"RWITTY" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I'm a 5-year veteran ponder, and a regular fan of this cool newsgroup.
In
the middle of winter, the PVC liner that came with my Beckett pond (4 x 6
x
18 ", 270 gal) kit ruptured, leaving 12 assorted Koi/goldies lying in 1
inch
of ice and water. I raided our emergency water supply and transported
them
in a Rubbermaid container to a water garden center that agreed to take
them
off my hands, and all the fish survived. With spring here, I am now ready
to
buy a rubber liner and stock the pond with only 2 Koi and about 4 goldies,
and some plants........

In previous years, I seemed to spend more summer hours cleaning my pond
than
sitting in front of it with a frosty Margherita; hence, I want to upgrade
from the submerged filter to a small, external filter that would be easier
to clean. I am prepared to change out my current little 210 gph, 25 watt
pump to a stronger one (maybe 300-500 gph, 35/45 watt), to get the job
done
right. The water garden center wants to sell me a 1200 gph pump ($160)
and a BF-1000 UV waterfall filterbox ($99) plus tubing, etc. They say
that
the filter would only have to be changed ONCE OR TWICE a year, and could
be
camouflaged in some plants beside the pond. I'm would appreciate any
shared
comments and/or recommendations about making the upgrade to a simple,
efficient arrangement.............

Thanks...........

I gave up on using the typical 'filter' some years ago. I basically have a
5 gallon black bucking in my pond that contains a waterfall pump that is
surrounded with lava rock. The water from this pump goes into a small upper
pond that then overflows back down into the lower pond. Doing two ponds
like this is just as easy as doing one. The top pond does not have any
large fish and hold water hyacinths which act as a filter (Veggie filter
good!). The lava rock acts as a bio-filter. When I remember, I take the 5
gallon bucket out about once a year and rinse off the rock with water from
the pond.

One of the benefits of having your pump in a bucket is that if there is an
accident (raccoons pulling your tubing out of the upper pond and flooding
the yard with water from the lower pond), the lowest the water in the pond
with the pump can go is the height of the bucket.

You can also use this method without the upper pond per se but with
something like a planter or an oak barrel liner that you put plants in. It
just has to be able to flow back into the pond with the pump (you could for
example put this on blocks in the middle of the pond). You could use a
beautiful ceramic planter with the tubing coming in from the bottom hole...
So many possibilities - so little time, space, etc.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePh...Uy=7j38g7&Ux=1