Thanx to all that have replied.
I have ordered some more oxygenating plants and some floating plants from
the net. they will be here sometime this week so I can get that veggie
filter started. I do have another question about the bio filter. the filter
I have from lowes has a bag in it that contains charcoal and some other
stuff. it has a pressure gage on the side that tells me when to clean it.
the box it came in said mechanical and bio filter. after reading up on it
bio filters it seems to me that bio filter have mush more in them. do I
have a bio filter and if not what next. Thanx again for helping a new
"ponder" Rick

Bio filters are basically anything that your water cycles through that has
enough surface area for a large population of the bio-organisms to grow on.
They suck up fish waste and convert it from not good ammonia to non-toxic
chemicals (same as plants but they aren't going to filter out particles as
roots will). People have made biofilters out of netted plastic bags filled
with plastic forks. My biofilter is a bucket filled with lava rock that my
waterfall pump sits in. Again there are lots of sites that have 'make your
own' or that describe the principles of the filter. I have probably just
told you what you already know. If it says it is a bio filter then it
probably is. The only question is how much surface area does it have. That
is, is it sufficient for the size pond you have.

"Rick" wrote in message
ink.net...
Thanx to all that have replied.
I have ordered some more oxygenating plants and some floating plants from
the net. they will be here sometime this week so I can get that veggie
filter started. I do have another question about the bio filter. the
filter
I have from lowes has a bag in it that contains charcoal and some other
stuff. it has a pressure gage on the side that tells me when to clean it.
the box it came in said mechanical and bio filter. after reading up on it
bio filters it seems to me that bio filter have much more in them. do I
have a bio filter and if not what next. Thanx again for helping a new
"ponder" Rick