backyard water garden. We have mechanical filtration of the skimmer taking leaves and debris

out of the pond. As leaves fall in

except for a few places where they're gonna get caught in the other plants

they're going to float around on the surface like this one here.

They're gonna float into this skimmer box.

The skimmer has the pump

and also in front of it has a net bag

and it has filter material

that removes the leaves and the bigger material like this. So we've got all the leaves and debris

being trapped in here.

So the mechanical filtration is going on

in this filter.

The biological filtration is going on in the rocks and gravel in the pond.

Biological filtration is the breakdown of the nutrients.

The fish are releasing ammonia into the water every time they breath.

The ammonia is toxic to the fish, that's why they're getting rid of it.

Bacteria growing in the rocks and gravel

consume that ammonia as food.

They release nitrite which is also toxic to the fish

and other bacteria that consume that as food

release nitrates,

which are feeding the plants.

So we have

mechanical filtration and biological filtration

The entire pond is part of the filter.

Rather than depending on a little tiny box connected to a pump to try and do all of your filtration,

the filtration in this pond is being done everywhere in the pond.

The aquatic plants that are annuals need to be taken out of the pond in the fall because they're

going to decay in the pond

and put a lot of waste materials in the pond, a lot of dirt and that would end up building up to a

big sludge layer. We don't want to have that happen

so in the fall as we get towards frost

all these aquatic plants like the water lettuce are going to die. They're doing a great

job filtering the pond in the summertime

but they're going to become a liability in the fall

so we're going to take these things and we're gonna toss them out. They're useless in the wintertime.

Perennial plants like the Lysimachia,

the Starfruit,

the Arrowhead,

we're gonna take the leaves and stems off that die

because we don't want those things decay in the pond,

but otherwise we're gonna leave the root systems of those plants in here. The water lettuce and water hyacinths,

we're gonna just toss out into the shrubs in our dry land perennial bed