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Need help, prefilter of sorts?

1157 Views 8 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Mori, 
pet-teez
I have a very odd pond setup outside and I have a little problem.
My pond is it three parts, one is a kidney shape (60g?) which is in the ground (within an enclosure, it was set up for a Malayan Box Turtle) and I have it plumbed to go out of the pond and up the corner into a small round pond container (not sure of gallonage, maybe 10g) where the water spills into the container and then that goes into a 60g stock tank (black, from a local feed store)... after that it flows back via pvc into the in ground kidney one.

Ok, here is the problem... the lower pond now holds goldfish (the turtle can't swim very well so she doesn't live in there). The upper small area holds plants and the stock tank holds plants and guppies (to help with mosquitoes and stuff). Before I put the guppies in there I made a "prefilter" for the out flow so that the guppies wouldn't get sucked out and tossed into the mouths of the goldfish, First thing I tried was a water plant basket (you know, the small ones they come in at the LFS) with some filter floss sewn into a "sock" over it. That stops working (limits the flow too much once a couple tree leaves get stuck on it, or duckweed) and I look out my window to see it getting read to overflow so I run out and unclog it. That happens once a day or so...

So over the weekend I replaced the filter floss with a piece of that white stuff that people use to put filter media in and overnight it got two leaves and three pieces of duckweed and was overflowing onto the ground, the goldfish had about 6" of water left!

Basically I need an idea of how to make a prefilter for the outflow of the stock tank that will 1) not suck guppies through and 2) not clog in less than a 24hour period.

I'm pretty sure the pvc on the inside of the tank is a 2" female-female adapter.

Help.

lol

Thanks in advance
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M
Can you make a really big cone out of some mesh screening or something? And then a preprefilter over that to catch leaves? Or...um...treat the goldfish to the occasional snack?

Sounds like an interesting setup...you must do pictures.
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S
I have two thoughts. One is that your prefilter should be much bigger, at least compared to the size of the leaves, and it wouldn't hurt to put the intake at a spot in the pond that collects less leaves. The other is that your prefilter should have several layers, going from coarse on the outside to fine on the inside.
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pet-teez
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I could only find a picture of two parts of the pond setup, I'll have to take a picture of the "Guppy Pond" tomorrow.
The "Return2Bottom" image is the water flowing back into the in ground ("goldfish") pond, you can see the water coming out of a cork bark tube and behind the cork is the plywood of the enclosure wall.
The "OutflowInTop" image is the water that gets pushed into that container from the bottom pond, it also comes out through a cork tube (Dragonflies and Hummingbirds seem to love it) and flows from there through pvc into the stock tank (that pvc doesn't have a cork tube cover, I thought I had more but didn't, and haven't gotten around to getting another).
It pours from that container into the stock tank and that flows back to the bottom via more pvc piping...
I know it sounds like a big mess but it isn't/wasn't too bad.

Mori said:
Can you make a really big cone out of some mesh screening or something? And then a preprefilter over that to catch leaves? Or...um...treat the goldfish to the occasional snack?

Sounds like an interesting setup...you must do pictures.
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pet-teez
The outflow pipe is about 1/2 an inch below the surface of the water which makes this a little more difficult (and annoying, when I have it covered it makes this annoying sucking sound which I can hear all day in my office).
I can't really move the outflow/intake because we circle-cut a hole in the side of the stock tank and I would rather not make new holes. I never noticed how messy the tree was until I put the pond where it is.
It's a Jacaranda so the leaves are pretty darn small... it wouldn't be as much of a problem if the pvc was further down, it worked fine before but now that I'm trying to "prefilter" it...

swylie said:
I have two thoughts. One is that your prefilter should be much bigger, at least compared to the size of the leaves, and it wouldn't hurt to put the intake at a spot in the pond that collects less leaves. The other is that your prefilter should have several layers, going from coarse on the outside to fine on the inside.
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M
Hehe. Jacaranda are notorious for messiness...and on top of a pond! :icon_eek: I think you're doomed. If I'm thinking this through properly, the main issue is keeping guppies from going into the lower tank, right? Could a tank divider work? You'd need the biggest possible that would keep guppies out, but maybe just maybe if it went top to bottom, the leaves would mostly stick on the top part. Guppies would lose some swim space, of course.

I dunno. Tricky problem. Take more pictures. Not that that helps. I'm just nosy.
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F
Maybe some kind of large-pored sponge? WalMart has some fairly large spong prefilters made for ponds/fountains. I'm not sure...they are shaped like a thick cylinder. Maybe 1" ID and 2" total diameter. I'm not sure if this would work for your situation, but thought I'd suggest it anyways.

Good luck. Sounds like a great setup!
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dufus
I would use 1/8" plastic mesh.

And goldfish don't eat your guppies(or mosquitofish maybe?)

they are not carnivores. Koi don't even eat them.

your pump,however, will eat the guppies if not prefiltered.
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M
Goldfish are omnivorous. I don't think mine are special in that they will taste anything that fits in their mouths. Full-grown guppies might be safe, but little ones are absolutely fair game.

Keep in mind one popular purpose of pond goldfish is mosquito larvae control. A small guppy really isn't that different from a baby skeeter!
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