Pond water filter ideas wanted

I have a small pond, no fish but frogs/tadpoles and other tiny creatures.

Today I just took delivery of a solar powered filter/foundtain

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In good sunlight I get a spray over 1ft high but the filter is a fairly course sponge and I'm not sure that is going to help with cleaning out the pond.

Clearly the pump is not powerful and so I don't want to put anything more on the inlet side, but I don't see why I shouldn't filter the free water from the outlet as it falls back into the pond.

Any ideas what might work best? I accept I might lose the fountain whilst the adaptation is in play but that is a secondary issue.

Reply to
AnthonyL
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The filter is there primarily to stop the fountain nozzles from getting blocked. A lot depends on the size of the pond, but I doubt it will do much towards cleaning the pond as a whole. And don't forget that such a filter will need cleaning frequently otherwise it will also become blocked.

Now if you had an artificial stream and waterfall with a decent pump and good flow, that would do it. A neighbour had a something similar, with a filter system in a rectangular plastic container say 60cm L x

45cm W x 45cm D, packed with many layers of 5cm thick plastic sponge. Cleaning it out was quite an undertaking, but only had to de done once or twice in a season.
Reply to
Chris Hogg

Yes I understand that and as stated I don't want to introduce any further obstruction at the inlet.

Well perhaps for a while I could just remove the spray head and use a small pipe to let the outlet flow into a raised yoghurt tub with a few holes and a couple of layers of coffee filters?

Reply to
AnthonyL

Well, that might be OK if your pond is rather smaller than say a kitchen sink, but I'd go for something a lot bigger, like a large 10 litre ice-cream tub, with *a lot* of holes in the bottom and lowest inch of the sides, and filled with horticultural potting grit as found in most garden centres. Flush it through with clean water first as that type of grit tends to be superficially muddy.

Incidentally, how big is this pond, and why in particular do you want to filter the water? I have quite a big pond (oval, roughly 4m x 3m), and mother nature takes care of it all by herself.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

I know nothing about ponds. It's an artificial pond built into the rockery of the house we bought a couple of years ago. Actually two ponds the larger one at a slightly higher level and will overflow into the lower pond, but consider them basically as separate. The larger one is about 2m x 1m x .4m at the deepest. It gets soil from the rockery and a lot of leaves from the overhanging black chestnut and other trees in the garden. The smaller pond is greenish in colour and the larger pond is more brown. I've only just taken the leaves out - next autumn I'll put netting over to stop the leaves from getting in.

The last owner kept fish and had an electric pump/filter etc. I'm happy to keep just frogs etc. I've got a water butt hooked up to replenish from time to time and thought a bit of aeration and filtering would be a good thing and at ?13 for a solar pump/filter/fountain and no running costs I thought I could with a bit of ingenuity help clear the pond a bit.

If I try to scoop up leaves or anything from the bottom the silt stirs up and it would seem ideal to just have the solar device help remove some of this.

I've also been given some pond plants and told to remove the worms that seem to be happy in the silt.

The first year here we had loads of frogspawn which matured to froglets. Last year nothing and this year two clumps of spawn, one in each pond, which look pretty dead and about 5 tadpoles. My neighbour (source of the pond plants etc) has given me a bucket of tadpoles which now inhabit the two ponds and there is at least one frog hanging about. I'd assumed the dead spawn was a result of a poor pond rather than an infertile male. But then again I found a clump of spawn on the garden slabs after it had been raining - are frogs that dumb - like swans that thing the M1 is a lake in the rain?

I'm a hoarder of plastic containers so I'm sure I'll find something but not sure what's wrong with the coffee filter idea. Just replace them if they don't let the water sieve through?

Power to the pump is fine in good sunlight providing the panel is orientated to the sun. Tomorrow's forecast doesn't look good for any experimenting though my water butt should fill up. That's another story as I have to put in a dam to backflow to the back of the house rather than use the downpipes at the front of the house. Currently a plastic bag half full of water and the air squashed out seems the most efficient.

Reply to
AnthonyL

Well, try it. I just think it's far too small to have any effect whatsoever.

Remember that ponds, both man-made and natural, do function perfectly well without any intervention. Wormy things live in the sediment, and beasties swim in the water, and as long as it stays reasonably well oxygenated and doesn't get stagnant, it should be OK for years without much attention. (Have you got any oxygenating plants in there, things like Elodea or some of these

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) But gradually sediment and sludge builds up in the bottom and every few years the pond should be drained or pumped out and the sludge dug out. Take care when you do that, not to damage the liner. If you can save the water in a water-butt or whatever and return it when finished, so much the better, rather than refilling with tap water. Spread the sludge on flowerbeds close by so that there's at least a chance any beasties can find their way back.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

I doubt if the pump is going to be anything more than an ornamental feature and apart from slightly aerating the water it will be cosmetic.

As others have said, the sponge filter on the input is solely there to prevent crud entering the pump inlet and possibly destroying the pump. Stir up the muck in the bottom of the pond with the pump running and I'll bet the filter will become fully clogged within seconds.

