The bacteria in a skippy are aerobic bacteria which means they need a supply of fresh oxygen with their water. They do not need light. Your skippy can be covered.

Hi I was wanting to know what type of media you are using and how you have designed your skippy filter. Close to operational here in the midwest. I may put a level of plants on top of my filter.

Thanks,
Peonie

Peonie, I went to the dollar store and got bags full of little pot scrubbers. I put them in a mesh laundry bag, and this bag has a few lumps of lava rock on top, to stop it from flowing upwards.

The skippy is a round plastic tub, it's not reactive to UV light so it lasts year after year. It has a lip at one side. We bought this from a pond store years ago, I think it's called a biofalls or something. It has a filter mat in the bottom that rests on some ridges. The water inlet is at the side at the level of the bottom, so that makes the water swirl around. Then it rises up through the filter mat, then through the put scrubbers. We put water hyacinths on top of that, and their roots do an excellent job catching more green stuff. Then it flows over the edge back to the pond.
We run a mini indoors in the winter, in our indoor preform; same principle, made out of a flowerpot, with an aquarium filter mitt instead of scrubbies, because it's so much smaller. Works well too.

Good luck with yours!

:) Mary

Agree with the dollar store scrubbies- I spent $70 there getting the filter media, and it works perfectly.

I have a modified version of the Skippy filter, made from a 55g drum; see below.

Used a drill to drill 3 holes for bulkhead fittings; one inlet (towards the bottom), one outlet (towards the top) and a smaller hole at the bottom for a pipe to flush out water after cleaning.
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Bags of media; I also used a bag of lava rock, more for the weight to hold down the bags of scrubbies.
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Used some "bendable" metal bars to construct a support for the media bags so that they would not sit on the bottom of the filter
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Completed filter
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Mechanical filtration- 2 filter pads, with 8 layers of quilt batting betweeen
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Completed filter in place...
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...and "landscaped"
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I made the 100 gal stock tank version per the skippy folks' website. I bought sheets of course filter material at my local pond supplier and (memory is not good) didn't pay close to $70 to fill to the top once cut into 2-3" cubes with my bandsaw. I supported light grids atop some angle iron laid across the top 'ledge' in the stock tank and have tubs of colocasia (green and black magic) and papyrus sitting on the grid. They take off like rockets every year.
Will

Skippies are very versitile. I have a trash can version very similar to bwalkers'. I keep it covered with the lid, usually, but many people fill the tops of their skippies, whatever the size and shape, with floating plants, like hyacinth. I've placed potted pickerel in mine, just sitting on top of the media bags, and they do great.

Sounds great. Thanks for the advice and tips. I intend to bury mine completely (with a bottom drain installed for cleaning) and use a cover.

Thanks again!