My wife and I moved into our current house in December 2005, attracted not only by the house itself and its beautiful gardens, but also its location in north Brighton (UK)

The back garden incorporated a fish pond – quite large by town garden standards. We also inherited the inhabitants of the pond – approx 40 fish of varying colour and size, including koi, shibunkins, golden orfe and goldfish. We’d never owned a fish pond, and knew nothing about fish, so we were quite excited about the prospect of adding more fish and possibly some would breed too.

Over the next five years the pond gradually became more cloudy, until you couldn’t see the fish very well at all, so we called in a local expert who quickly deduced that apart from the pump and a UV purifying unit, there was no filter in the pumping system. So we installed a filter bed, housed in a black plastic tank alongside the pond (see photo). Within a few days the pond began to clear and we carried out regular cleaning maintenance of the filter on a monthly basis in the first season following installation, and during the summer months of the following years. Most of the time I wore rubber gloves normally used for washing up, more to avoid coming into contact with the unpleasant sediment which gathers in the bottom of the filter and has to be removed with a jug and sponge, and at times the gloves did let water in over the tops.

NEVER ONCE WAS I AWARE THAT I WAS ALSO COMING INTO REGULAR CONTACT WITH BACTERIA HARMFUL TO HUMANS.