Simply Koi and More Koi

Right, I could do with your help in deciding what to do about my pond.

At the moment I have a 3,500 gallon pond with a blockwork gravity filter with vortex, static and fluidised K1 chambers. I also, this year, fitted a skimmer. At the moment the skimmer (one of the black ones with a wide mouth extension) is just filtering the water through the strainer basket and feeding straight from that into a sequence pump. The problem is that I really need to clean that out daily and I'm just not around at home enough to do that. What I need is a longer term option that will hopefully only usually need cleaning weekly. The second problem is a complete lack of space. I don't have room to add an easy, diy or otherwise.

I'm thinking my only real option is a sieve, but will this cope with the large leaves or will I end up having my skimmer basket and then a sieve to clean out? Also will a sieve last a week without cleaning?

Or, as I hope, do any of you have any other options that will help?

Cheers everyone.

At this time of year I think its just the skimmer doing its job. You can change to a sieve but I would say that will not last all week at this time of year and will also need to be cleaned daily. The other problem You will then face is converting Your skimmer from pump fed to gravity fed, ie: bigger pipework. Or Your sieve will just run dry.
I know what You mean at this time of year a skimmer can be a real pain in the bum, purely as it has work to do, all summer it just skims dust and the odd pellet off the surface. Dont think I even looked in My basket then. Now as I am close to a big tree the basket is being emptied up to 5 times a day. In a week or so all the leaves will be gone and things will return to normal.
Perhaps a vortex may serve You better, but I still think it will need more attention than You can give it. Again this will need to be converted to gravity fed.
Justin

Hi Ed,

I know how you feel mate we used to have two big trees that dumped all into my pond and garden i was for ever cleaning out the basket and picking the mess in the garden

Then i built the pergola no more leaves in the pond and skimmer basket hardly ever needs cleaning so how about a pergola as if you have no room to install anything then a pergola could do the job and you could enclose it and then even pump the skimmer water over a shower into the pond as well

Hardly at home it must be hard being a teacher

He must ba attending a few after school clubs, Dont they hold the teacher ones in The Red Lion

Am interested in the thoughts here.. intending to have 1 or maybe 2 skimmers when I get to building new pond... My thoughts are that I would like to be able to have the option of 1 skimmer over a shower as an option [set it so adding shower would be straightforward.

The other want I have is to have the other [or make it possible as an alternitive with a single] to run skimmer through a UV and set it so again I can include heating in that line as and when. My reasoning is that if I isolate uv [and heating] on that line then uv is likely to be used anyway when a skimmer would be useful but uv could simply be switched off [economics heh] - when I want heating then I am taking top water through the heating and not disturbing the body of the pond more than I want to through the main filter bottom drains - also can time the heater. Shower wouldn't run in winter in this method to avoid air chill.

Gravity fed. Anyway, thats sort of my thinking trying to give current and future options and choices... really interested in what others think about this.

Regards Dave

Gazza wrote:Hardly at home it must be hard being a teacher

Thorny wrote:He must ba attending a few after school clubs, Dont they hold the teacher ones in The Red Lion

I wish! At the moment everything's just too busy!

I've got no problems with converting things to gravity fed. Was wondering about cutting the back off the skimmer and glassing a small chamber onto the skimmer to make a larger container that could hold a much larger basket - and hence will last longer between cleanings! Be a tricky job with the location but do-able I reckon. Another option might be cutting a 4" hole in the side of the skimmer and blocking off the hole in the bottom. Would a larger container like that work do you reckon?

No pergola can go over this pond unfortunately as the stream goes right the way up the garden and collects all the leaves from the garden basically!

My Skimmer goes gravity fed to a Nexus Easy pod. I never clean out the skimmer basket because I removed it ages ago. The reason behind this was to get a better flow into the pod, and was made possible because the grid over the skimmer entrance is filter grid, so small holes. There are not many trees within leaf blowing distance of the pond, but when leaves do get blown, because the pond is also covered by fruit cage netting, the vast majority of the leaves don’t make it into the pond, those that do get through are usually still too big to get past the grid. The Pod gets flushed once a week, although it usually doesn’t really need it, I just like to keep it clean. I get the odd leaf in the bottom drain fed filter, so obviously some that don’t make the skimmer entrance end up on the bottom. I have seen a few leaves on the front of the grating, as they can’t make it past, but since the skimmer is switched off during feeding times, they either are released when the suction stops, and or the Koi remove some of the leaves by sucking at them when looking for the food, so the entrance hasn’t had the supply blocked off yet.

I'm not sure that actually answers your question though.

How does the stream enter the pond ?, could you try something to remove the leaves before they get washed into the pond. For example if it ends in a water fall, you could put netting over the exit, in such a way that when or if it over flows due to leaves, the over flow still ends up in the pond.

How about a few lines of netting stretched the width of the stream at various points along the stream's course / route to gradually trap the leaves ?

Hiya......

My skimmer goes into a 130000 Sequence and is then blasted through a Waterco multi-vortex.
http://www.waterco.com.au/CMS/default.asp?T ... page_id=43" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It's definitely worth a look. Fairly cheap in comparison to sieves, ridiculously small footprint and does exactly what it says on the can! (Or box!)
Koi Water Barn in Chelsfield, Kent are main stockists. Give them a call for more info, although I'm sure you can find plenty on the web.

Louie

Cheers guys.

I did think about something after the pump (like a Hydroclean or multicyclone) but I really want to have something before that won't block or let stuff through to the pump. Could I use something like that before the pump maybe?

The stream is 2ft deep so the fish can swim all the way up! I have a series of barriers at the moment from planting baskets but leaves get past. Thing is the leaves are then all in the stream and decay! Would rather get them out. Think I might have to do a lot more netting out as well!

[quote="Louie"]Hiya......

My skimmer goes into a 130000 Sequence and is then blasted through a Waterco multi-vortex.
http://www.waterco.com.au/CMS/default.a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... page_id=43
It's definitely worth a look.

Louie,

What is the wattage of that pump? It must cost you a fortune, just for the skimmer.


Chris (another one)

eds wrote:....The stream is 2ft deep so the fish can swim all the way up! .....

That's not a stream, that is a canal

Gin Rin wrote:

eds wrote:....The stream is 2ft deep so the fish can swim all the way up! .....

That's not a stream, that is a canal

Flows about as fast!!! lol!

The fish do like it though but as I've spent today cleaning it out I wish I had a streamflow pond with no stream sorted out already! lol!!!!