Pond Maintenance Filter Setup

Picking your filter is very important if you want to have a successful pond with hardly any pond maintenance. If you do not use the best filtration setup, more than likely you will be constantly doing pond maintenance. Your water will be filthy, green and most likely full of string algae.

What is the key to minimal pond maintenance? There are some thing you can do to ensure you won’t be doing pond maintenance all the time. We want to keep maintenance to once every couple weeks. It depends on the size of your pond and the quantity of koi. The more koi in your pond, the more the filter has to work, and the more pond maintenance you’ll have to do if your filter can’t handle it.

When selectin your filtration, you should have a mechanical filter, a bio-filter, and a UV filter. For mechanical you should use a skimmer to remove debris from the top of the water, and you should also consider a bottom drain if you haven’t installed your pond yet. This will definitely reduce the amount of pond maintenance you do, especially in the spring.

The most important part of your filter is the bio filter. It contains beneficial bacteria which do your pond maintenance for you! Bacteria grow on all surfaces but its important to make sure your filter has a lot of surface area. You can use anything that has a lot of surface area including straws and sponges.

If you do not setup your filter correctly, the worst part of your pond maintenance will be removing string algae. This is a direct result of your bio filter being insufficient. If it’s the beginning of the year, it could also be because its not developed yet and the bacteria need some time, usually 4-6 weeks. You should add some bacteria in the beginning of the spring to start your biological filter early and avoid having to do so much pond maintenance.

UV is another important part of filtration. It is simply a UV light inside a filter that kills algae and gets rid of green water. It is only about $100 and will save you the cost of buying algae killing products every couple weeks.

These are the key factors you need to consider when building your pond. Remember the goal is to have a pond to look at, not to do pond maintenance all the time! Get the right materials and save the headache.