New Filter = Murky Water

[Julles]

My 1000 gallon pond is decades old and I usually have pretty clear water.  I have been using a Tetra pressurized bio filter which I disassembled every week and hosed off the filter media.  There was always a lot of muck on the bottom, with the bio balls.  It kept my pond clean.

I just switched to a Pondmaster Clear Guard pressurized bio filter with backflush and UV light.  It's been running about three weeks.  My water is what you could describe as murky.  At first I thought it was suspended matter in the water, so I did two 60% water changes, and climbed in there to get muck off the bottom.  Also I have added filter pads, and after a week they are staying pretty clean, so I think I have gotten most all the sediment out of the water.

Interestingly, when I backflush the filter every Sunday, the water coming out is pretty clear - virtually no sediment at all.

I add bacteria and starter stuff, plus a flocculant every Sunday (ZIP, Clarity Max (barley) and something else).

Still, the water is murky.  You can see the fish when they are at the top, but when they get 6" down, they look fuzzy, and when they are 2' down, you can only see blobs of color. 

One more thing ... the pond is divided, with goldfish and lilies on one end, and koi on the other, with a plastic mesh fence dividing the two sides.  The goldfish side is clear, but the koi side is the murky side.  The waterfall is pretty fast and hard, and it's on the koi side, and I thought it might be disturbing sediment, or maybe the koi are messing with something.  But, like I said, I think I have gotten most of the suspended matter out of the water.  So I don't understand why the water is not clear.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[Julles]

It's not algae.  It's not green.  Just murky.

New pond syndrome? 

[Julles]

This is what the water looks like.  http://homeguides.sfgate.com/koi-ponds-annual-cleaning-53993.html

[Bob_A]

Are there any plants in the koi side that they could be digging in?

[Julles]

No plants in the koi side.  I have already learned that lesson the hard way!   

[Julles]

I have pretty much decided that they somehow got into some plants and dug into the mud, and the mud it too fine to filter out.  I am going to have to pull fish out into tubs, drain the whole pond,  scrub the sides, get all muck off the bottom, and refill it.  Arrgggh. 

[Julles]

My pond is divided, with koi on one end and lilies and goldfish on the other, separated by a plastic 1/2" mesh.  I drained th entire pond.  It turns out that a lily pot had tumped over, or somehow soil had gotten out of it.  There was literally 2" of muck on the bottom of the pond.  And, oh yes, a 4" koi who had gotten across the barrier, and was spending his days digging in the dirt.  That is what made the water so cloudy.   I drained the entire pond, put the koi in Rubbermaid tubs, used a pancake flipper to scrape every bit of that mud off the bottom, removed other debris from the bottom, refilled, and now the water is pretty darned clear.

[Bob_A]

Glad that you got that cleared up.