It would be very useful to know more about your pond. Perhaps links to your original posts that I haven't found.

Is it green murk? This is the 'green water' season and finding the filter needing clean up once a week is not all that unusual. Is there any buildup of debris and leaves in the bottom of the pond?

I searched Google for your pump/filter combo since I'm not familiar. It's a fountain pump, is there a built in UV?

Hi chas045 & PKponder TX, My original post was on GardenWeb & I can't find it either! So, I completely stripped the pond which was in a serious mess when we bought this property (3yrs ago) New Butyl liner etc etc etc, restocked with 8 teeny weeny goldfish, which are now quite big & the pond is now well established with water lily, marsh marigold & iris. It's not a huge pond, I did consider excavating more to enlarge it, but thought better of it. capacity is app 3700 litres. As my original posting explained the Hozelock 3000 is multi functional, being a pump & filter with UV. I wouldn't say it is green water, more a colourless cloudy, if that makes sense. I removed some of the rocks I have around the shelf section today to scrub the algae off. The shelf is only 9" deep, but even at that small depth, gentle lifting caused disturbance as the small rocks were removed, resulting in sediment swirling around that area. I can't use a pond vac, as there are tadpoles in amongst the sediment & rocks. I took this picture around March last year. HTH.

Looks very nice back then. I'm afraid that I don't have a solution. I think I would try connecting something to your pump to pump some water up a little higher and spill it thru some bed under-liner after stiring the pond up. However, I would guess that would just catch some of the bigger stuff, leaving an even finer suspension. I can tell you that I never have your problem although I can stir my pond up so much that I can't see anything. Fortunately, either because I have a 30' stream or because my crud is just different, within a couple hours or a day depending on the degree of disturbance, everything will settle out or get trapped in stream roots.

beejay,

In your pic, the hose is sticking out with the water pouring right into the pond. Not the ornamental spigot, the other water hose with the rocks. You must make that a stream instead of just having it pout right into the water.

You have the rocks, it won't be that hard, but I have a smaller pond than you do, and I built a little tiny stream out of rocks, instead of having the water pour right into the pond, and it is really making a big difference in the water quality. Just a suggestion.

Hello butterfly4u,

Not sure I understand what you are suggesting. The hose is the pump/filter return which is on continuously, the olde worlde hand pump is on a timer, 1hr on 2hrs off. Is it the filter return you are referring to, to form the waterfall & if so, why? I'm guessing it's to reduce the amount of turbulence, but that's happening from the spigot pump every couple of hours or so.

Regards

Several new thoughts. If the 'old world pump' disturbs things, then turn it off. It looks nice anyway. Since things looked nice for a good while, I imagine that getting rid of the accumulated crud would solve your issue for a period of time. So, after the frogs are gone, pump the water down most of the way. You could even pump it to a cheap kiddy pool to let it settle out and decant it back in. Then, use a shop vac to suck crud off the bottom.

I assume that butterfly was suggesting that you rebuild your rock mound into a micro stream. I assume that you have a liner under those rocks. You might need a slightly larger liner anyway. You would replace the rock pile with a lined sloped trench into the pond and cover the sides with some rocks and other natural stuff. Most importantly, you would put a bunch of plants into the stream. The roots would be your fine particulate filter.

If I were doing it (I really like streams) I would start the stream back in those trees or bushes, to give it more length and make it appear more natural, flowing out from the woods rather than popping up from an unnatural mound.

Sensible & fair comment, I'll give it some thought. I'm away shortly for 2 or 3 weeks in Ibiza, so it'll be on the back burner for now.

It sounds like you need to replace your uv light which is only good for 1 season. My pond is in full sun so I have to replace my uv light every season. My pond gets murky when I wait too long to replace it.

I wasn't aware of that. I thought a UV was okay until it failed.

One lives & learns.