Welcome At Long Last

Hi friends and welcome at long last to my long overdue blog!

This is something I have been meaning to do for quite a long time to record my ideas, designs, experiments and progress on my alternative Skippy-style bio-filter.

My Pond

So folks, this goes out specially to all you pond and fish enthusiasts who generally have small ponds, don't have much cash to spare, or just want to learn how to improve the health and clarity of your water, and so keep happy fishes!

A more recent photo showing plants established but even this has been improved on.

I first started my Leisure web site about a year ago to show how I designed and built my own homemade bio-filter when I started to get terrible green water (thick green pea soup) in my pond due to water-borne algae.

After much research getting ideas from various fish pond web sites and forums I got an idea for creating a design that was a more attractive than most homemade bio-filters which are often constructed using a "Rubbermaid" tank - a big hulking water tank with appropriate plumbing, usually sat at the top of a waterfall, and which normally requires hiding behind plants, rocks and the like because it is so big and ugly......

A typical Skippy bio-filter

My pond, like many amateur pond-owners, is quite small at about 400 gallons capacity, and so does not require massive filtration. So I set about building something that looked ok, and incorporated a number of different features to aid easy cleaning, and ensure efficient breakdown and filtration of waste products produced by my fish. For example a vortex settlement chamber, a pre-filter and oxygenating venturi, and more recently a trickle-tower filter.

My first design 2 years ago

Since then I have updated my pond filtration setup in a number of different ways, and recorded these changes in my Pond Bio-Filter web site, but what was lacking was a way of sharing my new ideas, successes and failures along the way.

So this Blog will hopefully act as a way of filling the gaps, and keeping you informed of how things progress.

It made sense to do this because I get a lot of interest in my web site, and various people from around the world have adopted my design ideas and emailed me to ask questions.

I hope you find it useful.

Please just follow the links to my web site, or click here for my web site on How to Build a DIY Pond Bio-Filter, and Homemade Pond Venturis where you will find loads more detail on making this stuff :o)

Good luck.
Jim