Daily Maintenance

[GAjen]

Our pond right now is not quite 1000 probably 750 gallons. We have a Beckett pump hooked up to the Fish Mate UV Bio Filter and a Pondmaster 950 hooked up to the skimmer. DH rinses both pump filters daily and the skimmer filter daily. He vacuums the pond every 2 weeks. Now we do have clear water......

How much daily maintenance do you have to do?

We are planning on expanding the pond another 1000 to 1500 gallons and adding a waterfall with a skippy. Will that reduce the daily maintenance?

My problem.......I love my pond but DH is tiring of having to mess with it daily and if enlarging it and adding the right equipment won't help I don't think enlarging is fixing the problem.

Hope this makes sense........

[Indiana Karen]

Daily none, weekly yes.  I rinse my skimmer mats and dump the nets once a week, sometimes twice, but not often.  My water is clear.  I agree, that would be too much maintenance for me.

Karen

[GAjen]

Yep it is getting that way Karen for sure. Thanks for your input.

[Shae]

Jen, I have the 6 of the Black Knight brushes in my skimmer and I only have to clean them right now about twice a week. They do hold a lot of gunk. When I was using filter pads, I had to clean them everyday. The brushes have really helped the daily maintenance problem. The skippy is great for filtration. I have both the floor scrubber pads and the sprinflo media in mine. I'm not having to run the uv anymore and my water is clear except for the fines floating around in it. I was using my submersible enclosed with a mesh bag and quilt batting to clean the fines, but I was having to change out the batting once a day, and that got old real quick. It's been a couple of weeks since I vacuumed the bottom.. Do you think Shep can come up and vacuum mine this weekend? 

[perplexed ponder]

Actually a larger pond SHOULD require less maintenance...think about aquariums. larger is a more stable environment, fluctuations are more gradual because of the volume. O course you may need larger pumps and equipment.

[karen J]

Jen, I have the 6 of the Black Knight brushes in my skimmer and I only have to clean them right now about twice a week. They do hold a lot of gunk. When I was using filter pads, I had to clean them everyday. The brushes have really helped the daily maintenance problem. The skippy is great for filtration. I have both the floor scrubber pads and the sprinflo media in mine. I'm not having to run the uv anymore and my water is clear except for the fines floating around in it. I was using my submersible enclosed with a mesh bag and quilt batting to clean the fines, but I was having to change out the batting once a day, and that got old real quick. It's been a couple of weeks since I vacuumed the bottom.. Do you think Shep can come up and vacuum mine this weekend? 

I also use the Black Knight brushes. I have a few in the skimmer, 5 Rows in a mechanical filter box (after vortex), and a few in the skippy.

Lately, I've been cleaning only the first row in the mech filter. I've found that if I keep that first row relatively clean, the remaining rows may be left alone for much longer.

I need a new valve on my vortex drain- it's a pain right now. And if it's a pain, I wont do it. What's that saying? Hard work pays off in the long run... but lazyness pays off today. That's me. 

[Rocmon]

If your building a new pond? You can utilize many things to reduce maintenance. A bottom drain w/ mechanical filtration is a must. A vortex filter is supposed to be pretty low maintenance—opening closing valves. A microscreen in the vortex is rather popular too. Gravity fed to an external pump. A skimmer and TPR's to help the bottom drain—you could do an aerated BD those are the latest fad. The fish you want will also determine the filtration needed. A pond CAN be low maintenance if done right. Research do lots of research.