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The basic idea of the trickle filter is to oxygenate the water and send it hrough some kind of filter material. I decided that since my pond pump (Sunterra 450 GPH) can handle the bio-filter with half the power, I will split the rest f the water to go into an "upper pond" that will house the trickle tower. Unlike many of my other builds, this trickle tower was not cheap.

First I built the upper pond. Since I didn't want anything too big and I didn't want it to overpower the actual pond, I ended up buying for $6 from Menards a plastic container that was circular and supposed to be used to keep water in those big barrel planters. I then made a hole in the side and threaded through some wide piping for my output, which goes under the ground and under the rocks around the pond. I could have put the upper pond touching with the rest of the pond and made a stream, but for some reason that didn't really appeal to me this year.

Now for the cool part - I went to Hobby Lobby and picked out a nice multi-tiered plant stand. This planter is one of the best they had because it had very tall walls that can contain my lava rock filter material. It was on sale for 40% off (a sale they have often), but it was still $24.00. I think it was worth the price though. The wrought iron material it appears to be made out of should last a long time. It does have wooden beams for the bottoms of each tier, but I plan to replace those once they rot anyway to get a nicer flow pattern.

I then put the plant stand into the upper pond and supported it by bricks - although it would look nicer without bricks and is quite sturdy stand-alone, I am afraid it may fall. I ran the input up to the top and used an elbow fitting to angle the flow upwards. The flow is only half of the 450 gph, so it is not much, and I can adjust as necessary using my connector by the pump.

I have had this operating, together with a mechanical filter and a bio filter, for a few weeks now and the water is as clear as when I filled the pond (I started over in June after 3 weeks of waiting for a replacement pump caused the water to turn to pea soup.)

Of course, beauty comes at a price. Sending the water such a high distance created a lot of splashing and some of this water splashes OUT of the upper pond. Also, since it is sunny in that spot for most of the day, a lot of water must evaporate while it is going through the trickle filter.

Some remedies for the splashing would be to create a LARGER upper pond which is easy. I will not be expanding this year, but for those starting out this might be a good option. The other evaporation problem cannot really be solved without encasing the entire structure in something, which arrives us back to the original problem of ugly trickle towers.