One of the most important things about a filter is how easy it is to clean. For a small pond, I love a skippy filter. Install a clean-out drain in the bottom and keep the gunk flushed out of the bottom for a much more effective system. Gravel beds are nearly impossible to clean. If you want to add some plants in the top of the skippy, get those mesh pots and use them. Just set them in the top of the skippy, on top of the scrubbies.

Hi Jill, I have 2 'hybrid' skippy-type filters. One a 1/2 whiskey barrel and the other a 60ga rubbermaid tank. Both have about 10" of scrubbies, then river rock on top. Put the scrubbies in a nylon mesh laundry bag to keep them in place and put the rocks on top. Then I have both bare root plants and ones that are potted on top. Stuff like Parrot Feather, water cress and water hyacinth are great on top (no pots), others like iris and varigated sweet flag I try to keep potted (with lots of holes) because I need to move them to overwinter and they tend to get aggressive root systems. Mesh pots as ccoombs1 suggested would work great, I haven't tried them.
S

I have a separate bog area at the edge of my pond as well as a 70 gal Skippy working. I've planted impatiens in the top of the Skippy and they've done well. I've also put water hyacinths in the top of the Skippy and they've done well. You can probably put any plant that you would grow in there and have no problem. The main thing is to create a support for the plant. For that reason I probably wouldn't try to grow tall plants (i.e., canna's, taro, etc.) in the Skippy since they need to have their roots anchored in something substantial. Think of it a hydroponic growing. But having a lot of gravel in your Skippy to later have to move out to clean...that's a lot of work. It took me 15 minutes to completely clean the Skippy filter this spring. The other biofilter I have (on the water fall) has pads supporting gravel in bags (easier to move out). It has to be cleaned once a month, it's heavy, messy and no where near as easy to maintain as the Skippy. While the roots of your plants will absorb nutrients it is the bacteria on those roots, on the media and elsewhere that are doing the heavy-duty work of converting ammonia, degrading organics, etc. Using gravel provides no extra benefit other than helping to anchor the roots of your tall plants.
---David

Hmm, you all are talking me out of adding a veggie (bog) filter, too! I mostly wanted it as a functional place to grow some marginals without taking away space from my lilies. If mesh pots will work on the skippy, I'm going to try that.

Jill the skippy is easy and cheap to build which is why I have one, but no bog filter yet. I've also worried about draining a bog filter in the winter or making it weather-proof. Bigger job, bigger investment. If I were you (and I practically am!), I would start with the skippy and only add the bog if you really want it. That's where I am, anyway.

Vanessa

Hi Jill, I'll add my 2cents, I have a skippy type filter made from a large waterfall tub. I put in a bottom drain per advice from this forum. It has scrubbies for filter media with a plastic grate on top. I then just put bare-rooted plants in the top. They do well there. Last year I had WH, Impatients. water celery & parrots feather. So far this year I have the same plants & they are growing good. The roots grow down into the scrubbies a little but are easily removed if they get too large. Hope this helps.
Regards
Dianne

THANK YOU everyone for your replies. I needed to hear what others are doing so I can figure out what I should do!

Sheepco, don't the river rocks on top of the scrubbies slide off and down the sides of the container to the bottom? What size rocks are you talking about; the "river pebble" I get at HD are in the 1 1/5" - 2" range, but I have some smooth river rocks I picked up somewhere that are more like 6" and flat. Also, I would have to find some way to contain all of the scrubbies (the filter is 4' diameter so a mesh laundry bag won't work this time!)

Ccoombs1, I did not even think about the mesh pots-and I just saw some at the aquarium store last night! If I got one larger than I needed and filled it with gravel, maybe I could even put the taller plants in the skippy (I'm thinking of my papyrus in particular).

Dianne, do your plants root in the scrubbies enough to keep them from floating around (except, obviously, for the WH and other "floaters")? Having just spread my rooted watercress around the pond, I can totally see it rooting in the scrubbies! :)

All of your replies have been very helpful. This calls for another trip to Home Depot! They don't even ask if I need help anymore; they recognize me as "the one who wanders around mumbling to herself", as I am always using things for something other than their intended purpose; they're probably scared to ask me what I'm looking for, bc it's usually a vague idea instead of an item.

BwaaHaHaHa - keeps them on their toes!

Jill

I have a 150 gallon stocktank skippy and a 8ft. 600 gallon bog filter. Was trying to figure out which one I would choose if I had to give up one of them. And I can't do it. I like them both. Glenda

I hope I'm not too late. I have a huge gravel bog but I made it with a drain in the bottom. Now, all I have to do is pull up the plants and rake the rocks from the top while I run a water hose down through it to flush it out.

Hi Jill, My scrubbies are not in a mesh bag, I just put a plastic grate on the bottom about 3" up and one on the top. They stay contained between the two pieces of grating. Yes my plants send their roots down a few inches into the scrubbies to anchor themselves. When I get home tonight I'll try to post a pict of my filter. I'm at work right now, shhh don't tell my boss. LOL
Dianne

This thread is really helping me as I have been having similar thoughts to Jill's. So far my idea is to have a skippy filter and a stream with a bog area off to one side.

Someone in the past couple of weeks posted instructions on makingyour own garden fabric pots (as opposed to the mesh bags.)

