"Madison Lapierre" wrote in message
...

snip. . . . .
We've used it for two years and it seemed to work satisfactorily. We
have a few inches of black sludge on the bottom of the filter and are
told that there should be only sand and not sludge. Any ideas on this?
Is sludge OK or is it a sign of poor filtration?

What do you think? Continue using tulle or try something else readily
available. We spent about $60 CAN on huge bundle of tulle fabric for
our 200 gallon stock tank.


Hi there. Where abouts in Canada are you? I have relatives in the suburbs
around Montreal . . .

Also, with a 200 gal stock tank how big is your pond? It must be huge.
Any pictures to see on a website??

I too made the Skippy bio-filter. I love it. I even let the water freeze
in it in the wintertime so I don't have to figure out what to do with the
iris that lives on top of it. I have the 70 gallon that I use with my 3,000
gal +/- pond. Because the Skippy filter is an up-flow filter the sludge is
supposed to settle on the bottom. When I clean the filter (usually 2 to 3
times a year depending on fish load and how much I overfeed) I rinse the
filter media and then suck up the sludge off the bottom of the stock tank
with the shop vac and pour it around the garden. The plants love it. Then
I re-seed the bio media with bzt becuz I clean the media (screen and floor
scrubber pads) pretty good and assume there's not too much left in it.

As far as the Tulle, I would say if it holds up then use it but my thoughts
are that it may rot within a year or two and window screening bought on a
roll may be more economical long term. . . I used the fiberglass screening
not too expensive at Home Depot down here. It looks like new when I rinse
it out. Good luck and let us know how it works out for you

Things are growing already around here. I'm excited the season is finally
getting underway. . .

Peggy