Question
I am new at having a koi pond this summer.  I have about 8 fish now and the preformed pond holds 100 gal. Also with waterfall. My issue is with the underwater filter i am using. It seems that i have to clean the pad every morning If I don't it slows the waterfall.  I plan to pull the fish out in the fall and put them inside in my tank. I need to know what i can use along with my UV filter that i don;t have to spend so many hours cleaning . My current filter just has a pump a long plastic insert with a pad to collect waste. Please advise on a new system .Thank You Don

Answer
Hi Don,

Thank you for your question.
It is however correct that you need to clean this every day.
This is due to the fact the filter is somehow not correct in setup.
A normal advice I give is following setup:

Pond -- pre filter (to get rid of the visual waste) -- biological filter (chamberfilter, beadfilter, shower, trickle,...) --- UV -- pump -- waterfall or back to pond.

The prefilter makes sure the biological cambers are not full with dirt like dead algae, food leaves as this slows down the waterflow and holds down the capability of the biological possibilities in the chambers as the bacteria then tend to be not the good bacteria but the bad once that makes the fish sick.
Also when you need to clean the bacterial area the bacteria are gone and it takes up to 6 months to get a good filter with the correct amount of bacteria to turn the waste over from ammonia to nitrate.

Best advice I can give is to have a prefilter like a sieve, vortex, ... that can be cleaned every 2 days or sometimes once a week, then you go to the biological area that only needs to be flushed with pondwater once a week or sometimes less.
The cost is a little higher, however to result 100 times better.

Hope it helps!
Kind regards and happy pondkeeping,
Raf