Skippy Filter Update – Important Steps To Keep Any BioFilter Working Well

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By the looks of things, there’s a lot of do-it-yourselfers in the world.

A quick look at the stats of my Youtube video on the Skippy DIY pond filter design indicates around 220,000 views since it’s been up and running and it’s popularity is certainly indicative that people want to try some things on their own. I think this is terrific.

The Skippy homemade pond filter is probably the most popular of the lot when it comes to designs you’ll find on the internet. And so that’s where my focus for this article will be, but by and large, what I’m going to discuss will apply to any biofilter in general.

There are some important updates and for no better word, clarifications, that I want to make regarding biofilters and how you can get the best results with them, year after year.

The Simple Design Of A Biofilter

When you look closely at any biofilter they’ll all have a few things in common. And that’s saying a lot when you consider how many of them are found in the pond equipment market these days. In essence though, they work by providing a place good bacteria can set up shop, and also trap or capture various things that you don’t want in your pond. This can range from organic and inorganic material, to unseen fish waste and other elements.

The bacteria within these filters go to work and break down anything that’s organic, and inorganic stuff will eventually drop down and accumulate at the bottom of the filter. It’s a very simple and elegant process, and regardless of whether the filter is in the form of a biofalls, a stocktank from a diy project, or a pressurized commercial filter, they’re basically all doing the same things as described above.


Sourcing Parts And Mainly The Media

If you break down something like the Skippy design you’ll see that there aren’t all that many parts. There’s the tub or stock tank, some pvc pipe, a few flanges, a bit of plastic grating, and the media, which in the case of the Skippy is in the form of scrubby pads.

Of all these things, it’s the media that matters most, because it’s the thing that’s really doing the filtering AND it’s providing a protective home for the good bacteria to colonize. Without either of these functions, you really don’t have much of a pond filter.

Now the initial designer of the Skippy notes clearly that they had to experiment quite a bit to find a pad that would really do a good job as media in the filter. But they did finally settle on something that worked for them.

I have taken a slightly different approach and simply suggested that a pond owner purchase a typical media that’s already being used in ponds. You’ll find media in the form of bio-balls, bio-tubes, floss (which is like coiled plastic strands), and others made of foam pads. Of these the small foam pads are probably the most popular and affordable to work with. And they are readily available.

Lava rock is sometimes used by pond owners in this capacity as well, and I’m not opposed to it’s use but it will have a tendency to get plugged up from time to time and you’ll want to watch for that.

Priming The Filter – Is It Necessary?

The real catalyst to the biological activity in this type of filter is the beneficial bacteria that resides inside. The thing is, most diy filters, and media, won’t have the good bacteria in place in the beginning. Some bio-media is “pre-primed” with bacteria but most will not be.

So the easy solution to this is to incorporate the addition of some beneficial bacteria into the pond from time to time. You don’t need to add it to the filter necessarily. Just put some in the water at the suggested dosage for the pond size and let it circulate through the system. As it does, it will set up in the filter media and you’ll be off and running.

One thing to keep in mind involves uv light. If you have one, be sure to turn it off for about 24 hours when you add the beneficial bacteria. This will allow the microbes to circulate throughout the system without being damaged by the uv.

To Clean Or Not To Clean

Here’s the big question. How often do I clean out a biofilter for it to work right?

Thank you for asking:)

There’s a good bit of debate on this among pond folk, and it comes somewhat from the suggestions by the Skippy designer’s suggestion to not clean the filter and to let it run year after year. Generally the premise is sound to an extent because way too many people clean their biofilters out too often.

Once the bacteria get’s set up in the filter, it’s important to not disturb it too much and damage or reduction in the microbes could come from several things. High pressure washing of the media wouldn’t be good, nor would adding any kind of copper based algaecide which may work on algae but it will also damage good bacteria. So in other words we don’t want to disturb the bacteria too much or it might not work well.

But should we leave it completely alone?

No, because there’s a few drawbacks in doing that as well.

One key with bacteria is that young and fresh microbes tend to be more efficient at doing their cleaning work compared to old bacteria. (In our house I can’t say the same thing for our kids.) But you want to sort of assist in the turn over of this bacteria a little bit and you can do this by simply stirring the media a bit to slough off some of the old folks, and routinely add some fresh bacteria to the mix. This could be done every few weeks to once a month, and possibly even less, but you’ll want to experiment a little to see what works best for your pond.

This approach is very similar to the backwashing cycle that you’ll see used in pressurized pond filters. All of this happens internally where some accumulated debris and old bacteria are washed out of the system for good.

And in terms of a full cleaning? This should be done at least seasonally. If you shut the pond down for the winter months this is pretty easy to schedule. Do a full, all out cleaning of the system, and of the filter. Change the media if necessary but at the very least, be sure to wash it thoroughly, and store it for later use.

If you run your pond year-round, you’ll still want to make some time to do a full clean-out of the filter at some point. Once a year would be best if you can do it. The reason for this is that over time, certain places within the media can become anaerobic (meaning without oxygen) and toxins can build up there. If these are inadvertently released into the pond it can cause some major problems for your fish. With this in mind it’s best to remove the media and clean it externally if possible, or reroute the water from your filter during the cleaning so it doesn’t go into the pond.

Patience Is A Virtue

In my experience there have been a lot of people that have had good success with their homemade filters. And if you’re into the DIY thing there’s no reason why you shouldn’t feel comfortable in building one. Once you get them set up right and manage them correctly, they will normally provide a very dependable degree of filtration for your pond. With that said, I don’t feel that they are entirely worry or maintenance free for everyone. With a few simple steps like I outlined above, you can keep them working well, and safely, for many years.

As a final reminder. Whenever you’re dealing with anything biological, don’t expect some kind of rapid fix for your problems. There are cases where people do get fairly rapid results, but more often then not, it can take 4 to 6 weeks for bacteria counts to build up enough to stabilize and balance things out enough to clear up things like green water and other algae problems.

When you first start using a biofilter it’s actually not uncommon to see a pond start out clear, then turn green, and go back and forth like this for a number of weeks. Normally once the filter is up and running efficiently, the pond will move more and more into a clear condition and at that point you’ll simply want to follow the maintenance suggestions we made above to keep things looking great.

If things don’t look better as time goes along, be sure to add some desirable plants into the pond, effectively manage your fish loading, and work to keep organic material from building up at the bottom of the pond. By stacking things to work against the algae you’ll eventually find a way to beat it.

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1 thought on “Skippy Filter Update – Important Steps To Keep Any BioFilter Working Well”

  1. we, just this weekend, built 2 skippy filters (100 gallon tanks), now comes the wait – this is the hardest part- we have a 5610gallon pond that measures 15x25x2 it hasnt been really clear and clean since the year after we built it–we have tried many things with no success-including about a half water change-pond vacuums-treatments-its a wonder our fish are doing so well-I cant wait for clear water-thank youfor your website-keep it coming- I have learned more in the past couple weeks from your site than I have in all these years on the web –Ann

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