Water level dropping

[clm]

Got home from work yesterday and the pond level had dropped a good 2 inches. :censored: The search was on for the reason behind it. Waterfalls were both fine. The hoses and the liner to the small bog looked fine. Managed to get through the plant jungle in the big bog and that's where the problem was. The plants in there have done sooooo well, their roots have started to impede the water flow. It was overflowing and running out the back of the bog. :doh: Of course the plants have spilled over a good 2 or 3 feet from the edge of the bog, so unless you pulled up the plants to have a look see, you'd never see there was a problem. We have that bog fenced off from the puppies, so it's grown into quite the monster. Pulled up a bunch of the plants and that seems to have fixed it for now. I'll have to keep a much closer eye on that bog until the frost knocks it back a bit.
I must say I'm quite happy with these bogs. They've been great filtration for the pond. I may have to put in additional filtration than this one day, but for now they're doing the job nicely.

Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

Great that you found the leak so quickly. Doesn't take much really and some of them can be very hard to find. Show us some bog pics. What plants do you have in there? tropicals? I'm wondering how I will overwinter the monster taros that have taken over my veggie filter

[clm]

No tropicals this year in the bogs. All hardy plants. Iris (they all died), watercress, another small :HAHA: spreader with yellow button flowers hardy canna, water celery and a pitcher plant (can't see it under all the other growth), water speedwell (spreads as much as watercress). I'll see what pics I can dig up.

Yes lucky indeed to find it so fast. Had to make quite the mess of the plants around the bog to find it and then made quite the mess removing some of the root mass. At least it's not leaking now.

Maybe you can put a couple of big ceramic tubs in your greenhouse filled with water and set the taro's in them for the winter. It would be a shame to lose them after they've gotten so big. I've never had much luck with them, but I love them. I don't have anywhere to overwinter them in the house. The cats destroy any plants I bring in.



Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

I need to get in and clean out the greenhouse and start bringing plants inside. I have potted up a few but have many more to go before frost. Well it won't be the first time I didn't get them repotted.

There is a huge taro in the greenhouse now, well over 6 feet fall with leaves the size of elephant ears :HAHA: It is in the veggie filter of the greenhouse pond along with a lot of plants that never saw outside this year.... That filter needs cleaning out and organized again. Maybe I will take the big green one out and replace it with the black taro.

Most of the plants in the veggie filter are smothered by the taro and watercress. Its a mix of tropicals and hardies but all will come out this fall and be potted or planted.

Do you clean out the bogs in spring or fall?

[clm]

I try to clean them in the fall. If it gets cold fast then only one gets done in the fall and the other in the spring.
Your black taro sounds amazing. I think they're so pretty. I envy you your greenhouse. Another thing on my wish list. :-P

Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

Cindy the backyard and greenhouse is why we are here. I didn't even want to go into the house to look at it during the open house. Not my style at all but once I saw the backyard and the attached greenhouse it was sold. Hubby loves the house and I love the yard. Course it was more money than we wanted to spend and needed/s renovations but slowly we are putting our own stamp on it. Problem is seems a choice between renovations and travel. We spent the kitchen money on Scotland this year so it will wait yet again :crybaby:

When you clean the bogs do you take all the plants out and gravel as well. That's a huge job.

[clm]

Yes, everything comes out of the bogs when we clean them, plants, gravel, lava rock. It's not a fun job at all. :crybaby:

You'd think after all these years I would have learned my lesson and put in bottom drains when we made these bogs so I could flush them out easier, but noooooooo. :doh: We didn't do that and of course these 2 bogs are bigger than the ones I've had before. If I had another form of filtration I would try leaving them for a couple of seasons and see if they truly do need to be done on a yearly basis. Last year I was quite pleasantly surprised at the lack of gunk and what not. I can't remember ever having to clean out any of my bogs and found them to be really dirty. The key I think is they need to be run all year, when I shut them down in January or February last winter because of problems with the preform cracking on one bog and a tubing leak on the other bog, starting them up in the spring was brutal. They sat stagnant until spring start up and it caused no end of grief at the beginning of the season. No preforms now, both bogs are lined, no cover going on the pond this year, so I'll be able to get at that kind of stuff if there are problems so no shutting down the bogs this winter. :x:
Last year was the first time I've ever had to shut them down during winter and I worried sick about the fish until spring.

Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

Cindy I think you are right on the bogs, certainly my veggie filter went bad in 5 days and the pond stank so the bogs would go just as quickly and be just as bad if water was returned to the pond.

Why not put a retro bottom drain in when you rebuild? or some way to flush the system out.

[clm]

I'll have to look at doing something to be able to flush them easier. We have to clean the big bog soon, might as well since I had to butcher the plants so bad to get it flowing properly again this week. I just hate the thought of doing it.....always seem to wait until it's way too cold outside to be working around water, I guess just to make the nasty job more nasty. :HAHA:

Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

Sounds like home. We had all summer to remove the bottom rocks that we knew had to be moved but waited til the water started to get cold. Fortunately we had the other project to move us or they'd still be there I'm sure.

Fell in the pond 3 times yesterday, darn that water is cold. Was vaccumming and trimming the plants. Should have put on the chest waders as 58F water makes ones feet numb after a few minutes...

Are the bogs raised in anyway? Do you have grating so there is empty space in the bottom or is it all filled with gravel? How deep are they?

[Jackie Ramo]

Here's a link from a newsletter sent to me. Not sure I understand how it would be back flushed but then I didn't understand several of the techy parts. Might help you though

http://www.bogfiltration.com/bogfiltration.html

[clm]

Thanks for the link Jackie. I'm not sure how the whole back flushing thing would work with that set up either, but I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes :HAHA:

The bogs are higher than the pond and only marginally raised, maybe 4 or 5 inches above ground. They're both a couple of feet deep. Filled pretty much to within 6 inches of the top with lava rock, stone and gravel. The smaller of the 2 has a 55w UV on it. Water goes into the UV first and then into the bog. Not supposed to do it that way, the UV is supposed to get filtered water running into it, but I've never had a problem doing it this way.

I get some silt settlement on top of the gravel that settles under the plant roots, that just gets vacced out from time to time all season. Must have a good flow from the pumps to push it all the way up through all that media to get to the top.

You fell into the pond 3 times.....makes me shiver just thinking about it. :HAHA: I haven't had to go in this year and I'm not planning too either. :grin:

Despite the cooler temps, there's no doc around the falls at all this year, so the bogs are doing their jobs well. The hula hoop full of watercress has done tremendous too. I'm leaving the cress on it for the winter, we'll see if it comes back in the spring, interesting since the roots are going to freeze, but that is mighty tough stuff and I've had it come back after being frozen solid before.

I've got a couple of egg lights that throw a fair bit of heat, I'm going to put one in each bog and run another under the cover for the air pump all winter. Just in case we have a nasty cold one, the fish will at least get some warm air and the bogs will have a little heat source to help as well. Only the bogs are going to go under cover this year. Tubing is going to be covered with bags of leaves and the bogs will go under plastic with the same covers hubby made for them last year. Covering the whole pond last year made for an algae problem that was just horrible in the spring. I'm sure the bogs being shut down for most of the winter didn't help, but I feel confident the fish will be fine with the pond itself not being covered.

The fish aren't eating quite as much, but they're still hungry, I've always found that they decide pretty well when it's time to stop eating. With the warmer daytime temps for the next while it won't be anytime soon, that's for sure.

Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

Lucky you not having to get into the pond, I'm always in it pulling dead leaves and flowers off. When I hurt my leg this summer I stayed out of the pond and it shows, folks kept saying the pond had shrunk not realizing I'm forever trimming the plants back but because I could not reach them they cover a couple of feet inside the pond. Fish don't mind they get in there and hide and pull at the roots.

You should come over and see my veggie filter set up. Something like this might very well work just as well as your bogs without the gravel and clean up problems. Maybe you could advise me on the pump setup. Darn thing is always getting clogged up but I cant see how the water doesn't at some point go through the pump...

[clm]

Thanks Jackie. Next time I'm hopping off to Clarke I'll see if you're going to be around. I remember thinking how much easier your veggie filter would be to clean than the bogs when you were building it. I'm sure your pump woes can be fixed. Mine are in the pond and I have to pull them up and clean them a couple of times a week.

Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

Sounds like we have the same pump problems :doh: Always needing cleaning of some sort or another.

Sure let me know. But it should be easy to convert what you are doing and have the same affect on the water quality. I do wish now we had put a bottom drain in the filter but we couldn't stop the leak so stopped up the entire thing. May try again in spring. We have more plumbing sxpreience now.