Improve Filter System


The importance of the filter system for your koi pond

Based on our assessment of koi ponds built within Johor, about 40% are built with poor filter system and are usually under-sized. One cannot expect to have clear and nice water for your koi if the filter box was built too small without housing sufficient filter media. We recommend 30% filter to pond ratio.  

I was recently asked how to build a cheap and good koi pond. My answer to that question was ''to build it right the first time!' There are many koi hobbyists who ended up having to spend extra money to redo their koi pond to correct the inefficiency.




Here are some recent rectification works (including refurbish works) that we have undertaken:


Mr Boon of Sri Impian - Pond water leaks and water loss of 12'' per day! This filter supports two ponds and 
is located at the rear of the house.  Main koi pond and a small fish pond are both about 40 metres apart from
this filter. Given the distance, it is not unusual for the bottom drain pipes or the PVC pipe linking the skimmer to the
filter to spring a leak (more likely skimmer pipe) due to soil settlement.  

Building filter boxes as close to the pond as possible is required to prevent such problems.  Also it is better for koi      
wastes to move quickly into the filter box chambers than to travel such a long distance in the bottom drain pipes.
      
Given the complexity of the water pipes installed from the filter box to the two ponds and with water cacasding wall
and vases as water feature, we first proceeded to do a complete re-fiberglassing of the filter box and only the
fish pond after confirming that the koi pond was holding water well. It was subsequently established that the pipes linking
the skimmers to both ponds were also causing this water loss problem not just the fiberglass coating! To avoid
major excavation to identify and repair the leaks, both pipes were sealed off. This means the skimmer for the koi
pond is now not useable. As for the fish pond, a dedicated filter box was then built to support it. 

In conclusion, it is crucial to build your filter box as close to the koi pond as possible.


                                                    

  New filter box built besides the existing fish pond        Completed filter box with Balau wood cover
 

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Mr Jasmin - He purchased a house as a lodging place for his foreigner staff. The house came
with a koi pond and needed some refurbish works to get it working and look good again.

We repaired water jets x 3, put in place the water skimmer, fiberglassed the whole pond and filter, and replaced all filter media and water pumps.  
    
Koi pond
                   

                   Before                                                    After                                      After (close-up)



Filter box
                                                                               
                Before                                 After (Filter media replaced)                  After (external)



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Mr Chin of Nong Chik - Simple action of replacing under-sized pipe from 25 mm PVC pipe to 32mm
improved the water 
pumped to the waterfall and water circulation jets.

Before the change, water was not flowing nicely from the waterfall unless one of the water circulation jets was turned off. This was due to
the wrong use of PVC pipe - from 50 mm outlet of Tsurumi pump it was reduced to 25 mm PVC pipe and branched to 3 x 25  mm pipes to waterfall and water circulation jet x 2.


                                                                             

                           Our staff Budi replacing the 25 mm PVC pipe with a bigger 32 mm PVC pipe


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Mr Haridass of Taman Johor - Mr Haridass' pond came with the house he bought. We re-fiberglassed the
whole pond and re-layout the chamber partitions to create much wider space for adequate filter media. The filter
chambers were previously built very narrow leaving big space for the settlement and pump chamber and little space
for filter media.


                                   

                                                               Before                                      After (widened space for filter media)
                                                                                                       

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Ms Koh of Taman University - We improved the pond to filter ratio from 18% to 25% by increasing the filter depth
by 40 cm (16'').  We also did a re-layout of the chamber partitions, PVC pipes and built a Dry chamber to allow
the customer to periodically discharge wastes to drain. All exposed circulation PVC pipes are then concealed.
Bottom drain pipe size increased from existing 3'' to 4'' diameter. A surface skimmer was also installed. The whole filter and 
pond were re-filberglassed to complete the whole project.

Per Ms Koh, her pond was handled by 2 other contractors before we were engaged to upgrade the pond.
Please view pictures below to better understand the difference.


     

                           Before                                          After (still incomplete)               After (Dry chamber)


         

                     Before                                                  After                                 After (Bottom drain)
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