WHEN TO FILTER

Like the rest of the animal world, fish produce waste. Unless we remove it, our fish end up living in their own waste and sooner or later they will be poisoned and die. Yes, we can change a bit of water once a week and dilute the waste but that's only a temporary, and not very satisfactory solution to the problem. As fish eat they grow and as they grow the quantity of waste increases until it is almost impossible to sustain fish life in the pond unless we remove it.

If you are going to keep fish - even on a small scale - then you are well advised to filter your pond properly. There are a number of very reasonably priced and pumps and filters, available throughout this website, that will suit your pond and make pond keeping a pleasure rather than a stressful chore.

HOW TO FILTER

There is a variety of ways by which we can filter our pond. Without exception, they all depend to some degree on what is called mechanical filtration. This means that the solid waste is collected by the filter medium - foam, flowcore or whatever media is inside the filter. As the waste collects over the next few weeks, a colony of bacteria will grow and gradually this 'good' bacteria will take it upon itself to neutralise the toxic waste produced by the fish.

To achieve effective biological filtration, the pond water should be circulated once every hour. Now, as long as we keep this 'good' bacteria supplied with water from the pond at this rate for 24 hours a day, the pond water will stay healthy.

Of course, from time to time, the quantity of fish waste in the filter becomes excessive and we need clean the media. This is a simple job and the instructions on how to go about this will have been included in your filter packaging.

(Pease not that if we use Ultra Violet filtration, we should only circulate the water once every two hours to allow plenty of time for the light to act upon the algae).