I havent posted on here for ages but here goes,

Hypothetically if I were to build a new pond I am going to build a 1ft wall raised type which has 2 planting shelves and is about 1m (3.33ft) deep. It will be about 1.8m (6ft)long by 1.5m (5ft)wide.

I hope to stock your normal fish such as Goldfish, coments, shubunkins etc and would love koi but dont know if this pond is big enough for them.

Anyway a rough calculation brings the pond volume to be 1620 litres (360 gal). I will be taking along my old 600 lph pump and ecocell 2200 filter but would prefer not to use these in the pond as I have other plans for them.

Anyway I need a bio/ mech filter, UV clarifiers, pump package at a good price. I have seen various systems on the net but I would like your comments on which makes are good. I like the look of the green genie and fishmate systems and need feedback on these.

So anychance of a system like this for under £100. I dont need any extras ontop of this as I have budgetsed for hosing and the like but if you can get it me for less than £100 that would be brill!

Thanks,

Daniel

For a pump I would suggest something over 1500lph that will allow for losses and still get you over the often sited once every two hours. Look at the running costs as well as the purchase price. Look in the likes of B&Q, they will be cheaper than garden centres.
Use the biggest bore hose you can, ie the biggest compatable with the hosetails, that will reduce your losses. I think I can email you a loss chart but its 1.83MByte can your email take that?

Yep it can,

djfroadshows@gmail.com (about 2.5gb space... yeah baby!!)

Yeh I think I will stick with goldfish and the like and not go into koi lol. Are orfe OK though?

Also anybodies thoughts on systems i could get and opinions on those systems would be much appreciated.

I found DIY shops quite expensive as well s garden centres and find online stores and aquatics specialists can give better value.

Oh yeah, also is it ok to post links to online shops on here? If so could you chuck me a few links to webshops. Ive found quite a few but was wondering if there are anymore out there.

Thanks,

Daniel

Thanks,

Daniel

Where is everyone?

Thanks,

Daniel

Thanks,

Daniel

Still very pleased with mine, it's into its second year of operation now. I have clear water, and so far NO maintenance or cleaning has been required whatsoever. For me this is a BIG consideration. No dreary filter cleaning... I just enjoy the pond, watching the fish and the teeming life in there.

I don't use UV, so no extra on the electricty bills, and no new UV bulbs every year.

Skippy's do need to be big compared to commercial filters, but mine is half buried, and forms part of my waterfall return, and is almost entirely hidden by plants and rockery around it, and watercress growing in the top. And it works WAY better than the commercial filter and UV that I had before.

Note that although my water is clear, I have a LOT of mature plants in the pond and waterfall return, and about 60% surface coverage from lily pads, frogbit, water hyacinth, water lettuce, duckweed and azolla. This undoubtedly helps.

Also, in my design the skippy filter is sitting in a lined "well", a few inches bigger than the skippy itself all around. So filtered water overflows into the well, and then overflows from the well into my waterfall return. ie. the well allows some additional settlement time for anything that gets through the skippy.

By the way, the watercress and veggie filter stage (plants in the waterfall return) seem to be working extremely well, because the duckweed and azolla is not as rampant as previous years. Only need to scoop some out once or twice a month.

That thing is a beast. However I dont think it is the right filter for me as I am the kind of ponder who is into the whole system and couldnt possibly leave it alone. also I need to filter system to be quite small so am chosing to use a multi tank system so i can situate tanks where possible.

Also hopefully this filter will be put in a garage so I cannot see plants liking that.

Thanks,

Daniel

got all that by using the link below

so you could have a couple of koi but thats it

Yeah thing is my pond aint a normal cube shape. So even though the depth is 1m it isnt 180cm wide at 1m depth. It is sort of like an upside down pyramid as you have planting shelves on.

The volume comes to about 1700L

Thanks,

Daniel

Thanks,

Daniel

They are all pretty rampant, except the sedge, and occasionally need cutting back lest they "escape" or block the flow.

The plants in the pond itself may be a big factor too... submerged oxygenators are prolific in the depths, and all the floating plants I mentioned above grow well. Then there's a wide variety of marginals, rushes, lillies etc.

Everything is growing well, but there now appears to be a clear competition for nutrients, because the duckweed and azolla doesn't spread nearly as rapidly as previous years.