Bogging in New Jersey

[Mucky_Waters]

There will be two water circuits:
- Bottom drain to pump to tangential pond returns. This circuit I figure I can run the longest into the Winter period, and maybe the whole winter.
- Skimmer to pump to bog to stream to pond. This circuit I figure to shut down in the coldest weather so that the stream doesn't cool the water too much (less surface area, less water motion, etc.)
All filtering will be done by the bog.
I'm making the pump pit large enough that I should be able to add filtering if it proves to be needed. However, Addy1 and other contributors here assure me that it won't be required. But, I'm a careful sort of guy who likes to have options when nature shows it's necessary! And there's no easier time to make the pit bigger.
Bob

Running a bottom drain directly to a pump is a really bad idea and defeats the benefit of having a bottom drain.
The idea of tangential pond returns is to create a current to sweep accumulated bottom debris towards the bottom drain. The idea of of a bottom drain is to have that water and debris gently gravity flow down the drain and remove it from the system with a settling tank or sieve or similar device before pumping the water back to the pond. Thus eliminating the debris and mulm with the lease amount of disturbance and mixing.
Having the bottom drain plumbed directly to a pump and then back into the pond would flow all the debris that has gently settled on the bottom of the pond run it through the pump impellers and grind and pulverize it and mix it back into the pond water and send it back into the pond, completely defeating the benefit of having a bottom drain.
Not to mention that any small frogs, tadpole or fish that get sucked down the bottom drain would also be pulverized or get stuck in the pump impellers.

 

[bobchapman]

Running a bottom drain directly to a pump is a really bad idea and defeats the benefit of having a bottom drain.
The idea of tangential pond returns is to create a current to sweep accumulated bottom debris towards the bottom drain. The idea of of a bottom drain is to have that water and debris gently gravity flow down the drain and remove it from the system with a settling tank or sieve or similar device before pumping the water back to the pond. Thus eliminating the debris and mulm with the lease amount of disturbance and mixing.
Having the bottom drain plumbed directly to a pump and then back into the pond would flow all the debris that has gently settled on the bottom of the pond run it through the pump impellers and grind and pulverize it and mix it back into the pond water and send it back into the pond, completely defeating the benefit of having a bottom drain.
Not to mention that any small frogs, tadpole or fish that get sucked down the bottom drain would also be pulverized or get stuck in the pump impellers.

So, Mucky, perhaps it would be a better idea to run the BD circuit to the Bog where the gunk from the bottom of the pond would be food for the plants in the bog. Then the skimmer would feed to TPRs. Whaddayathink?
In any case, there will be baskets in front of the pumps, and in the skimmer, to catch errant frogs, fish, etc., so that they can be rescued.
Bob

 

[bobchapman]

Nice looking hole! My bog is big, around 1/4+ the size of my pond.
Full of plants, I feel that is one reason it works so well.
The small ponds in the loop are also full of plants. All add to the filtration.

Thanks; it's a lot of hand-digging! Rain today, so working on other projects. Maybe it will be dry enough tomorrow to resume shovelling. The soil coming out of the pit I am spreading around to raise the ground level adjacent to the pond --- otherwise, it's too hard to get rid of the soil.
My bog will be about 40% of the surface area of the pond, and, as with yours, will have some plants in pools in the stream between bog and pond.

 

[bobchapman]

The weather has been really good here for outside work, until today, when the temp never got up to freezing. A good excuse to work on indoor stuff! Nevertheless, I have made some decent progress since the last report. The pump pit is completely dug out, and will have an interior dimension of 80" x 72" x 48" deep, with a 6" concrete floor, and a sump pit. Here's a pic:

Here you can see the relationship

of that pit to the pond:


The pit is in the foreground and the pond in the background.

I found a plastic tub at Home Depot to use as the sump pit liner, and dug the sump hole to match it.

Now I have to dig an access ramp so that I can work the concrete as it's put into the pit. That ramp will then become one of the trenches for the many plumbing runs to/from the pit. Lots of digging in my future!

 

[addy1]

Good exercise! Love how nice your dirt looks, lack of rocks.

 

[morewater]

How come every time I dig a friggin' hole, I find the peaks of a long-lost, prehistoric, previously-undiscovered mountain range?

Viva La Kubota!

 

[addy1]

Lol^^^^^^ I find layer after layer of interwoven, intertwined, mush rock. ..ie shale

 

[morewater]

I've found old carpet, construction waste, paint cans, you name it............

Of course I dig about 30 holes per season.

 

[addy1]

I found our septic tank, digging the pond , good thing I stopped and looked before I really slammed it with the back hoe

 

[bobchapman]

Hmmmh, well there were a number of small rocks, none so large that I couldn't lift them out of the hole. Most will be going back into the hole on the outside of the concrete block walls as fill. The nastiest was the buried concrete from when we re-built the garage. But the jackhammer did break them into liftable pieces (just barely). Then, of course, is the fun of trying to get rid of that old concrete. Local town is not real interested in taking them away, unless one uses the old black-plastic-bag-inside-the trash-barrel trick, then they go. But those trash bags now cost 50 cents each, even with the price of petroleum having fallen so far.

 

[topofthehill1]

Hey Bob I'm in Mercer County on the line between zone 7a and 6b. Before I dug my pond I did two layers of blocks on top of the grass and it froze at least 10'' deep. I cut it out with a chainsaw just to see. I had taken the fish and put them in the basement. I just built mine to see about placement and any problems I might encounter on a larger scale. It was very small and I had always intended to tear it down.

I don't know where you are located in New Jersey but what I am trying to say is I'm afraid that pond might freeze to the bottom. Or very very close to the bottom.

It looks good and you certainly choose a better time than I did in the middle of the summer.

 

[bobchapman]

Hey Bob I'm in Mercer County on the line between zone 7a and 6b. Before I dug my pond I did two layers of blocks on top of the grass and it froze at least 10'' deep. I cut it out with a chainsaw just to see. I had taken the fish and put them in the basement. I just built mine to see about placement and any problems I might encounter on a larger scale. It was very small and I had always intended to tear it down.

I don't know where you are located in New Jersey but what I am trying to say is I'm afraid that pond might freeze to the bottom. Or very very close to the bottom.

It looks good and you certainly choose a better time than I did in the middle of the summer.

Thanks Top for your comments.
I'm in Montclair (Essex Co.); zone is one of the 6s, depending on who you listen to. Yes, I think that in a hard Winter it might well freeze pretty deeply. The goldfish probably have to go in the basement or into sushi <grin> in the winter weather. I don't want to fence the property any more than it is, so cannot go any deeper: anti-drowning rules, you know ...

 

[topofthehill1]

It would be nice if they had a rule where people who might drown in your pond would just stay in their own yards.

I just want to warn you now they are a lot harder to catch than they look.

It looks great and I hope you keep posting pictures.

 

[bobchapman]

Yesterday morning the temp here was 8 degrees F -- the first sign of Winter that we've had, but not quite the right situation for digging ! I suspect that progress now may be pretty slow, particularly if the ground freezes much at all, because the next step is about 200 feet of trenches to be dug. Anyway, I intend to make a complete build-thread, even if there is a winter hiatus.

 

[bobchapman]

We had a nice warm day yesterday, and I got some trenching done for the water and power lines. At the end, each of my feet weighed an extra five pounds with all the clay that adhered to them. And I had a little bit of caving in of the pump pit due to a good deal of rain over the prior couple of days; fortunately, only minor stuff. It's amazing how the clay reacts to water: it was like thick soup in the bottom of the pit

Now it has turned colder again, so now more digging for a while. Have to wait for warmer weather and the ground to thaw out.