Articles About Bio Filters For Clean & Healthy Fish Ponds
Every garden fish pond is potentially a toxic trap for your fish. Pond fish including koi and goldfish excrete ammonia naturally and if this ammonia is allowed to build it up it quickly becomes toxic. One of the main reasons for fish dying in any pond is self poisoning through ammonia build-up. This is the manin purpose if any biofilter ... to remove deadly ammonia as soon as it is formed 24/7.
Ammonia In A Fish Pond
I am pretty confident that most pond keepers have come across warnings about ammonia in pond water. Certainly those koi enthusiasts who are brave enough to "show" their fish are acutely aware of this problem and they go to great lengths to prevent disasters taking place. Next time you go to a koi show you will see water is always being emptied and refilled into various holding tanks. This is done to ensure ammonia levels never reach toxic concentrations.
Ammonia in a fish pond must be removed using a biofilter
Biofilters need lots of oxygen 24/7
This might sound strange but it is true as I will explain. However before I do I would like to discuss oxygen in terms of good and effective pond keeping. One of the very best koi keepers in the world once said to me something I will never forget. Of course he was exaggerating a bit. Nigel said: "There should only be three things in a pond: water, fish and air ( ie oxygen)."
Make sure your pond pump feeds water (containing oxygen) to your bio filter 24/7
Nitrification cycle .. koi, gold fish ponds and pond filters
Making the pond safe for your fish. Poison to pond plant fertiliser using a biofilter ... In this article we discuss the Nitrification cycle in gold fish and koi ponds; what it is and how it works and under what circumstances it can fail. In the article about ammonia it was shown that this very poisonous chemical is produced by koi eating any food containing proteins. It was shown that at different levels of pH ammonia could be more or less poisonous but that it was always poisonous and that any fish keeper should strive hard to keep the level of ammonia down to zero levels in the pond. To achieve this means the pond system must have a fully functional, day in and day out, biofilter because this is the real home of the Nitrification cycle.
Pond nitrification & water purification cycle
How to make and install a simple pond bio filter
It can be very simple to make your own pond biofilter but at prices available from right outlets selling the correct type it is probably not worth the effort. The pleasure from your pond, the health and size of your fish, the appearance of your plants is based upon your biofilter working optimally. There is no fixed shape, size, location or anything else for a biofilter. Always remember that any biofilter is just a place where water, fish waste and oxygen all of which are dissolved in the circulating pond water can meet the bacteria responsible for converting this waste (the waste is actually food for the bacteria) into non toxic chemicals that remain dissolved in the water. The more oxygen in the pond water the better because then the pond filter bacteria are lively, strong and hungry.
How to make your own biofilter
Bio-Filters, Bio-Starters or Bacteria Starters
I received a very interesting question from a lady reader this week. In essence the question was what is difference between a biofilter and the powder she throws into her pond every week as recommended by a dealer. The powder she was referring to is called a bio-starter or bacteria starter. These powder products are offered by many companies and are probably worthless in practice. Some products are available in liquid form.
Understand pond starters or bio starters
Alfagrog Pond Filter Media and Alfacoral for Aquariums
The AlfaGrog range of porous ceramic filter media is made under controlled conditions in Staffordshire, U.K. Selected raw materials are rapidly sintered at high temperature to produce a foamed ceramic porous mass, which is crushed and sieved to a convenient particle size.
Alfagrog Pond Filter Media and Alfacoral for Aquariums
Vegetable (Veggie) BioFilters For Goldfish and Koi Ponds
Most pond plants with submerged leaves produce considerable oxygen during the day. Underwater freshwater garden pond plants reduce nutrients on which pond algae feed. Using this principle it is possible to create natural bio-filters that can do the job of a man-made biofilter although it is probable in heavily stocked fish ponds that you'll need a man-made filter rather than rely totally upon a planted filter or vegetable filter. The veggie filter is especially useful in removing nitrates (consumed by the veggie filter as fertilizer)
Make your own pond veggie filter
How a pond bio filter works
Pond bio filter principles ... In writing this section I would ask the more technically inclined to bear with me since I am writing to help the average pond-keeper and not the expert pond-keeper. The performance of a pond bio filter no matter what its design is greatly influenced by the principles described below. Yes, it is so important for everyone to understand the principles. Lets have a cup of coffee to start off and use this analogy to make pond bio filters easy to understand. I hope you take sugar with your coffee because this will help you to understand what is important in assessing and improving performance of any pond bio filter.
