The Pond in Summer

The New Matala Fitler Close Up

The water comes in through a bulkhead fitting and then a few feet of flexible hose. The hose is there to make cleaning easy. Just use pop the gate valve for the drain and use the hose (with pond water instead of tap water) to hose off the filter pads. Easy, right?

I also cut the left-over bits of Matala into 3 inch cubes and created a small bio-filter after all the regular mats.

New Fiberglass Matala Filter Box

I installed a temporary filter last year, made out of a plastic truck box. It started to bow under the water pressure and had irregularly shaped sides. Time for a new one. It needed to be sturdy and have room for all four sheets of Matala filter material.

I built the box with treated 5/8" plywood. It's about 6 feet long. The depression in the bottom is for the drain. 3 layers of fiberglass and resin with 2 gelcoat layers.

Covered in fiberglass, sanded and fittings installed.

I removed our temporary stairs and got all the plumbing done. First time that I finished a project without needing a second trip to Home Depot for fittings.

Added the Matala fitlers (4 full sheets) and turned it on. No leaks!

The gate is done!

I finished the gate. Finally. I'm still undecided about putting a handle on the left side as well but other than that I'm very pleased.
It's made of cedar and has copper pipe set in the top. I'm curious to see how square it stays over time. It's all bolted together from the sides and the boards in the middle are 1" thick and have been glued with tongues and grooves.

Osprey dives for koi

So ... I went out to feed the fish the other day and noticed a bird circling above the back yard.  We often have hawks up there but this one looked different and was a lot lower.  It perched on a tree and so I grabbed the camera and caught it doing this: