Thread: New here and in desperate need of filter advice!

I’ll start by declaring that I have no idea what I’m doing! But unfortunately, neither does anyone else. So, as a Brit that lives in Denmark, I’ve come to U.K. forums because y’all know what you’re doing!
Denmark are not really fish people (other than eating them) and generally don’t have fish fanciers or even hobby keepers, so I’ve got nowhere to go to ask for help and I’m just at a loss.
We had a ‘koi/pond expert’ come and build us a new pond last summer - utter nightmare with court cases etc, but now we are left with a pond that leaks and a gravity fed filter that has never worked.

After a year of headache, we’ve now removed the fish into a temp swimming pool, drained the pond and removed most of the rocks. We’re waiting on a neighbour with a digger to assist in the larger rocks and pulling the filter out of the death-trap hole in the ground.

The filter is a Filtreau combo next that has basically been a large paperweight for the last year. I desperately DO NOT want a gravity fed filter in a hole in the ground, but as the manufacturers are so vague, I don’t know whether this unit can also be used as a pump fed filter unit and I can’t find anything online. Can anyone shed some light of our options with this unit, please? We’ve been running our old oase biotec screenmatic in an 18,000 litre pond for 12 months, and bless it, it’s just about managed even with 3 huge koi and other fish, but if we have a drum filter sitting doing nothing, I’d like to use it if remotely possible.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your response and kind words! Can I clarify though, please, when you say to the ,clean side’, do you mean the other chamber inside? With the beads in? Or that it has to be turned upside down but remain where it is? (Sorry, I’m just so new to this!)

So sorry to hear you’ve been unwell, but thank you for taking the time to respond and help me out.
Yes, that makes sense, and I understand you regarding the benefits of gravity fed, but unfortunately, as it’s not a raised pond like yours (beautiful pond btw), it was buried in a pit next to the pond and during the winter, the trench was almost constantly filled with water to dangerous levels, and the pond ‘expert’ who fitted it also put an extension cable with all the plugs INSIDE this trench! Hence us turning it off on day 2 and using the Oase ever since. Even if we moved the power supplies, we now know that the trench isn’t water tight and will fill again this winter, so we just don’t want to risk it. I’d love to use the bottom drain, but I think we’ll just have to go for a pump instead. But thanks again, I really appreciate your help.

I couldn’t work out how to add pictures lol sorry