Tinkerbelle's Tips
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Tinkerbelle Hughes |
5 Common Mistakes
Pond Owners Make With Their Filter
A filter is an essential part of a healthy water garden.
They remove impurities and nutrients from your water, helping to preserve aquatic life and enhance your pond environment. If your filter is not working correctly you might be making one of the common mistakes below.
1. Cleaning your filter media too often.
It is common for filters to have two types of filters, filter pads and filter media.
Filter Pads are a mechanical filter that takes out of your water fine particles and dead algae. Typically you clean these every one to two weeks.
Bio Media (of some form) are a type of filter media that has a large surface area for bacteria to colonize on. Water containing impurities come in contact with these beneficial bacteria. The beneficial bacteria consume the impurities and discharges relatively harmless by-products. These are then absorbed by plants. Only clean your bio media once a year in either early spring or late fall. Cleaning more often will destroy your colony of beneficial bacteria.
2. Cleaning your filter pads with water that is chlorinated.
Chlorine will kill off your colony of beneficial bacteria. We recommend that you use pond water to clean your filter pads.
3. The pump is not sized correctly for your filter.
If the water is pumped through your filter too fast it can be ineffective. The directions that came with your filter should tell the recommended gallons per hour that should go through your filter.
4. Shutting the pump and filter off at night.
The beneficial bacteria in your filter need a constant flow of water and oxygen. If you are shutting off your pump and filter at night you are killing the bacteria and therefore making your filter ineffective.
5. Too heavy of a fish load for the size of your pond.
Filters help create a healthy environment for your fish they do not make it possible to have an unlimited amount of fish in a pond. Keep your fish numbers down and your filtration up. The recomended stocking amounts for fish are; for goldfish one 7" for every 100 gallons, for koi it is one half inch of fish per square foot of water surface.
Remember filters work best when used with a complete ecosystem that consists of, a pond with all categories of pond plants, the correct mumber of fish, and aeration such as a waterfall or creek.
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