new ponds

[Mississauga Ponder]

for those who have recently started their ponds ... and those who can still remember when they started their pond(s).

how long did it take to clarify the water? please briefly share the description of your pond and filter setup plus the load (how many fish).

this is just to form sort of a benchmark for newbies like me.

i will start ... my pond is 3600 gallons, 12' diameter and 6' deep. everything is DIY including the filters which are made of 55 gallon drums. first cicuit starts from 4" BD to SC w/ MS to moving K1 to 3600 gph pump T's to 55W UV T's back to static K1 to waterfalls to pond. second circuit starts from skimmer to static K1 to 3600 gph pump to sand gravel filter to pond.

after 12 weeks since i put in 6 koi that are about 8" the water is still dark olive green.

[Russell Peters]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mississauga Ponder for those who have recently started their ponds ... and those who can still remember when they started their pond(s). how long did it take to clarify the water? please briefly share the description of your pond and filter setup plus the load (how many fish). this is just to form sort of a benchmark for newbies like me. i will start ... my pond is 3600 gallons, 12' diameter and 6' deep. everything is DIY including the filters which are made of 55 gallon drums. first cicuit starts from 4" BD to SC w/ MS to moving K1 to 3600 gph pump T's to 55W UV T's back to static K1 to waterfalls to pond. second circuit starts from skimmer to static K1 to 3600 gph pump to sand gravel filter to pond. after 12 weeks since i put in 6 koi that are about 8" the water is still dark olive green.

The first pond I ever built for myself was made without any fancy equipment as well. I did not even use a UV light. I pumped water from the pond into an upflow gravel filter and that flowed back to the pond via a small water fall. It took six weeks for the water to clear.

My systems at the store are three thousand gallons each. I pump to an Ultima II 6000 then the water goes through a 40 watt UV light into a trickle tower and back to the pond. They never went green.

[sumthinfishys]

Mine was green for the fourth week it was running. And was only green for one week with no UV on it. But about a week ago I did a low level PP treatment and now my water is green again. I think the PP knocked the algae back on the walls which was taking the food from the free form floating algae??? I did the low level PP due to a few of my Koi having minor fin rot/irritation. I thought it would lower the bacteria count so they would heal faster?? Some times less is more? I'll have to wait it out?

Mike C

[Birdman]

The 1st pond I ever built for my self was in WA. 40,000 gal,, very basic filtration, no UV, and was always green.

After moving to OR I built a 12,500 pond, it was green for several weeks until I added UVs and then it cleared right up.

My new pond that I just finished this spring is 6700 gal, had UVs from day one, and has not turned green at all. Been clear the whole time.

[brandontirza]

Just put UV and it will solve all ur problems.The water will never turn to green

[dOHd]

You know guys, this conversation reminds me of one in high school.

There was this ugly girl. She covered the ugly with makeup, almost inches of it. But after all was said and done, she was still ugly.

Green water is a symptom. UV's cover that symptom. Cut of the UV, and the green water is back.

Green water is caused by single cell algea that eats food that is in the water. If you kill that algea off, does that eliminate the food as well? Nope. You just piled on another inch of makeup.

It is a process of competive exclusion. The single cell algea is the first to respond to excess food in the water. In a new pond, it is the only algea to be available to process the waste. As the pond matures, the "carpet algea" forms. It is much slower to gear up to process the waste, but it is more dominant, so it will begin to process that waste eventually taking so much food away from the single cell algea that it starves. Low and behold overnight the pond becomes clear and stays that way.

Many ponders also have a green period in the spring when the algea coat is also a bit slow coming out of winter. But usually after a couple of days or a week, it clears on its own.

So think of the UV as makeup on an ugly girl. She still ugly, you just hid the ugly.

The water still has waste in it. all you did was remove the color green.

Just because your water is crystal clear does not mean it is good water for the fish.

That being said, there are some ponds that are very well filtered and still have problems going clear. And for those ponds, UV's are a Godsend. But on a new pond, without cycled filter materiel or an algea coating on the sides, you need time. Anywhere from 6 months to two years to become mature.

You cant rush Mother Nature!

d PS, the number of fish is important.....But the amount of food you feed is even more important to the conversation and length of time your pond takes to clear out. And I am not a big fan of sand gravel filters. That might also be why your pond wont clear.

[Mississauga Ponder]

thanks for your your response. glad to know that it takes 6 months to 2 years.

3 reasons why i was a bit concerned; (1) i was told that it will take only 8-12 weeks. (2) others claim that their ponds never turned green (maybe they have UVs more than they need), and lastly in my previous experience when i was still living in asia it only took about 4 weeks for the water to clarify. the 2 main difference is the size of the pond and the climate/temperature.

in addition i also heard that a pond in virginia took more than a year. there's a pond in california that clarified after 7 months.

from the above i infer that ponds really take time to mature/clarify and the only way you can clarify the water 'synthetically' is to employ a lot of UVs.

i have a question in regards to the sand gravel filter. what made you say that it may be the cause why the water won't clarify?

Quote: Originally Posted by dOHd Green water is a symptom. UV's cover that symptom. Cut of the UV, and the green water is back. Green water is caused by single cell algea that eats food that is in the water. If you kill that algea off, does that eliminate the food as well? Nope. You just piled on another inch of makeup. But on a new pond, without cycled filter materiel or an algea coating on the sides, you need time. Anywhere from 6 months to two years to become mature. And I am not a big fan of sand gravel filters. That might also be why your pond wont clear.

[dOHd]

Because sand and gravel filters are a bear to clean. There is almost no way possible in the application where you are putting pond water into sand, that 1 you are getting any filtration, 2 that you really ever get the crap out.

In my experience, any filter that is a bear to clean, or a real mess when you do clean it will only be cleaned maybe once or twice and then it will either be forgotten or the task relegated to someone like me who does it for a living. Problem is, I dont clean crap systems like that. I will help you design a system that you can and will clean, but you can not afford to have me come by and clean out a mess like that more than once. Believe me.

Then you start talking about the actual ability of the materiel to do filtration. There are thousands of items, many of them down right cheap, that are very easy and lightweight when it comes to cleaning. HEavy and without much surface area items never make a good filter materiel. Ever.

The only way I would ever use a sand filter is to polish already super filtered water. That means you have a settlement chamber, a fines removal filter (just like a bead filter, but with different media), biological filter, probably through another bead filter, then and only then a sand filter. Otherwise it channels way to bad to be of any use, and usually within minutes.

I have seen a huge sand filter with a 5 HP pump that was below the pond level set up this way. You could back wash the filter, and for about 90 seconds you would have a decent flow. Small for the HP of the pump, but decent. After the 90 seconds, it would keep getting smaller until after about 5 minutes the garden hose would carry more water than was passing through the filter back into the pond.

So no, for the vast majority of ponders, a sand filter only leads to poor water quality and poor performance both flow and filtration wise.

d

[brandontirza]

your implication sounds great.At this point,I emphasize on checking the water parameters daily besides engaging UV.As long as ammonia and nitrite remain zero and nitrate remain below 50 ppm ,your fish will be healthy.

Keep your eyes on the water parameter.After 12 weeks(period the bacteria colonise the bio filter), you may turn the UV off and you will have crystal clear water all the time.