koi_n_utah,

I'm not visualizing this set-up. How does the water NOT just come squirting out the open connection? Is it so weak by the time it reaches your skippy that gravity takes control? Please include a picture so as to enlighten me.

And oh, in my opinion, yes I believe the added oxygen would greatly benefit the filter.

LP

The water gargles & does come squirting up with just the Tee, but what I did was add a short piece of pipe to extend the top of the tee & the water doesnt come out that way. This setup also creates an air break to stop backflow in case the pump stops running. (A cheap check valve).
I emailed the skippy people & they said, "I have never tried it, so I dont know." Not much help.

I was also wondering about my media setup. I used the round plastic pot scrubbies from the dollar store, about 250 of them in a 70 gal stock tank. I placed them in laundry bags & put a few rocks on top to hold them down. I noticed that there is a few uncovered areas where the water can get by the scrubbies. Is this ok or Would it be better to just let them float or buy more?

I leave mine loose in the skippy. Have some water hyacinth and spearmint on the water above. I don't have any open spaces.

Mine is 100 gallon container - 180 scrubbies in the water - but mine are the green 4 x 6 rectangular ones.

I was thinking of putting some plants in the skippy also but with my scrubbies loose they float to the top so there is no water above them. Thats why I weighted them down. Could I just plant the plants under the scrubbies? Or just use the plants in pots to keep the scrubbies down? Or maybe use a different media that will sink?...I dont know. Im just hoping to utilize the knowledge of "been there done that" to avoid wasting time on a bad setup. So any input from you seasoned ponders is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again

Go get yourself a piece of egg crate light fitting from a box hardware store and cut it to fit your filter, add a brick to hold it / scrubbies down, floating plants over it (or not).

LP

As far as floating plants go. Can I just float a hard water lilly in my skippy, no pot? Any other suggestions on other plants to use?

in my skippy i have a tee that feeds from the skimmer and one leg goes down to the bottom of the skippy and the other feeds a secondary waterfall to the upper pond. I did not glue these pieces and the little bit of "space" allows air to be drawn down the 2 inch pipe to the bottom of the filter. ( if the pipes ever seperate all the water remains in the filter and flows out to the ponds but they havent in two years)
Those nylon laundry bags are good to contain the filter media, scrubbies or whatever. I have some mint water clover, parrots feather, and water lettuce floating on the top of the skippy on top of the laundy bags.

bump

Plants in skippy - - - I put water hyacinth at the front. The don't actually float....just sit on top of the filter media. I bare root taller plants like thalia dealbata and pontederia(pickerel rush) in the back. I stick the plants right down between the sponges.

I put lots of torn up bird or deer netting in the filter in place of the horrible number of scrubbies that would be needed. A cut piece of eggcrate goes over that and a package of quilters batting goes over that. I forgot to support the eggcrate with PVC slats so I will cut those and put another piece of eggcrate on top of the batting. With support from the slats it will hold lots of potted plants.
I have had your T fitting installed for three years now. It prevents backwash in the event of a power failure. It only takes once to contaminate the pond as sewage floods back though and kills your fish. If you are concerned about water coming out of the open end of the T, simply get a cap fitting and drill a hole in it for the straw or tubing. The tubing should extend several inches downstream from the T. It might make a whistle when it is pulling in air. That means it is working. Don't glue the cap on. The tube should be about the diameter of a straw. If an unglued cap bothers you, get some twist off fittings. Sandy

Sleepless are you sayiing your waterlines from your pump to the filter are also connected to your sewer line? The original message seemed to indicate a "t" fitting instead of a 90 degree fitting going down into the filter from the pond pump and the open end of the "t" up and pulling down air.

Donkeyden, the sludge at the bottom of the skippy is sewage. The gunk on the sponge type filters is sewage. In the event of a power failure the system that has no air in the tubing reverses and becomes a syphon, with the pond now being the bottom of the gravity well. Everything collected by the filter is pulled back out to end up in the pond. Since this is usually the collection of several days if not weeks of deposits in all stages of decomposition, it is not a good thing to happen. There are backflow inhibitors that sometimes work. Mine didn't. Many fish died. The pond stank like an opened septic tank. It was a week before I could put the survivors back in the pond. This happened twice in the same summer. I put the T in the intake between the connection to the pump and the 90o drop to the bottom. It is installed horizontally. Air is sucked through the tube and serves to eliminate any syphoning that might occur.
Sandy

I forgot to mention that I added several inches of PVC pipe to the open leg of the T fitting. I don't think there is a cap fitting that goes to the T without it. Sandy

At first I just left the tee open but it was a little noisy due to the air being sucked down. So What I did was get a rounded slip on cap & when I would loosly place it on, air would still get sucked in a little. I then flipped the cap over & just placed it on top. The suction held it on & still allowed air to flow through. It eliminated the "air turbulance" noise & seems to be working great.
I'm getting alot of string algae in my filter, thats good right?
The other reason I went with a Tee fitting on top was so I could use the down pipe as a pre-filter. I was going to attach a string to some coarse filter material & hang it from the cap. That way I could easily pull it out, clean it, & put it back. Has anyone tried this?

Any more comments?

"I noticed when building my skippy filter that if I use a Tee fitting instead of a 90 for the top connection to the pump hose from the pond that I get air bubbles in the filter due to the open tee on top."

Has anyone tried just drilling a small hole in the PVC input tube just below the water line? You would lose very little water flowing out the hole when the pump was running, when the pump turned off you would get a little backflow until the hole reached the surface and would break the siphon.

I can not help thinking you lose some pump pressure with an open air T solution and that pressure would be better used at the bottom of the tank swirling things around.

Sounds good but the inside of the pipe in the skippy can get pretty gunky with microbes growing on the inside and snails, debris, etc.That will close up a small hole pretty fast. I prefer to keep the larger diameter tubing clear above the water surface.

I sometimes clean out the entire pipe using the vertical tube as access.I do this if water starts coming out of the vertical tube which indicates the tubing is blocked. That really cuts down on the force of the flow through the pipes. A fairly soft cleaning sponge attached to a not very stiff wire to push and pull it works well as does a small scrubby or flexible piece of coarse sponge type filter. You are just loosening caked on gunk, not scouring it clean.

Someone should have jumped on my comment that the T was installed horizontally. Sorry, I must have been half asleep. The air intake tube is of course perpendicular to the surface of the water which makes it vertical.

The whistle that can be so annoying is reduced or eliminated by running 14 to 18 inches of air tubing down through the vertical pipe, downstream, keeping the near end above the level of the pipe opening. Don't let the tubing get sucked entirely down. The near end must be free in the air. Or you can simply place a bamboo stick down the vertical pipe to break up the suction that is causing the whistle.