No, not your partner who refuses to wash. This gizmo is an all-in-one device for clearing the gunge from your outdoor pond so that your fish can see where they are going.
Sadly, my fish were doing it blind for far too long so I splashed out on this as a solution. Unfortunately, the results were not instant as it took over a month to clear the existing green algae and other nasties before water clarity was achieved. Of course, it's then a simple maintenance job, which takes little time.
The set up is one you have to make up yourself. There are all the bits, but it's a pain when you then have to install it too. You have a large rectangular bin which has two chambers. An inlet, which takes water you pump in from your pond. This allows large sediment to settle and is where the UV bulb is situated. This is a 15W unit in this model, designed to get the algae to group together so that they either settle to the bottom of your pond instead of being in suspension. Alternatively, the filter in the FishMate gets clogged with the blighters and you have to clean them off periodically. The water overflows from the first chamber into the second chamber where the filtration is. There are two sponge elements, one for coarse and one for fine sifting. Once through these, the water goes through a biological filter. This consists of special rocks that have a massive surface area in relation to their size. Bacteria naturally breed here and clean your water further. You need to rinse these rocks in a couple of buckets of pond water prior to installation. Don't use tap water as the chlorine does not make a good environment for the bacteria - quite the opposite in fact.
After biological filtration, there are two outlets (looks like a sexy twin exhaust on your car) and the water is then taken back to the pond and, in my case, a soothing waterfall!
In the initial stages, you will be cleaning the two sponges daily. After the pond is clear, this may extend to once a month cleaning. Keep an eye on it. If the pond looks frothy on top, you have left it too long!
This is an expensive item, but should last, though you need to replace the UV bulb after every season, costing £10-15 a time. Hmmm. You also need to budget for piping if this is a new installation.
Great now it's in there, but a pain to set up. You get stressed doing it but then recover when you are sitting by the pond watching the Koi do their thing.
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I have a trident green genie. The pond would be so unsightly without one of these great inventions!! Great detailed opinion. Dave
CaptainKidd 24.07.2001 15:37
It's always good to hear the negative sides to any product . This way your prepared should you decide to purchase the item . Overall a v.good op. Two details missing though , average cost and where to purchase ?
breezer 12.06.2001 12:22
Very good op. By the way the froth or foam on your pond is actually DOC dissolved organic carbon, it is a further stage in the filtration process, and concentrations of more than 20% may hinder the filtration process, although DOC has not been proven to be directly harmful to fish. It is still probably beneficial to your pond if you remove it, this can be achieved by foam fractionation or protein skimming. Cheer Laurence.
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