there are three things essential when having fish.
aeration ... Kmart used to have a double outlet air pump (about $10)
pump for moving the water to be filtered into a filter (around $50). the pump does
not have to big or move a lot of water or create nice waterfalls.
a filter, and the absolute cheapest and easiest is a veggie filter. Jo Ann's filter
is a kiddie pool, end of the season, 1-2 bucks. I sent her the water celery.
http://weloveteaching.com/mypond/VF/joannsfilter.html
it is nothing fancy. If you can build with wood, then you can make a filter sits in,
on or outside your pond. just line it to make it water tight. Ingrid


On Tue, 6 May 2008 13:59:34 EDT, wrote:
When I bought my new house the owners left a pond with ten goldfish(?)
in it and it has gradually become dirty and full of algae. It never
had an electric filter system and I can't afford one, so is there a
way I can manually clean the water?

I'm thinking perhaps I could scoop out bucketfuls of water and filter
it through something like cotton wool, layers of muslin or sand (or
all three?). Can anyone offer any advice please?