My pond was built in 1996 with a four vortex filter setup and although the water tested Ok I was never totally happy with the clarity. It was not that bad the base of tehepond could be seen but the water always seemed to have small debris which slightly cloaded the view except for the odd week or two each year when all seemed to be gin clear.

So I found myself looking at various options to possible upgrade the filter, I had been aware of Infiltration and Peter Waddington for many years and had always liked the idea of his Budget filter from the days when I had the original infiltration catalogue. It therefore comes as no surprise that I followed the development of the ERIC filters on KoiKichi and later the ERIC filters site, regularly looking in every few days in the hope of an update on one of the installations (sad or what).

Well earlier this year my mind was made up for me when one of the welded joints in my existing filter started to leak and the only option was a new filter. So I contacted Peter and sent him details of my existing setup and what I thought would suit based on what I had read on his site and in his book “The Koi Pond” which should really be titled “The pond filter”. After a few e-mails between us and some suggestions by Peter the details were sorted and an order placed for an ERIC4 together with some pipe fittings and larger airpump. You can read about my installation here and in more detail on TTK Forum in the
following post.

The filter has now been up and running for about 3 months and from almost day one the water has been clearer than ever before, chemically it tested very well straight from the change over though I was also running a small tank with some of the old mat in it for two weeks. Once this was removed there was a small increase in Nitrite levels but nothing much and a small increase in the amount of new water added soon got that under control.

I did find that a small amount of fine debris does get through the brush box and settled onto the bottom of the bio chamber, to combat this I have taken to doing a slightly more extensive clean once a week, this involves agitating the mat blocks in the isolated filter before lifting them out and then flushing the filter. The new facelifted version should go some way to eliminating this problem but I’m not fussed with an extra 5 minutes once a week, its a small price to pay for the best water I have had in 16 years