Back Yard water feature question (Baz?)

[wdfifteen]

We have a small fish pond and I'm familiar with how to manage it. It has a skimmer and biofilter and all that and the water stays crystal clear with little effort.
But there is a grotto on the east side of the house with a 4 foot tall by 4 foot wide waterfall. All it has is a pump, like a sump pump. No filters, no bio filter or anything. The water gets black and fetid and stinks if you leave the pump off for a day or two. I don't know how to keep it clean. We emptied it out and pulled about 6 inches of rotten leaves and hickory nuts out of it. Somebody had lined the bottom with large stones. Anybody have experience with anything like this? Any advice?



The "sump" for the waterfall holds about 250 gallons.



The little fish pond also holds about 250 gallons. It almost takes care of itself.

[Baz]

Hey Patrick......those are beautiful water features!

I'm not a "pond" guy but couldn't you retrofit the waterfall with the proper filtration system as you would any other water feature similar in nature?

There's got to be oodles of technical info available online and from suppliers with lots of options.

I never got into water features as part of my business. There are a few outfits in our area that specialize in them. I do think they are very cool if designed right and kept up.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

[Cajundaddy]

Yes, you have essentially 2 choices. You can run it like an ecosystem by adding filter, bio filter, lily pads, fish, et al. Or you can run it as a sanitized body of water with pump, filter, and your choice of sanitizer like a small swimming pool. It will need to run every day and it will need to be cleaned/maintained often to keep it nice.

[Don Ro]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Peaceful. ... Ommmmm.

[id10t]

Mom has a 10' circular stock tank buried off her back porch set up in a similar fashion. A few water plants (plus garden all around) and the pump do it. She does clean out leaves, hickory nuts, etc. every so often though. Even then, with the pump turned off in the winter (help water temp stabilize) the water stays clear and OK. She keeps gambusia in it, and stores feeder goldfish for the herons, racoons, snakes, etc. that come by for a snack.

[Scott Douglas]

We have a couple of water features in our yard. Two recirculating fountains, solar powered, and a bird bath. I toss some bleach crystals in the fountain every once in a while but have to change out the bird bath pretty much daily, since, well, they use it as a bath and it gets pretty dirty.