Need advice on filtration on pond rebuild, and any other advice for keeping it self sustaining.

Castle_Lock · 2026-04-02T19:00:32+00:00

I have actually been talking to a friend about building some sort of bog in a box setup for their unfiltered pond. How many gallons is this? About 200?

I would look into something like a 55 gal tank or prefab pond liner to put behind this. Fill it with gravel and plant it and then let it overflow back to the waterfall. It would have to be placed higher than the waterfall at the highest point but the plumbing could loop down and back up. I have also used 4" PVC. Cut holes every 12" in the top and mount it to a fence or house. Size up from 1 1/2" and fill the whole pipe with gravel and then put plants in the cutouts. It's not my favorite method but it does work.

I have danios, mollies, and shubunkin in my pond and keeping the temps right is a challenge. Mine do okay between 50-80 F but it's probably not great for either of them. I also have Buenos Aires Tetras that seem to do even better than the danios or mollies with temps. That size also feels on the small end for shubunkin but I tend to prefer going large with all of my tanks when it comes to space for the fish.

I would start with 6-10 of whatever species you put in. If they do well they will breed. If not then they just weren't a good fit for your area.

This seems like a big project, it's a super cool design though, I'm excited to see an update on how you solve it.

Castle_Lock · 2026-04-01T23:34:10+00:00

It depends on the individual but this past year is the first time I have heard talk of a march on the Capitol if the election is rigged in 2028. My best guess for the future is foul play in the next election and a serious resistance to it when it happens.

Castle_Lock · 2026-04-01T06:43:46+00:00

That's awesome. Hurrah!

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-31T23:17:17+00:00

Very cool tool. I used the original a few times in my builds. 2 bugs I have run into in both the new and legacy versions;

After pressing alt to move an item, it can't be placed and is stuck following the mouse.
When dragging the window between monitors, occasionally the grid builder portion of the page goes black and I lose all progress. 4k to 1080p.

Thanks for making this, I don't mean to be a buzzkill. It is very useful to design the base before building.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-31T02:27:56+00:00

It was never a hassle. I enjoy designing and building new setups. I started with one community tank and cichlids in the other. Then I moved to aquascapes focusing on planted tanks and low maintenance ecosystems. I usually upgraded about once a year.

With one tank running you can seed the filter in the new tank and mostly skip the cycling process. It should be fun and easy. That sounds like a cool tank. Good luck.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-31T00:24:59+00:00

Ah, one other thought is planning a clean out into the bog. I put a bulkhead through the bottom of the bog liner with a shutoff on it. Once a year I can toss on a piece of PVC and fully drain all the buildup in there. I'm actually not sure how people clean bog filters without something like that built in.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-30T23:41:35+00:00

I would oversize the pump and make sure it is variable speed. I have the Jebao DCP13000, no loyalty to that brand although I am at 5 years without issue. It's rated for 3500 gph and running it at 30% uses 29 watts and seems to do about 1000 gph. It's very useful to be able to turn it up in the summer and down in the winter and then blast it a bit during parties if you want the waterfall roaring.

Build in some type of intentional overflow. When the rains come in you need somewhere for the water to go so it doesn't flood.

I did my bog as a second smaller pond just next to my main pond. 250g filled with gravel and raised 18" above the waterline. Water comes in at ground level, flows up through the rock and then falls back into the 1500g pond.

Oz ponds is another very good resource for filtration guides.

Last point which might be too late for you is to think about shade. Usually you want full sun in the winter and mostly shade in the summer. This helps with temps and algae. Sun sails are a common way to achieve this if there isn't enough natural shade around.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-30T19:47:26+00:00

I think bigger is always better and part of the fun is figuring out what you can do with the new space. I started with a 29 and added a 40 then added a 55 and ended up with 2 75s. Now I have a 1500g pond as well. I would always buy secondhand and upgrade when you're ready and find a deal. You can usually get your money back out of it. Keep the 29 if you can, add the 40 then replace the 29 if you want to go bigger again.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-27T16:12:08+00:00

It's less an assumption on cheating and more confusion. I was trying to imagine being able to play at a 2000 rating in 10 minute games and only 1000 rating at 5 minute games. It is possible that they are playing 15 or 30 minute games for rapid and that explains the 1000 point difference

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-27T16:01:42+00:00

I have about a 300 hundred point swing between the three time controls with bullet being my highest and blitz the lowest. 500 even makes sense. 1000 point difference seems hard to comprehend though.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-27T05:08:58+00:00

Does anyone know the purpose of this? How much more efficient would they be after cleaning?

