The filter you have was probably fine for a 150 gallon without too many fish, but you need a big filter for your pond -- like made from a 100 gallon stock tank.

I can tell you where the filter goes. Right now you have tubing going to your "waterfall area." That tubing needs to go into your filter, which sits in the waterfall area. The filtered water can come out of a spout from the filter into the pond, or you can build a waterfall in front of the filter to return the water to the pond.

Now your pump should be on the opposite side of the pond from the filter, so I think you need a lot longer tube to go from your pump to the filter.

The amount of water you need to change depends more on the number of fish than on the size of the pond. To take it to the extreme, if you had one goldfish in the pond, you would need no filter and would not have to change any water. So how many fish do you have in there? How big are they and what kind of fish are they? The fact that you said you might get rid of some fish, suggests that you are overstocked.

Your pond is not big enough for koi, but could handle up to 20 goldfish with good filtration. Basically, you have no filtration now.

Yes, the algae in the water are handling the nitrogen wastes. You are totally wasting your money to put bacterial preparations in there.

DON'T make your pond smaller. I'll tell you a secret about that 10-20% water change per week -- most people do less. If you clean up your water by cutting down the number of fish you have, feeding them less, and making a big filter, things will get a lot better.

From what I've heard, you would do well to stay away from Aquascape.

Hi Kashka Kat,

I am glad to see that you are one of the smarter ponder I have seen as far as Algae goes. String algae is going to come weather you put it in or not. By putting it in you speed up the process of the maturing. In the area that you are in it takes about 4 to 5 years for a pond to mature on it's own. By putting string algae in when the pond is new you shave 6 months to year off that time.

The only problem with green water is O2 in the water at night or in shade. As long as you are exposing enough water to the air you won't have a problem.

My shop is about 30 miles west of Chicago. As long as I know when you are coming I could meet you there any time.
Mike

Kat,

Yeah, I was also surprised by the amount you know about ponds. Pretty rare.

Green water is a very easy fix, UV filter, about 5 days. That should allow other things like the string algae to get going. After a couple of weeks you can try switching off the UV to see if it stays clear.

Making the pond more shallow probably wouldn't help anything and could make some things worst. When a pond goes clear it goes clear and size doesn't seem to matter.

Skippy is a pretty poor filter. Google "pond trickle tower" and specifically "strawberry pot trickle tower" for your size pond. Way easy to build and almost zero maintenance, maybe replace the rocks once every 3 or 4 years.

If you want to continue doing water changes you could switch to a continuous water change. You hook up a drip irrigation emitter and let it run 24/7. In your case a single 1 to 3 GPH emitter would do it, depending on how much of a water change you wanted. Some people say these also keep a pond from going green, but I'm not sure it would clear an already green pond.

Thank you all for the input - sounds like FILTRATION is indeed where I need to go with this.

Actually I only have 4 large sarassas & 2 medium sized shubunkins in the pond right now Big Red (large red comet) and 3 small comets are still in the basement tank after the disaster I had earlier in the spring. I wasnt testing the water (didn�t need to before, I had many easy, trouble free years with 4-5 fish in a 150 gal pond) and when I finally did I did there were nitrates, nitrites AND some ammonia, which necessitated the first of several big emergency water changes . I had a lot of debris powdery brown stuff from the pine tree falling into the pond throughout April & 1/2 of May which I was told was pollen. The water turned into dark brown muck not clear tea colored water, but dark particles that couldnt be seen through

Honestly, I would not want more fish than the 10. They are large enough that the pond doesnt look empty or sparse at all. I meant I would give away fish if I was to decide to reduce the size of the pond.

Mike -thanks I think I may be taking a little road trip!!

Well I guess Im learning - the whole mess earlier this spring was a wake up call - either take care of the fish properly. Or not, and pay the price. When I started, I thought oh well just replace the fish each spring. But when you have them as pets for 10 or 12 years it kinda changes your outlook. Besides, a few healthy active fish are much more pleasant to look at than a lot of them that are not doing well or lethargic because they are too crowded.

Hmmm trickle tower - that could work. My original concept was more like a trickling, gurgling bubbling spring coming out of rocks �-rather than a sheet of water coming over a ledge like a waterfall. Or maybe something like a stack of plastic stacker trays with rocks in them inside a tall bin?

I'm a believer in filtration: mechanical, plants and some routine aereation from time to time. That philosophy has worked well for me for nearly 10 years. I run my aereation pump overnight for a 600+G pond once or twice a month.

I like filtration too...but we have to be realistic and not expect it to clear a pond 100% of the time. It can, but can't be counted on. UV is 100% for green water.