Anyone using a bottom drain?

[wu-gwei]

I am designing my 12 x 7 x 3 foot pond for the turtles. I have decided to incorporate a bottom drain and make my own large barrel filters. I have called a few places in town, but cannot find a bottom drain. Anyone know where to get one, besides online through US, and anyone using bottom drains on a large pond?


Cheers,
JJ

[Vizerdrix]

Can't you just use regular plumbing supplies (bulkhead or something similar) for that?  Or do you want something "mechanized"?

Trying to visualize what it is you're trying to do.

[The Pond Boy]

I am designing my 12 x 7 x 3 foot pond for the turtles. I have decided to incorporate a bottom drain and make my own large barrel filters. I have called a few places in town, but cannot find a bottom drain. Anyone know where to get one, besides online through US, and anyone using bottom drains on a large pond?


Cheers,
JJ

Hi,

Installing a bottom drain in a pond isn't easy. When you have installed it, it is from the beginning a great spot for a potential leak. If you go in the pond for a cleaning, it can start leaking very easy. If you don't need a bottom drain, I would suggest not to install one. If you really want to install a bottom drain, you need a bulkhead which you can buy at most aquarium and pond resellers. Beside that you need to have cover tape and tape primer. To make your liner thicker on the place where you want to install the bulkhead, you install the cover tape on the top and the bottom. Cover tape has already glue on one side but you need to primer to clean the liner. Now your liner is about 3 times the normal thickness. Now you need to make the hole in the liner. If you need a 3" hole for a 2" bulkhead, make the hole 2.5 - 2.75 inch. To make the hole, the easiest way it to use a hole-saw with a piece of plywood on top and on the bottom. Try it first on a scrap piece of liner.
If you have any questions, please drop me a line.
Thanks,

The Pond Boy,
Greg

[kennyman]

Most of the systems I built (commercially) used a filtration system where water was pumped into the bottom of a barrel, rose through layered media, and flowed freely out the top to return into the pond. The water pick-up was a skimmer box that housed a prefilter screen and the pump. That skimmer box set the height of water in the pond aswell as prevented detritus from plugging hte plumbing. We did always include a "low spot" in the liner where a sump pump could be placed to drain the pond but ponds collect so much stuff like falling leaves and such that I see any drain plugging up quite quickly.

[wu-gwei]

The pond is intended for turtles and they are dirtier than koi, but they don't need water quality like a koi does. Why bottom drain, having a pump in the bottom on the pond with a prefilter gets clogged within a week or less. Turtles will munch on the sponge prefilter until there is a plastic casing. I don't want to be constantly fishing out the pump and cleaning the foam prefilter. This keeps me tied to the house. I'd like to leave for a few days and not worry about it clogging up.

Kennyman, I was thinking of a bottom drain and filling the first barrel, bottom up, something like a vortex, so the detris will sink down and then water flows top down into a second barrel with something to do the mechanical and then the biological filtration. Then have an external pump to pump it back into the pond. The first barrel with have a bulkhead with valve to purge the guck.

As well, my lot is on a slope, I know it is challenging, but that's the only place where I can have it. I'd build a retaining wall on the bottom.

Pondboy, I was looking at a product like this: http://www.suburbanponds.com/shop/details.php?productId=76

I have no experience building a pond, except digging a whole and putting in a crappy store bought filter. If I had the money, I'd buy a $10,000 system, but I need to keep budget low.

I have also thought of getting cheap crappy filter and trying to establish a natural system by ways of having plants, but it's difficult when the turtles will chomp away at all vegetation. So, I don't know if I'd be willing to use that as a primary way of filtering.

I don't have trees, and neither does my neighbors, new area, so there should not be any foliage debris, but I may install skimmer later on.

Cheers,
JJ

[kennyman]

Slopes are great to build ponds!

At work I have a barrel full of peastone submerged in the main irrigation pond with the waterpickup for the irrigation pump in it. I think I know the kind of thing you are thinking of and it is a pretty simple and effective way to suck water out of a pond without getting your prefliter screen plugged up. But Man do I hate pulling it out to clean it!

Annother alternative is to cut a window in the top of one barrel and make a flange to secure the liner to the opening. Effectively making your barrel a skimmer unit. You just have to dig the barrel into the ground a bit on the downhill side of your pond. If you prefilter that with a screen and just run your pump in it you can use the other barrel on the high side for a biofall  which could spill back into the pond creating a nice waterfall.

A biofall unit is essentially a barrel that has a bulkhead installed on the side near the bottom. Your return line fills the barrel from the bottom and a few layers of coarse foam like those washable funace filters with some lava rock on top makes an excellent filtration unit. It is easy enough to hose out for cleaning and if you use the elevations right you can drain your biofall barrel by simply unhooking the line from your pump in the skimmer barrel and let it drain downhill. We also used a flange to secure the liner to a window in the biofall barrel so there was no waterloss.