I purchased an OASE filtoclear 3000 (pondliner.com) for my 1800 gallon
koi pond. I left the UV light in the filter off initially to let the
starter bacteria get established. I'm using a Sequence 750 pump
(AZPonds.com) with a skimmer & leaf trap prefilter. The leaf trap has
already saved one of my baby koi when he investigated where the the
bottom drain led to. I figure with the line losses and waterfall I'm
pushing between 1500 to 2000 gallons an hour though the filter.

When the water starting turning green after about 2 or 3 weeks I
plugged the filter in which activate the 9 watt UV. Within 3 to 4
days the green water was gone and the water has been pretty clear ever
since. The pond is just under 4 feet deep and I can clearly see the
bottom.

Cleaning the filtoclear is about as easy as it gets. Just turn the
knob to backflush and crank on the handle. I backflush for about a
minute and that's it. I spent 2 years cleaning 'in pond' filters and I
had enough. I bought for pretty much one reason - clean the flter
without getting my hands full of you know what.

The quality of the Filtoclear is excellent, it's some kind of tough
plastic fairly thick. The mechanisms were stiff at first but once
it's in operation everything turn and pulls smoothly. There are two
types of filter media one more coarser that the other. Oase says this
is to foster the growth of different bacteria.

The filter comes with stepped adapters for hoses up to 1-1/2 inch
diameter. To increase my flow rate I chose not to go with the
provided adapters. Instead I threaded 1-1/2 inch PVC plumbing
(couplers) directly to the filter. It worked out pretty well.

I highly recommend it.




"question" wrote in message ...
Hi
I'm looking to replace my Hozelock pressurized filter with either an Oase or
Fishmate model. Does anyone have any useful feedback about these filters.
The single BIG advantage as far as I can see is that the spnges can be
flushed through in situ, so no more struggling to dismantle and reassemble
the filter!

Any comments would be appreciated!
Thanks.