Hi Jim,

I had forgotten that your piping goes directly from the sump into the
veggie filters. IMHO, a vortex settlement, or even a static
settlement tank, with bottom a bottom drain, between the sump and the
veggie filters would help this problem immensely. Further, for me
anyway, I am designing in mechanical filtration (brushes, matala,
etc.), and then bio-conversion (fluidized kaldness), between the
vortex and the veggie filter/stream. JMO, FWIW, YMMV....

David

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 07:22:57 -0500, Phyllis and Jim Hurley
wrote:

Greg,

Your comment plants a seed of insight for me. We have about 10 koi,
full grown and half a dozen goldfish. The main pond is 2900 gal and the
berm ponds another 1000. There is a significant amount of muck that
gets caught in the berm veggie filters. If they did not get it, the
pond would. It simply does not 'go away', tho it is easy to drain out
by opening the 2" bottom drains.

I wonder if successful 'rocking' depends on the filtering out of waste.

We have an open cement bottom in the main pond. The koi constantly stir
the muck and it goes down the drain and up into the veggie filters.
Only pine needles build up in the main pond...and they generally find
their way down to the drain area (an old septic tank with the pump 4"
off the bottom).

Jim