Posted by Bill on March 06, 2004 at 00:09:26:
I know this is a 'message board' and not novel writing 101 but I am over my head. In late October we moved into a new house. I was tickled pink when I discovered there was a covered up liner pond. I have never had a pond or aquarium before. As soon as all the leaves fell I uncovered it and started scooping out all the muck which had accumulated apparently before it was boarded over. I got most(much) of it out to the point that when I scraped my 'pool net' along the bottom I wouldn't get much but would create quite a whirl of presumably very decomposed organic material. I broke my budget and ordered a Laguna 5000 submersible pump and Laguna 4500 Power Flo gravity filter. I thought I was ready to conquer the world as soon as they came in I installed them and put in some fish including 5 nice sized comets that I got a bargain on at Hill Country. My water is getting worse by the day. At first I thought I was just stirring up the stuff I hadn't gotten out but now I think I have algae bloom and I am beginning to 'imagine' there is an odor. I am also pretty sure the filter is no good by design.It is very possible it dont know what is supposed to be happening but it seems the water comes in the top goes through a very coarse filter hits a basket with a bed of little lava rocks, flows out the holes in the handles for the baskets which are above the level of the rocks fills up the filter about 2/3 and sends pretty much the same dirty water right back into the pond. Laguna cust. service says it is rated to handle even their biggest pump of 2900 gph,mine is about 1600. That may be possible because the water doesnt getmuch resistance along the way. I have put a foam filter in it and it obviously stops much more but I have to turn the flow down to 150 gph or it will back up and overflow the filter, draining the pond. Right now I have a foam bedcushion (egg crate kinda thing) stuffed in a plastic box with a 2" hole in it under the output drains for the filter and it seems like a work of genius, compared to what the no foam version of the filter is stopping, even though much of the water is still just hitting the foam, finding the path of least resistance and going out the hole at the top. I put one on the bottom but not much water makes it through it.
So question #1 is filter doing something and I am just expecting results to quickly or should I be looking to replace, alter it. The pond is about 700+ gallons so I don't think my 150 gph with some filtering will work with fish. AND - THE WATER- YIKES. I don't know if I should just drain it and completely clean it, in which case I don't know what to do with the fish, and I thought I read a no no. The 5 big comets are about 7-9 inches, 6 small 'fancy gold fish' and about 10 feeder comets.I could use suggestions about 'declorinating' or I have seen suggestions about replacing 25%. If someone has a filter they have 'outgrown' I strongly suspect that would help, but my funds are very limited at the moment.
As you can tell I am over my head and not sure what to attack first. I will never have lots of money to put this clarifier, that algae fix, those enzyme boosts on a continuous basis. The water garden place has algae in their marginal grasses, so she said nix to that right now. I have 4 dormat water lillies. It isn't my nature to be patient, but being unable to 'invest' a lot into a 'dream system' I can excercise a little patience if I thought I was heading in the right direction.
I just deleted another paragraph of my meanderings. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I will check here regularly, my email is bbris@sbcglobal.net,phones 260-5858, 784-4475, address (just kiddin').
Have Fun!
Bill