Hi, I have an indoor freshwater 500 gallon Intex 8 foot diameter pool pond in my basement. It sits on insulation boards on a concrete floor. The basement is insulated. It has been set up for almost a year now.
I have a total of 16 fish living in the pond:
8 sun catfish
2 feather fin synodontis catfish
yellow lab cichlid
4 peacock cichlids
Senegal bichir
I use three large flat box pond filters and two hydro5 sponge filters which comes out to about 2000 gallons of filtration. I don't use a heater on the pond I just heat the room. For the substrate I use pool filter sand. I do 20-30% water changes once a week. So far all the fish seem healthy and happy and I am really loving the pond life.
The problem I am having is that so far I have not been able to keep the sand very clean. Since the pond sits on the floor low to the ground, regular aquarium siphons won't work because they are gravity fed. I have tried to siphon the sand in the pond with a Python water changer but that doesn't work either because I don't have a strong enough water pressure coming out of the downstairs tap in my basement. I am also ruling out pond vacuums because they are outrageously expensive. The only thing that has worked some what better is using a wet/dry shop vac. But you have to be careful because those have a very strong suction and can suck up the sand completely which I don't want, and they will spit back dirty water back into the pond. I have also tried scooping it out with a net but doing that just dirties the water column. I just want to be able to siphon the fish waste off the sand to keep it clean.
To all you fish keepers out there that have pool ponds and use sand for the substrate, how do you siphon/keep the sand clean in your pool pond?
I have a total of 16 fish living in the pond:
8 sun catfish
2 feather fin synodontis catfish
yellow lab cichlid
4 peacock cichlids
Senegal bichir
I use three large flat box pond filters and two hydro5 sponge filters which comes out to about 2000 gallons of filtration. I don't use a heater on the pond I just heat the room. For the substrate I use pool filter sand. I do 20-30% water changes once a week. So far all the fish seem healthy and happy and I am really loving the pond life.
The problem I am having is that so far I have not been able to keep the sand very clean. Since the pond sits on the floor low to the ground, regular aquarium siphons won't work because they are gravity fed. I have tried to siphon the sand in the pond with a Python water changer but that doesn't work either because I don't have a strong enough water pressure coming out of the downstairs tap in my basement. I am also ruling out pond vacuums because they are outrageously expensive. The only thing that has worked some what better is using a wet/dry shop vac. But you have to be careful because those have a very strong suction and can suck up the sand completely which I don't want, and they will spit back dirty water back into the pond. I have also tried scooping it out with a net but doing that just dirties the water column. I just want to be able to siphon the fish waste off the sand to keep it clean.
To all you fish keepers out there that have pool ponds and use sand for the substrate, how do you siphon/keep the sand clean in your pool pond?
