you got the dreaded lava rocks in your filter. dont put in snails. the algae on the
sides of the pond are the best filters in the world. snails are disease
carriers/hosts for fish. not good.

as mentioned, sounds like your upper filter is a veggie filter. put plants in it
bare root and they will clean the water, the roots will make the mulm settle down in
that filter. once a year you turn off the pumps, take a shop vac and simply suck the
mulm out of the upper filter, put the plants back in, top up with treated water and
you are good for another year. you probably wont need the "other" filters as long as
you are in a climate where the plants grow all year.

start removing the lava little by little. bag with shopping backs and put in the
garbage. there is no other use for them. you COULD replace the lava rocks with
bunched up bird netting (unfolded). Ingrid

"chereena" wrote:
My bottom pond is 2000 gallons and the top pond is a few hundred. The
water goes through both, but the pumps and two filters are in the
bottom one. The big barrel with the filters is outside. I bought
algae-eating snails to help with the algae. The filters are some kind
of poly fiber that looks like a loofa sponge and they weigh a ton when
they are full of water.
The water is clear and I am feeding the fish in the morning, just a
spring food that is very light.
It's a liner pond with a rubber liner.
Don't you have to clean all the water out to shop vac?


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