Turbulence inside pond biofilter is good idea
Bacteria, Alfagrog or Supra ... the secret of effective pond filters
The more bacteria you have in any pond filter the better your pond water quality will be. These bacteria transform toxic chemicals in the pond water secreted by the fish into plant fertilizer suitable for pond plants. For any biofilter to work well you need reasonably good mechanical filtration (solids removal) before the water enters the biological chamber in the biofilter. The better the removal of solids the better the biofilter will work and a large colony of specific bacteria that literally eat the waste products from the fish. The bacteria convert this waste to nitrate chemicals, which act as a kind of fertiliser for plants growing in the pond. The larger the colony of bacteria the more quickly they can destroy waste build-up.
Use Supra or Alfagrog to boost bacteria in any bio-filter
Bacteria grow on the surfaces of biomedia ...
it is important to understand surface area in terms of biomedia choice. You will save lots of money on your biofilter this way. The more bacteria you have in any pond filter the better your pond water quality will be. These bacteria transform toxic chemicals in the pond water secreted by the fish into plant fertilizer suitable for pond plants. Choosing the correct biomedia has a major impact upon your pond filter's performance I get so many queries about biofiltration and since it is so important to any fish pond I am going to bore you (hopefully not) with a bit of basic maths.
You need lots of surface for bacteria to grow on in your bio-filter
How to select a pond biofilter ... the basics
To specify an appropriate biofilter it is important to know the volume of water in a pond to say about 80% accuracy. A filter is specified in terms of what capacity it can handle when the pond is stocked normally which needs some interpretation. Getting the size of the filter correct is important and you should always bear in mind that as fish get bigger they produce more waste and therefore more pond water needs purification. Every time you add a fish to a pond the load on the biofilter increases.
How to select a pond bio filter
Pressurized Pond Filters Best For Medium Fish Ponds
Discover small yet powerful pond filters ... ""Supra"" pond filter biomedia is the secret. The choice of a pond filter biomedia is critical to the health of your fish pond. In the biomedia of a fish pond filter, bacteria colonies work to purify the water. The better the biofilter, the smaller your pond filter needs to be. The first consideration when building a fish pond filter is SSA, or specific surface area. SSA is measured in square feet per gallon of different pond filter biomedia. A high number is best. For example, if an SSA is 1, then an SSA of 8 will hold enough surface area to contain 8 times as many important bacteria inside a pond filter.
Pressurized pond filters great for small to medium sized fish ponds
pond Skimmers Reduce Pond Bio Filter Load
Pond Skimmers ... also called Surface Skimmers. I don't think I have ever discussed pond skimmers. A pond skimmer is designed to remove (skim) floating debris by suction and thus remove some of the potential biological debris polluting the water or making it cloudy. The skimming action is created using a pump which can be attached to what is a fixed or floating device ... for those people with swimming pools the skimmer is almost always in a fixed position and is normally an overflow point. The image below shows a skimmer from cal pump in the USA
Pond skimmers improve the look and cleanliness of any pond
Homemade pond filters
The Nitrogen cycle operates within a pond filters. For maximum performance your pond filter needs oxygen, food source and biomedia on which bacteria can reside. Pond filters come in all shapes and sizes. Choose your pond filter wisely. If you keep fish a pond filter is essential. The simplest of all pond filters is the black box type. Building a pond filter of such a type requires a rectangular or other shaped plastic box which contains some or all of the following. It is easy to make home made pond filters once you have an appreciation of the following:
How to make biological pond filters
How to make biological pond filters is a question often asked. Biological pond filters are easy to construct when you understand the principles of the biological pond filter itself Reason for needing biological pond filters ...... In a lake or natural pond you will find relatively few fish. A natural water system can only cope with a certain fish density in view of limited food sources and biological capacity. In a pond there are almost always too many fish and that is why biological pond filters are absolutely essential.
