Pond Veggie Filters Costs | Are Vegetable Filters easy to Install?
Question ... How easy are vegetable filters to install? What would be the average cost of installing a vegetable filter on an existing set up?
Answer ... Vegetable filters or simple reed bed systems are an ideal supplement to any pool or pond that has a high pollution potential or a large population of fish. Although most biological filters can process the waste from fish down to the level of breaking up all the organic compounds to simple nitrates, it is the next stage of getting rid of those nitrates that most filtration systems have difficulties with. This is easily done by the micro-flora around the roots of higher plants of the watery-world; if not by them then algae are the main beneficiaries.
Basically, running the pond water past the roots of any plants that will tolerate standing in the flow will help. Just planting up a stream or the header pools in a waterfall system can have quite significant benefit, or even planting up the surface of your existing biological filter is better than nothing. A purpose planted container like an old biological filter, where the polluted water rises up through a porous planting medium or gravel that is planted with quick growing water plants, is ideal.
The best plant of all for doing this job is the cheapest; being the fastest to grow it is therefore the easiest to propagate. It is the common or Norfolk reed (Phragmites australis).
Expense is not a great issue if there is plenty of resourceful practicality to hand. You will need a submersible pump capable of handling solids and pumping the complete volume of the pool water every two hours 24/7 to the top of the filter bed. But if you are incorporating this in with an existing biological filtration system you already have the most expensive part of the required equipment. All you need do now is run the biologically filtered water through a gravel bed planted with common reed. Plant it no more than 20cm (15cm ideal) apart straight in to the gravel or leave it in its aquatic baskets for easy maintenance. There can be one bed or series of beds, running from one into another. They need be no more than 25cm deep with a total surface area of no more than one third of the pool surface area. This sort of size would completely process the polluted water from start to a crystal clear finish. Remember, anything is better than nothing.