Choosing a Pond Filter

An essential part of maintaining a healthy pond is proper filtration to keep the water clean and clear. There are numerous forces at work that are all trying their best to make your pond water dirty. These forces include decaying leaves/sticks/grass, algae, harmful chemicals like ammonia, and fish excrement. Not only is a dirty pond unpleasing to look at, but clean water is important to the health and survival of any plants, fish or animals you are housing in your pond. The easiest way to keep your pond clean and healthy is to build a reliable filtration system.

If you’ve done some research already, you’ve probably noticed that pond filtration systems can vary in size and complexity quite a bit. They can range from quite simple and small to very complicated and large in the case of dedicated koi ponds. In this guide, since we’re focusing on an ecosystem pond that’s not meant as a large dedicated koi pond, we can simplify the equipment selection process quite a bit. Just as a recap, an ecosystem pond is a bit of a hybrid design that sits somewhere between a traditional low-filtration water garden and a high-filtration, dedicated koi pond. An ecosystem pond relies on a good biological filtration system, but still makes use of plants and water garden principles to help balance the overall ecology of the pond.

There are three main pieces of equipment we’re going to use when building a filtration system for our ecosystem pond. These are:

• A pond skimmer to act as a mechanical filter to capture floating debris
• A biological filter to clean the water on a molecular level with beneficial bacteria
• A UV clarifier to kill single-celled algae, which is the cause of murky green-colored pond water

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