I would be grateful for any assistance. How To Build An Indoor Fish Pond – A DIY Guide, Tractor Tire Pond – How To Build, Decorate & Maintain. I dont plan on keeping fish but would like to make it less deep. The debris stays in this basket instead of clumping up the drain. In ponds without fish, a small amount of sludge is actually beneficial, as it provides bacteria it’s energy resource, plants their nutrients, and wildlife, such as newts, a place to hide! Sounds like a very interesting project! Bay 2: Blue matting – This is an excellent filter media as it has a large surface area giving it an excellent bio-mass retention. 5) Could I ask what type of filter (brand/model/capacity) you have? Well, using this may well be referred to as cheating. One small barley straw bundle lasts all summer. This means it removes waste by having the pump move water through a rigid basket and a filter pad. Adding beneficial bacteria in the pond works the same way. Pond water that's turned green in color can make your pond look very unattractive. For sites without access to electricity it’s often better to not include fish and instead opt for a wildlife pond, which will still look great by attracting frogs, newts, and a range of insects! THANK YOU! How To Install A Bottom Filter In Your Pond? If you use tap water for pond, make sure you dechlorinate it before adding into the pond as it may contain a considerable amount of chlorine which is deadly for the fish. De-icers just float around the surface and create air holes in the ice, allowing gas exchange to take place even if the rest of the pond is frozen. A proper balance between fish and aquatic plants will help keep pond water clear. But, keeping the pond water clear and free from blue green algae growth is a major problem. If just a small portion of your pond has algae and it’s been there for quite some time without harming your fish, it’s likely safe to simply leave it. Bacteria will require a bit of waste to stay alive (it’s what they use for nutrients), so making a pond completely sterile is bad for biological filtration. Beneficial bacteria which are at the heart of a ponds biological filtration system require large amounts of oxygen to function efficiently. More articles on these topics below if you’d like to read further: https://pondinformer.com/best-pond-vacuum-cleaner/ https://pondinformer.com/best-pond-water-test-kit/ https://pondinformer.com/how-to-clean-pond-filter-media/ https://pondinformer.com/wildlife-pond-maintenance-guide/ https://www.oase-livingwater.com/en_GB/water-garden/products/p/skimmer-250.1000080317.html. Even without a filter in the pond you can still boost the efficiency of your beneficial bacteria by providing plenty of oxygen, aeration, and keeping on top of waste levels. Do keep me updated on the pond situation if anything happens in future! When the biological load is high, it becomes hard to maintain the balance without a well-functioning filtration unit. As you’ll have a natural rainwater and run-off system in place, and since you only intend to stock goldfish, I’d say this set-up would be pretty feasible if you can also keep up with general maintenance. Given that I’ve cleaned it thoroughly with tap water for a couple of months now should I introduce some bacteria (into pond or into filter)? Just like a filter box which has a higher amount of beneficial bacteria, a bog filter works the same as regular plants, although the higher concentration of plants and optimized water flow makes for better overall filtration. You can do that by making sure your water has plenty of beneficial bacteria. Thanks for any input! If you have a small amount of fish in your filterless pond, you’ll need to clean out more sludge more regularly if you want to keep water quality good. An aerator does not need to stretch the whole system, as the dissolved oxygen will spread naturally and a smaller one should still be strong enough (assuming pond depth matches aerator spec!) I don’t know the volume of the hot tub, but it looks like it seats eight people. Water quality – I’ve assumed it’s fine as the pond is very well established (a few rudd die every year but they breed there so some may die of old age); I have just ordered the NT Labs Multiple kit and will post the results over this coming weekend and will be hugely grateful for your reaction and view on whether I can turn the filter Off October-April, and if & when I need to add bacteria. If so do I leave it empty, or with water in it – if so ‘fresh’ water from pond just after cleaning it, or water that’s been running through for a while that’ll leave some gunk in the filter? I recommend aqua shade aqua blue pond dye and weed control for your pond. So give it some time. 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