Thanks for posting those pics. Beautiful pond! Your zip code is near mine. I'm in Domino. I would love to come see your pond.

Wow! Gorgeous pond. You don't say what is in your biofilters/falls or how large they are but your pond certainly looks like it has enough filtration. Stunning!

wow.. wow.. wow..

domino- you are more that welcome to visit anytime, I am in New Boston only about 25 miles or so away.I am home most of the day and outside for sure until noon. I have another passion mosaics and I usually divide my time between the yard and the art. I will email you with my phone number and directions.
Thanks to all of you for the nice wows. I forgot to say that the bio falls are the large Atlantic falls and at the moment I have only some Savio media, the stringy kind and have now added the beads from the filters I eliminated. My handyman works here part time and at WalMart fulltime. He is going to start bringing me the floor buffing pads to cut up and add for more media. This is all topped with one layer of the black dense filter media from Pondmarket. I sure hope this is enough as I like the clearness of it now.

This probably is not the answer you will want to hear, but I have to be honest. If you intend to keep koi, the waterfall filters you have are not sufficient for the volume of your pond. Two skippy filters probably would not be either. You have to keep in mind that clear water is not necessarly good water. Without sufficient bio-filtration, you ammonia and nitrite levels will start to creep up to the point that the health of the fish will suffer. As I understand it, the only reason you removed the bead filters is to increase the flow across the waterfalls? What about putting a separate pump in to handle the waterfalls and returning the bead filters to the pond? You can't have too much filtration, but you certainly can have too little and I think you are at that point right now.

Hey Flag!!! AMAZING pond!!! I've been happy with my little 2000gallon pond, but now I got Serious pond envy now!!lol!
I just wanna be you when I grow up!ha! Had to get a job so now I'm saving up to come see you!!! And all your yummy art work/studio!! I just Gotta see that kitchen in person!!!heh heh!

ccoombs. I thank you so much for your advice. I took one of the external bead filters out of line because the o-ring on the top failed and I could not find a replacement. The second one we disconnected when we thought it was the sorce of a leak we have had. Come to find out the leak was in the waterfall and running down under the filter. After taking it out of line, the flow picked up. Would it be possible to hook the filters back up using a sump pump and the channeling the water back to the pond?

Probably not....a bead filter usually requires quite a bit of pressure and a sump pump won't provide that. That's actually the reason that your water flow increased after taking them out. They put a lot of head pressure on the pump and do cut back on your flow quite a bit. As far as the O ring goes....take the old O-ring to an auto supply place or major plumbing supplier. I bet you they can match it up. You probably could put the sump pump on the waterfall filters though, since they are not pressurized filters and put your main pump back on the bead filters. I am not sure how economical it would be to run a sump pump all the time like that though. You might be better off getting a mag-drive pump for the waterfalls.

I hadn't thought of a plumbing supplier, I have tried auto parts and swimming pool places and of course, AZ Ponds where I got my original equipment when setting this up.
I am not familiar with mag-drive pumps I will have to look for info on those. I hope they are not too expensive? I should probably get at least 4500gpm or more? I just can;t get my head around this as to how to do it but I will work on it. Right now I have two external pumps from skimmer to wf and another 4500 gpm submersible in one skimmer going to the east wf. The two external are 500gpm.

thank you, I will start drawing pics and try to figure this out. I am thinking the piping from another pump thru the bead filters and back to the pond, and not thru the wf would work ok? Are mag drives submersible? Thanks, you have given me lots of food for thought

Flagtruck, take a look at the link below for some information about large size mag drive pumps.
The approximate range you are thinking about, 4700 GPH is shown on this site and uses 280 watts. That is a big power draw.

Beautiful pond and landscaping, I wish you much enjoyment and relaxation from it.
"Horton"

Here is a link that might be useful: Large Mag Drive Pumps

Thank you for the link Horton, I went there but I think those are a little out of my range right now. I must try to figure out a way to get the bead filters working a little less expensive than that. I need to check the specs on what I have running now because it has been awhile (5yrs) since I put this pond in. If you think of anything I could do a little less expensive, please let me know. You all are giving me very good advice here. Thank you

Flagtruck, could you consider using an external pump or is it a must for a submersible pump? The external pumps are no more expensive than the large mag drive pumps ( they could be even less expensive) shown on that linked site.
They are however more powerful at a lower wattage and that could be a savings for you over the life of the pump.
An external pump can be hidden in a small underground pump vault with a field stone lid to disguise it.
As CCoombs suggested to you, with that large of a pond load, you will require lots of good biological filtration, with enough pump power to move the water through it.
"Horton"

Horton- Thank you very much, I will look into those, I have two external pumps now (1 for each waterfall) I also have a 4500gom subs in the skimmer of the east waterfall.
The bead filters I took out of line were each installed between these pumps and the wfs. I just want to add more filtration than I have w/just the two bio-falls. I did not think that the bead filters were giving me the biological
life I needed. When I would backflush them I only sometimes got dirty water. After looking inside the last one I took loose, the media or beads had no bio on them at
all.