How big must my pond biofilter be?
A couple of weeks ago I was doing a talk at a large customer's store to interested pond keepers. There was a good sprinkling of koi keepers there also prior to the annual koi auction. Koi are very special fish and koi keepers do tend to take a greater interest in what is actually happening beneath the surface of their ponds more so than the casual gardener. Before the talk got under way I found myself in "discussion" with a koi keeper on biofilters. It wasn't long before a minor confrontation developed around biofilter size.
How Do I Know What Size Filer Box?
Nitrification, bacteria and oxygen and how they all interact in a pond filter ... very important article
Generally speaking a garden pond has too many fish for its own good. In a garden pond fish consume food and excrete waste products. The waste products build up in the water unless they are continuously removed. In simple terms the pond water is also the toilet water. Nitrification processes purify water. The waste products from the fish in their initial form are mainly expressed as ammonia which is poisonous in even small quantities and especially so under certain water conditions high pH which will be discussed later.
Important article ... how a biofilter works
Do you need help with your fish pond filter?
I am happy to help, if I can ... I do understand that many people have difficulty specifying correct equipment and even though I have tried to reduce the burden and unknowns it can still be a bit daunting. Here's a bit of help Bob requested this week along with my response ... I have a Koi pond that I need help. I use a Tagalus sand filter with a 1 HP Dynamo pump that is broken. I was thinking of replacing the Dynamo pump with Whisperflo 3/4 HP. The pond is approximately 240 cubic feet (12 x 8 x 2 feet). I have a waterfall feature that is about 5 ft high. The pump/filter is in the garage and the water must travel at least 35 feet to the pond. This was originally done so that the pond could be enjoyed without the grating noise of the filter/pump. I would be interested to hear any suggestions you might have. For example, separate pump for waterfall, etc etc. Thank you in advance, Bob
You can ask me for help about pond filters
Japanese Matting Biomedia & Vortex Pond Filters
The single biggest reason for the success of well designed vortex or other filters using Japanese matting is that large amounts of air pumped into the vortex biological chambers create highly significant turbulence which allows excellent mass transfer through maximising concentration differences as required for top notch bio filter action. This happens in conjunction with the simultaneous creation of large and open surface area structures on which many bacteria can thrive and grow - perfect pond bio filter conditions. The picture below shows what a well-installed Japanese matting filter system look like in non-vortex system:
Japanese matting and vortex pond filters
Lakes and very large ponds ... aeration and filtration
Oxygenation and biofiltration .... John sent a question worth discussing today especially for those "farmers" amongst us. Here is the question ..... continue reading for my input and access to a great free report ... I am trying to aerate a 2 acre farm pond in a area of 6-8 feet in depth for the purpose of keeping a ice free area for ducks to be protected from predators during winter freezing times. The aerator will also be used in summer to improve my fishing habitat and fish growth. Do you have any info targeted for my needs? How to build, where to buy parts in the US? thanks. John Schultz
Aeration and treatment of lakes and farm ponds
sand filters are bad For koi ponds
Sand filters are bad for ponds but great for swimming pools and can only remotely be justified as solid removers. They perform little if any nitrification - poor surface area contact, low levels of turbulence, dead areas for pathogenic bacteria to accumulate, and low oxygen levels. I strongly believe there is no place for a sand filter in a pond environment. They are also extremely costly to run. The following is an extract from the Aquaculture Dictionary to back up my personal views on sand filters. A far better alternative to sand filter can be found in the bead filter here
DO NOT USE sand filters for any fish pond
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