommends using 3/8" input and waste lines. While I could get a larger source line and the boost pump has 3/8" connectors stepped down to 1/4", the sediment and pre-filter modules have 1/4" connectors and that doesn't seem to be replaceable without replacing the whole module. The membrane housings are also 1/4" connectors, but by then it may not need to be 3/8". I could get 3/8" line for it to empty into, but the saddle connector I have for the sink drain line is 1/4". It works, but it doesn't seem to be any faster than one unit alone. Also, if I turn off the faucet, it continues to run, never seeming to turn off the boost pump. If I run a single RO membrane it shuts off as expected. It also seems like if I turn off the faucet, the waste water output increases which I guess is to be expected. I bought a hydraulic switch to stop waste water output as I didn't have one previously. It's compatible with a permeate pump but I need to go to the store for a connector before I can add it. I do notice that in the link above, when they put a boost pump in the system, they don't use a hydraulic valve. I didn't have one before. Perhaps the permeate pump served that purpose? I figured it couldn't hurt to add one, but it may not work in this system. I can't tell if all the air is bled from the system yet, so I think tomorrow I will get valves to allow turning off individual units so I can prime each. Or maybe someone will tell me to go to the series arrangement instead. Or perhaps I should try two membrances instead of 3. Can I let one dry out without ruining it? I could use one as a second stage, but I don't think the water needs to be cleaner for my use. I thought I had it figured out, but between discovering the Permeate pump couldn't handle the rate (though I'm not sure what will happen if I try) and it not functioning as expected without the permeate pump, I'm kind of stuck. Any help would be appreciated. Michael Here is a link that might be useful: Dual permeate pumps to increase efficiency