The algae battle this year, of all the others, is a pain, and a never-ending cycle.
\nI could get a pre-done sand filter that would serve, maybe, but I’ve worked sand filters before, and they’re cranky: they use a levered valve for operate and backflush, and I recall the effect of a German Shepherd taking a bath in a pool and costing a filter gasket. The gasket for these things is a frail limp rubber device that looks like a wagon wheel, and it’s prone to problems.<\/p>\n
Sand filters have their virtues, one of which is they clean relatively easily. I researched it and it turns out the heavy algae load of a koi point tends to make regular filter sand into a brick, with channels in it, and precious little filtering done. The answer is aquarium sand\/gravel.<\/p>\n
And I THINK I know how to DIY one that doesn’t backflush—you just dip out the sand\/gravel and wash it, then reassemble.<\/p>\n
The current plan: a flower pot. A big one. Or a garbage can. 3 bulkhead connectors, some elbows, some 1 1\/2 inch hose for the inflow, and (for the bottom) a 2-inch hose. So…<\/p>\n
Envision a square flowerpot. In the bottom, (a) 3-4 blocks of something to hold up (b)a sheet of eggcrate lighting grid. Atop it (c) a square of coarse filter. Atop that (d) a mass of sand\/gravel, 50 lbs of it. Then (e) another square of filter. And (f) the inflow hose from a 2000 gph pump with a valve on the hose so I can adjust the flow.<\/p>\n
Now, containing (a) is (1) the drain chamber, which has a 2″ bulkhead connector to a 2″ hose that will send *cleaned* water back to the pond.
\nContaining (b-f) is chamber (2), which is the filtration. It has no bulkhead nor drainage: it just drains down through (b) and (c) to (1.) Got it?<\/p>\n
Containing (e) is chamber (3): this has 2 bulkhead connectors, and the first is the overflow drain, which will let any access of water flow out to the pond unfiltered, if it exceeds a certain level.
\nFinally, topmost in (3) is (f) the inflow hose from the pump (g).<\/p>\n
This way, if the filter clogs and I don’t get to it in time, the thing will not overflow endlessly into the flowerbed, but will drain by the overflow drain back into the pond, until I get there to fix it.<\/p>\n
Because it’s gravity-driven, the thing has to sit on the rim of the pond. A bit untidy, but if I find the right flowerpot or can, it’ll be at least ok-looking. And it won’t be there at all except when the algae’s out of control.<\/p>\n
I want a square container if I can manage it, because bulkheads (a fancy twosided screw-in plumbing connector, in this instance) which lets you take a pipe through a wall and not have a leak) prefer flat surfaces. They have a flexible gasket, but they screw down tight and want a flat surface, which a square container can give.<\/p>\n
Buying a proper pond-capable sand filter would cost about 1300.00 excluding the pump.<\/p>\n
This one will come in under 100.00 and probably work as effectively, just not be as neat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The algae battle this year, of all the others, is a pain, and a never-ending cycle. I could get a pre-done sand filter that would serve, maybe, but I’ve worked sand filters before, and they’re cranky: they use a levered valve for operate and backflush, and I recall the effect of a German Shepherd taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}