Consider that your pump is specified at 180 litres per hour. This is possibly a Chinese specification so divide the figure by at least 2 and as its solar powered only achievable on a bright cloudless sunny day. Pumps (power heads) designed for a 2 foot aquarium to circulate water through a thin gravel filter bed have specifications of 1000+ litres per hour and run continuously 24/365. Adding something to the output of your solar powered pump is unlikely to make any difference to the quality of the pond.

Possibly you need to have a clean out of the ponds, prevent a mass of leaves entering it in autumn and then, as others have suggested, plant up suitable aquatic plants and let nature take over. Just remember when cleaning out the ponds may/will have a membrane that can be punctured with sharp metal tools.

Enjoy your fountain only for the visual effect and the often calming influence of listening to splashing water.

Are you sure that the previous owner didn't bury a circulating pump and large filter container under the rockery with rock slab over the top for routine maintenance purposes?

Reply to
alan_m

No, there remains only a cut mains wire. He asked if I wanted the fish but I didn't so he took it all away.

I'm not expecting any miracles, anything the little device does is better than what was happening before. No fountains with today's forecast.

Reply to
AnthonyL

Yes frogs are that dumb. I've found frog spawn in the wheel arch of a car that had been parked for a week. It was parked on road but gutter had some leaf debris in it. Stream is about 50m away. There is a railed triangle of trees and shrubs with bark chippings with a 2nd road the other side of it between where the car was parked and the stream.

Ok that side of the sill and wing had rotted out due to collecting leaf litter between the bottom of A post and wing.

Reply to
Peter Hill

when you gotta go you gotta go...

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

What are you trying to remove?

If its algae then it will keep growing unless you remove its food source. You can kill it with chemicals or a UV steriliser but you will need to be careful or you will kill the wildlife too.

I would suggest you do a few partial water changes (25% each over a few days). Use the mist setting on a hose to fill it so the chlorine has a chance to escape.

Reply to
dennis

What's wanted is a very coarse filter like some gravel, relying on water slowing way down to capture crud. A stream can do that. Coffee filters won't be any use.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

Probably not deep enough for a wildlife pond,they normally have a deeper spot where creatures can hibernate over winter. Then as they get active again in Spring the whole ecosystem gets going again daphnia etc start to breed and the water greenish and then clears again as things get into balance. A pump and fountain will help with aeration which is important especially if you haven?t got many aerating plants. For filtration it won?t do much good and could actually do harm if it removes microscopic creatures that would be munching plant material. Silt on the bottom that is the eventual end of the process may did to be physically removed eventually but needs to scooped or sucked out with a suitable device. The worms you mentioned below will be part of that process so don?t destroy them all. Same applies to pond snails which are very important at keeping the the water clear.

Tadpoles if you find you are not finding many may have become food for Newts.

A couple in a small pond will eat them as they emerge from the spawn and after a couple of generations of frogs are not replaced the pond becomes a Newt only pond. A larger pond will allow enough to escape to mature but in a small one if you want Frogs you may have to remove Newts from it. One UK species is protected and if you have those then are life could get complicated legally if you are law abiding.

Good for aeration in fountain mode, and happily it is when water is being warmed up by Sun that it ,may need it most, rain brings aerated and oxygen bearing droplets with it and adds more with the splash.

Pump like that will not do much filtration and is not what you want do to the water any way. Scooping the silt will cause murkiness but it will settle clear relatively quickly once you have finished. That should be done only as an infrequent major operation, as well as ?worms? many other creatures live in it such as Dragon fly larvae which look quite menacing spend a couple of years down there before climbing a plant stem and emerging to spread wings then wait for them to harden and fly off.

Things like that you should try to return or you will never get any maturing like that.

GH

Reply to
Marland

I don't know - I was just put out by this year's frog spawn being sterile and having none last year, but a healthy load including tadpoles the spring before (the first year I was here). So I assumed I needed to do something.

The frogs seemed happy and the borrowed tadpoles seem quite happy in as much as I can tell (swimming around vigorously and appear to be growing).

I have a water butt hooked up so I can top up as and when there's been sufficient rain to fill it up. I used tap water last year - maybe that was a mistake.

Reply to
AnthonyL

If daphnia are the little specks around the top edge of the water that attract the tadpoles then I seem to have quite a few especially on spots where the sun is shining.

The aeration I think will help and I've now got some pond plant.

Oh, well the ones I found have been removed to the garden. But there's enough soil/silt for more.

Yes I try to chuck them back in if they come out with the leaves. Got quite a few.

I'd love to have newts but frogs only in this area.

Wish I'd been a bit more aware of this when a young teenager. Still they built the M1 through where we used to play in the woods so I'm sure they caused more damage than a couple of us with our jam jars.

The water already looks better ie clearer, whether that's a result of the tadpoles or pond plant or clearing the layer of dead/decaying leaves I don't know. The fountain hasn't had enough sun to work for more than a couple of hours.

I'll take more of a passive role and leave nature a bit more to its own devices. With my new water butt for replenishing, fountain and plants for aeration, and future plans to limit the autumn leaves all should be well.

Reply to
AnthonyL

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