Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Vegetable filter (biofilter) garden aquatic plants
We are thinking of constructing a vegetable filter this spring. Our pond is 10ft x 6ft x 5ft deep so what is the ideal size for a vegetable filter? And what are the best plants to choose and how many should we buy?
Norfolk Reed (Phragmites australis) is undoubtedly the best performer. It has the amazing ability to absorb the oxygen from the air and release it at the roots. This feeds the essential micro-organisms with the necessary oxygen for the break up of organic matter and cleaning up polluted water. It is a pretty rampant plant and needs has to be solidly contained in a robust container. Any water or marginal plants are effective to a certain extent, but fast growing ones are the best. Cyperus longus (sweet galingale),Watercress, Spearworts (Ranunculus lingua), or you could even try Water Hyacinth planted in the gravel.. There are one or two readymade systems on the market including the Oase Filtofall. The maximum pond size with fish with which it can cope is 2m³ and the manufacturers say you need will need to pump 5000 l/hour (1000gallons per hour) up through it. Although it seems a bit small it would lend a useful back up to a biological filter, particularly in the summer months. The water supply to the filter seems a bit excessive to me. A larger system could be created out of concrete blocks. It could be a series of beds flowing into each other or just one large bed. The beds need to be roughly half a metre deep allowing the water to flow down past the roots of the plants. The plants would be planted at 200mmm to 250mm centres in clean gravel. I suspect for a fully stocked Koi pool of the size you have, you would need a filter bed of 20sqft, just over 2sqm (3ft x 7ft - 1m x 2m) but I think a water flow of 1000 gallons per hour (5000 l/hour/) should be quite adequate once the system is mature. Rules of thumb: (in old English)1. No more than 2inches of fish per square foot of surface area. 2.The filter system should turn over roughly half the system every hour. 3. The filter system should have roughly one third the surface area of the pool.
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copyright: 2002, this website and many others to do with water gardening and use of water in the home was created by Tony Roocroft who lives in Johannesburg South Africa
