MAINTENANCE FREE POND FILTER SYSTEM

 Rock and gravel is a very old type of filtration media 

Rock and gravel were used for a long time but have  

lost favor with many Pond owners. One of the reasons

for that fall off Is that the surface area per cubic foot Is
Not Very High Or so people think isn’t very high, Yes rock 

is a solid material that takes up a lot of space, But that is

also a natural material that is formed on a very fine structure.

That is in rotated on a microscopic level, The surface 

would have a fairly High microscopic surface area Which is

never talked about when it comes to talking about gravel 

surface areas. A filter using rock or gravel will require a

larger footprint to handle the same size pond as some of 

today's newer media, rather it's smaller, the filter the more 

frequently it requires maintenance

Rocks on the bottom: When we talked about putting rock and stone on 

the bottom of the Pod with meet at least or up a passionate feeling in 

some people there is a lot of debate about whether a pawn should 

have stone in on the bottom and argument boils down to the buildup 

of debris in the gravel... To speak to this issue let me tell you about 

a pond that I am very familiar with a pond I built  22 years ago this pond 

is 6 feet deep and has about six inches of gravel on the bottom that 

has never been cleaned. I know what you're thinking, there must be a 

lot of buildup in the gravel, But I went and visited the pawn last year 

and I took a trip to the bottom of the pond and dug into the gravel and 

there was no debris to be found…The secret is an undergravel suction 

grid system if done correctly it performs excellently with 

very little maintenance.

All the gravel suction on a small scale What is a under gravel suction 

grid filter? It's the same thing as a under gravel filter for an aquarium, but

on a smaller scale, The only difference is these have plates to fit in a 

tank, The plates you have in your tank has gravel over top of them so

The water is sucked through the plates & picked up by the pump & it’s 

Been filtered through the rocks/ gravel and back into the tank and so on.

The problem with this filter system is you have to keep it maintained

Because of the small surface area of the tank that it is filtering & that 

Means You have to get under the filter plates to get the junk out of 

It & to gravel vac the substrate every so often to keep it free of junk

Pond versus Aquarium if we want this type of filter to work in a pond 

we have to look at why it has problems in an aquarium. Let's dig in B-low

The real difference between the under gravel Grid in a pond versus 

in an aquarium is the space in the grid, In the aquarium the space 

between the Pieces of gravel  and in the slots and the suction plate 

is very small compared to the waste  produced. In order for the 

system to allow water to flow through and not clog up, the waist  

has to be almost completely eaten by bacteria. This process 

takes longer than it takes for the gravel to clog up therefore the 

filtration simply cannot keep up with the waste the filter clogs up 

and fails. To solve this problem I designed the under gravel filter 

to have a series of pipe on the bottom with 3/8 inch diameter 

holes drilled in the pipe, the pipes were buried in 1 inch round 

gravel with about 2 in above the pipe, the spacing between the 

Pieces of gravel is fairly large and the holes in the piping are 

large, compared to the Waste to be broken down. all the holes 

in the suction pipe are 6 in apart, providing the waist is a lot of 

area to fill DEPENDING ON the Size of your pond & amount 

of fish, I have a pretty decent size filter system for my pond.

In the photo below This is a type of 

Under gravel Filter system I made for 

my pond And it works amazingly well.

Will this filter ever clog and need Cleaning? The answer

is yes, but The better question is how long will it take

before it needs cleaning? There is no set answer it all

depends on how much debris or waste is being put

into the pond or being made by the pond.

Is the pond maintenance-free? no, it is not

completely maintenance-free but it is close, it's

about 18000 gallons and requires an average of 

3 minutes of Maintenance a week none of the

maintenance is spent on the Under Gravel suction

grid filter, the pond has never been Emptied or

cleaned since it was built 25 years ago. My only

mistake was I used Limestone & it is shrinking

slowly & has to be replaced with River Rock it

has to be LAYERED with different size rocks & gravel for it to work.

1st layer > 2 inch rocks >2nd layer 1 inch rocks & last 1/2 inch rocks

each layer 2 inches deep = 6 inches this fills in part of the gaps each

layer has & still filters the pond, just with PVC PIPES with holes & rock

layered OVER THE PVC PIPES.

This Way the rocks will not shrink - dissolve & last a lot longer

Sometimes you stumble on the right combination of ideas and designs 

and things work far better than expected, And sometimes they don't.

I have found that the deeper the filter is, the better the system works

& it's great for long term aquatic plant's in a bog type filter IF the

bedding of gravel is DEEP ENOUGH so the plants don't clog the filter.

UNLESS you put the plants in a big enough container to grow in with

holes where water can get to the plants to help with the filtration it's

ALL IN THE design that FITS YOUR NEEDS & POND to make it work. Build a Pond in a Raised Garden Bed >pt 1

Build a Pond in a Raised Garden Bed pt 2< This is something I think is a

great little setup for a beginners pond or a deck pond or even a front

yard pond to admire with a cup of jo-coffee, 1st thing in the morning.

I'd also have 1 on the back deck for some evening time just before

I head to bed to ease my mind from the day to start a new day in

the morning.

Best Floating Aquarium Plants < This is a interesting article to read on

floating plant's if you decide to have them in a pond or aquarium, I like

hornwort & water wisteria & Rotala indica plant's works best for me so far.