Hi, not sure on your pond volume, id say about 1200gallons without working it out, if you mean the cloverleaf CL1V filter this will be plenty big enough, especially if your just stocking goldfish etc.
You will need a UV to start with to keep the water from going green, but as the pond matures, especially if its having plants etc. you may be able to turn it off in a few years and it will stop clear itself.
I think a hiblow40 will be plenty big enough for filters and your pond, air in the filters helps bacteria growth but also helps stop muck gathering in jap matting etc, which helps keep maintenance down. It might be just as easy to have 2 large vortexes to keep maintenance down aswell, one for mechanical filtration, just flush it every other day or when needed, and convert the other to hold 50L of K1 which will give you more than enough bio filtration. And will probably cost about the same.
A skimmers down to personal preferance really, i dont have one on my pond which just means i have to net the pond more often, but it only take 2 minutes so it doesnt bother me. And if you do have one the basket will need cleaning when its full of leaves so im not sure it actually saves much maintenance.
And lasty id say go to 5 feet deep if you think at some stage you might put koi in, as they just dont survive in shallower depths (unless heated).
Hope this helps
Posted on Nov 10, 2006, 1:14 PM from IP address 82.38.197.142