I built my first pond over the last couple of weekends and overall it turned
out pretty well. Ascetically at least. Although I regret buying the kit
(Becket), as the liner is rather thin and the filter sucks. :-) The pond is
roughly 300 gallons (6'*8*30") with a waterfall, fountain and four gold
fish. The plants are just starting to grow. External biofilter to be added
later.


I was looking at the commercial pre-filters in Home Despot and they wanted
close to $300 CDN for a plastic bucket and some filter material. I found the
identical bucket at Walmart for $4, now I just need the filter media. I've
read quite a few posts about filter material and the buffer pads look
promising, but shipping to Canada could be expensive. So another trip to
Home Despot got me some "TrueBlue" washable budget filter material for
another $4. But I'm concerned that this might be harmful to the fish if it's
fiberglass. The "TrueBlue" company does sell fiberglass filters, but this
does not appear to be one of them. The material looks like a pot scrubber
sheet about 1" thick. Just wondering if anyone else has tried this material
or knows it's composition? Any thoughts on alternative filter media that
could be purchased locally or from Canadian web sites would also be
appreciated.

Another question I have is about the fountain. It is constantly getting
clogged by material from the plants. This problem should be eliminated by
the new filter, although the fountain head has very small openings (3 tier).
A spitter would be lower maintenance, but I'm wondering if it would
significantly reduce the aeration of the water? I also wondered if the noise
of the fountain stressed the fish at all?

"Bill Stock" wrote:

or knows it's composition? Any thoughts on alternative filter media that
could be purchased locally or from Canadian web sites would also be
appreciated.

Floor scrubber pads are available from janitorial supply places, surely
you must have one near you?

Any area with office buildings should have a couple in the Yellow Pages
(or whatever it is up north).