A Quick Guide To Garden Pond Filters

The first question you should be asking: Does my pond need a garden pond filter? When building a pond containing only plants, filtration isn't a necessity. It is important though, to have some sort of motion system, like a fountain, within the pond to prevent water from stagnating and smelling bad. Also when there is no filter to keep the water clean, it will become murky and you won't be able to see through to the bottom. Below, we're going to look into garden pond filters and tell you more about them.

When you are looking into adding fish into your garden pond it is necessary to have a garden pond filter. It is however possible to create an entire natural pond with no filters, but will need a lot of plants and only a small amount of fish. Fish release waste into water which can become toxic when not filtrated. With more fish in the water, the oxygen levels will become depleted if not supplemented though the use of a pump.

There are two filter types, the mechanical filter that takes solids, like plant debris and algae from water and then the biological filters to remove toxins. Biological pond filters are the ones you'll be looking at when wanting fish. Most biological filtration systems include mechanical filtration. When there are a lot of solids in water, it will be sucked into the pump and the pump will start working at a slower rate.

This means you need to clean the mechanical filter. Simply put off the power, remove the pump from the water, open it up and remove the dirty filter, either cleaning or replacing it.

When installing a pump into your pond, make sure you submerge it completely. Remember that the water levels will decrease as the water evaporates. Fill the water back into the pond to ensure the pump doesn't suck air. Submersible pumps are safe, easy to clean and run off household electricity.

A biological filter makes use of bacteria to break down toxins within the water, turning it back into nitrite which can be used by the fish and the plants. When cleaning your biological filter system, be sure to not wash the material under tap water since the chlorine will kill the bacteria. Also, don't clean all the material at once.

This will prevent a drastic disturbance of the bacterial breeding. The longer you have a biological filter active in your pond, the more mature the bacteria will become and thus the more efficient your filter will be. This also means that a new filter won't immediately be active when installed, but can take up to six weeks for it to start working optimally.

Garden pond filters should run twenty four hours a day, unless you are living in a place with severely cold winters. When water reaches temperatures below fifty degrees Fahrenheit the bacteria will stop functioning. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since the fish's metabolisms will also slow down resulting in less waste and oxygen usage.