Anne

Hi Jill,

I put in my 60 ga filter cause I wanted more plants. It's a ~2' x 3' x 18" deep stock tank with 4 or 5 bricks on the bottom, then a plastic overhead light grate cut to fit, with a mesh bag of scrubbies spead on top, then 1"-2" rocks on top. Or another grate would work. Water is pumped from the pond into the bottom of it via a hose with a shut off valve in it, and spills out the top thru a hole in the side with an outlet pipe and down a streamlet back to the pond. Keeps my 300ga pond crystal clear, but I have a light fish load and lots of plants.

I grew water cress, WH, Parrot Feather, Mexican bluebells, and dwarf papyrus in it. Also Sweet flag and 1 iris. My impatiens were so-so.

{{gwi:179934}}
This photo is from last summer and the tank and plastic streamlet were not yet camoflaged with rocks/plants. The 60 ga is on the right, and I have a 1/2 whiskey barrel filter on the 2nd pond, to the rear.

I must admit that I never clean my skippys. Many will disagree with that practice. I live in zone 4 so the filters get shut down for the winter. After running all summer, last fall I stopped the pump, unscrewed the drain plug in the tank, pulled the plants out and flushed and flushed the rocks and scrubbies, letting the water run out. No massive black gunk, etc. Again, I have a light fish load, results may vary! I let it drain and left the plug out for the winter. The whiskey barrel got drained and tipped on its side, rinsed off the scrubbies in their bag and stored them in the garage for the winter. This spring I filled them up and away they go. It will take awhile for it to be warm enough to grow bacteria again.

Just my experience, obviously won't work for everyone. Sarah

Sarah.........a couple questions.
You have a tube that goes from your pond pump to the filter/stocktank. Is that the tubing I see at the top of the stocktank? What size pump do you use? What size tubing? What keeps the tubing in the filter/stocktank? Where is your shutoff valve? Is that so that when you turn off the pump, all the water doesn't flow backwards? Did you turn that thing over in winter? Did it fill with ice/water and freeze at all?
That front tank is a 300 gallon, right?
Do you ever have to pull your pump up and clean it? Does your pump have any filter on it? Thanks!!

Hi Cath,
Yes, the black hose (1 1/4", maybe 1 1/2"?) you see going into the top of the stock tank comes from the submerged pump in the pond. I think is a 1260gph pump, plenty big, but I moved the 630gph - or whatever it was - to the smaller pond, and ya never know when an expansion might be in order! The shut off is a gate valve (about 1/2 open) in the hose behind where the little terrra cotta angel is on the deck, 'bout 1/2 way between pump and end of hose in the filter. And yes, I close it if I have to shut down the pump so all the water doesn't run back into the pond. The hose stays in the bottom of the tank because it runs thru a notch in the plastic grate and then coils once around the bottom of the tank (in an effort to create a swirl effect).

No, that puppy is too heavy to tip over, I just unscrewed the plug and left it out for the winter. Left the scrubbies and rocks in it. It had snow in it all winter, but no solid ice cause the water was drained out.

Yes, the front pond is my 300ga rubbermaid. I pull the pump to clean it's prefilter - I use quilt batting 1st thing in the spring, and then when I get my spring algae bloom - replace that about 1 -2 times per week for a week or 2 each. Just take a piece, wrap it around the intake end of the pump and hold it in place with a big rubber band. Easy to change. During the summer I just pull it up and hose off it's plastic grate about once a month. I pulled off it's foam sponge thingie.

Sarah

Sarah, your pond is beautiful! I cannot wait for things to really get going around here. My "filter" right now is a 5 gallon bucket filled with mesh kitchen scrubbies w/ the pump hose going to the bottom so the water rises up & overflows. It ain't pretty, but when we had that really warm spell a couple of weeks ago, the bacteria kicked in and the pond cleared in 3 days.(Sadly, I had to drain & refill for other reasons, so here we go again. . .)

I have been a huge fan of biofilters since my aquarium days. And anytime I had one in perfect balance (aquarium or pond), I never had to clean the filter. So kudos to you for getting everything "just right" - that's my goal w/ the new pond, but I know it takes time. . .

And now that everyone's talked about how much they like their bogs, I have to figure out how to incorporate one into my pond, somehow. More heavy lifting for me. Thanks, guys. Thanks alot. ;)

Jill

LOL Jill,
Don't you just hate it when people give you new, great, but HEAVY ideas! haha
Sarah......more questions. Is your "larger" pond, the 300 gallon, or the one behind it in the pic?
How small a pump do you think would work in that set-up of your's with your 300 gallon? I've never even had a small waterfall, so I haven't had to worry about "lift".
Is that sized tubing you use what comes out of the pump?
Is your shut-off valve just spliced into the tubing? do you ever worry about that leaking, or do you just check it alot?
I guess I'm slow to understand things, and I'm just now realizing that this kind of filter might be nice to keep the water clear, plus give me another place to set plants!
The bog filter doesn't have to be above ground, does it?
Is that a Rubbermaid stocktank you're using for the filter?
The hole that lets it out to go back to the pond.........did you drill that in the top side of the stocktank? Then you put some sort of pipe in there?? Tell me more about that.
Sorry for all the questions, but your picture is a great way to explain how all this stuff works! Thanks a bunch!
Do you have any problems with taking the drain out for winter, and then putting it back in without it developing leaks?
Thanks Sarah!

After reading up on the bog filter, I'm wondering if it isn't that necessary or beneficial, since I don't have fish. What do you think?