The Koi Pond Filters - What's Best For Your Pond?

If you are planning a Koi pond and you have visited your local pond supplier you are undoubtedly surprised or even a little confused at all the choices in filters that are available. Well you aren't alone. Let's take this step by step and see if we can sort this out. It's really not as complex as it first might seem.

The choices come down to whether you prefer a pump-fed or gravity-fed system, how much space you have, how much you want to spend and personal preferences about the design of the system. All filter systems are designed as either single or multi-chamber filters. Stay away from the single chamber systems for Koi ponds. These just can't handle the waste load that a Koi pond will put on them.

This leaves us with the multi-chamber filters. These can consist of usually between three and eight chambers. They are either molded together as one unit or can be constructed from a series of single chamber units. The main advantage of these units is that different filter media can be placed in each chamber to serve different filtering needs. In the first chamber it is normal to have a media such as brushes to strain the large heavy waste material and in the last chamber a medium designed for very fine particles. The size and number of chambers will be determined by the size of your Koi pond. These multi-chamber units are available for both pump-fed and gravity-fed systems. Their only drawback is if they are molded as one unit they will need a rather large long space to be accommodated.

One of the best types of filters for removing large waste particles is the vortex filter. This is a very simple system that uses slowly spinning water to filter out the waste material. These are circular containers that cause the water to spin creating a miniature vortex. The waste material settles to the bottom of the chamber where it can be flushed out. These systems are not complete filter systems in themselves but make a very good first stage.

If I were to pick my favorite setup, it would be a gravity-fed system with a multi-chamber filter and a vortex filter as the first stage. If you have a large Koi pond with two drains you might want to consider installing two separate filter systems. This will give you some backup if one fails or you need to do maintenance on one system. While for some this will seem overkill, each system will certainly be smaller than the one large system you'll otherwise need.

Whatever your choice make sure you allow enough space for the filter system. The classic mistake is to build a 10,000 gallon Koi pond and then realize you need a quarter of that size for the filter system and not have the space. Do your homework and plan ahead.