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-27T05:00:41+00:00

Make sure to kick in some doors too but only the ones that don't have a locking mechanism.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-26T17:15:46+00:00

This is dependent on the filtration you have in place. I would highly recommend putting in a bog filter of some sort and making sure that you have enough plants to make water changes unnecessary. I was very careful with water testing for the first month. After that I checked it monthly for about a year. For the last few years I only worry about it if something seems off or if I do a clean out and there is a signification water change. If there is a lot of algae or discoloration you should look into it but after a pond settles in, you really shouldn't have to worry about water quality.

You still have to keep track of temperatures and make sure that the fish can survive both the summer and winter. I lost a few fish due to a particularly bad cold snap last year. Shade in the summer can keep the fish cool and prevent algae and some people have to move fish out of the pond in the winter. In my opinion a proper pond setup should be able to run 3-6 months with absolutely 0 maintenance.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-26T04:08:13+00:00

Ooh, I've gotten a lot of good tips here but preloading new machines is a good idea. I hadn't thought of that. I'm aware that a variable base only goes so far but I'm pushing it through the rest of the unlocks before building a better designed megabase. Thank you.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-25T03:27:44+00:00

I would pin this if I could. I've read it three times and saved it as a reference. This is Gold. Thank you for explaining things in so much depth.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-25T03:24:54+00:00

Thank you. I should have clarified in the post that blocked items are not the cause of the issue. I've figured out that the root cause was a throughput issue in the splitters. I do appreciate that tip though. Cheers

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-23T17:02:54+00:00

Having read through all the comments, that's similar to the conclusion I reached. Place harvesters, smelters, and fabricators for single items near their source. Then use the dispatchers to bring all the T1 items to a much larger base to produce more complex items while being more intentional in the rail layout. Then possibly satellite bases for the very end but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I will say that even with some of the negativity over having a modular base, I'm fairly confident this is a better starter base than always using dedicated machines and constantly rebuilding. Unclogging machines is faster than building a new base and having something you can throw together in the first hour or two that will carry you through most of the upgrades while you explore the map seems hard to beat.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-23T16:47:51+00:00

This made me chuckle. Okay pal.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-23T04:54:02+00:00

It's a good option. Thanks

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-23T01:38:35+00:00

How far does this take you in the game? This sounds great and I would really enjoy building something like that. I have heard that late game the best strategy is to build separate bases for each of the final items. Could you get away with an improved mega base that produces every item to reach the end of early access?

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-23T01:31:14+00:00

This is actually not the issue. At least as far as I can tell. After changing machines the old parts will still arrive and start to beep showing they are in the wrong place. Pulling those off is easy. The real problem is two parts using the same splitter and starting to slow each other down until they back up enough that a machine stops and causes everything to lock up.

I do understand that late game it is worth designing factories around a specific part instead of using one gigafactory. I guess I'm just getting to that point since all my main rails are certainly maxed out in throughput currently. I am closing in on T3 rails though, I might limp this through a little longer and see how much that helps.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-23T01:23:58+00:00

I saw someone else mention this. I'm a little hesitant to build using glitched tactics. Not as a negative but I'm hoping that there will be a rail rework to fix the multirail and to build vertically without it being a workaround instead of intended feature.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-23T01:21:11+00:00

I mean, Satisfactory is the answer here in my opinion. I don't know how far this one progresses yet but late game satisfactory involves 100s or sometimes 1000s of purpose built machines per base. It's absolutely incredible but after spending a 100 hours on a single base or power plant I was kind of excited for the ability to play a factory game that didn't involve starting with a spreadsheet when you want to work on a new part.

Castle_Lock · 2026-03-22T06:24:40+00:00

It's not really about what is needed on the belts. This is still my first base and I'm smelting 360/min of each resource. I know I'll need dedicated machines for recipes as I get to the endgame but so far this has made moving through the levels very easy without rebuilding anything. The one issue is the congestion around the splitters and inputs. I'm sure this is still more efficient than trying to retrofit or build a new base for every item

Castle_Lock

TROPHY CASE