Birdman's sand and gravel

[Ronfire]

To further help clear up the plumbing. After the pump the 1st tee feeds the garden hose out to the lawn, 2nd tee feeds the S&G filter,3rd Tee feeds below the gravel on the mid level bog , then continues on to below the gravel on the top pond.. All the Tees are valved to control the outflow to different levels.
On the top line is a breather valve that will allow air into the line if the pump shuts off. If I did not place this in it would siphon both levels back to the lower pond. If you look closley at the top valve you can see it tee off from there. The breather tee should have been before the valve not after because if the valve gets closed the mid bog will siphon back if the pump stops. In this layout the top valve is not required because if I fully open a lower valve all the water would flow there and not to the top. Hope it makes sense.

I have a shutoff valve at the bottom of the lower pond and a drain line after that to allow me to drain the water from the system in the winter as it can get -22f or -30c The bad thing with a drain line like this is you could drain the pond.

 

[Nevermore44]

That's a set up with all the tiers. You could plumb in some check valves to stop any drawback if you pump stops as well. Might help.

For the s&g ... just keep an eye on the air clean out pipe for overflow. Once the media starts to fill... the water will work it's way up the pipe. I use mine as a signal to clean the filter. Others just cap it.

So is it working well for you? my pea soup cleared in less then a day


(edit after reading your main thread: wow.. nice work on the stones... that's a great looking setup!! I'm going to add in a secondary hose output at the top my s&g filter so that I can use some of the waste water on the garden vs just dumping it into the lawn culvert between our homes here. Thanks for the idea!)

 

[Ronfire]

So far I just dump the water for the S&G flush but I do run the hose with a small sprikler all day to the lawn and let the auto fill make up the loss.
The air vent at the top of the system prevents the water in the bog and top pond from running back if the pump stops because it is plumbed over the edge of the bog and pond so can not siphon back with the air inlet.

 

[Nevermore44]

And how’s it working for you so far?

 

[Ronfire]

And how’s it working for you so far?

The vent works perfect, does not bleed out water and breaks the siphon when I shut down the pump.

 

[Nevermore44]

I mean the s&g filter. How’s it working in clearing your water so far

 

[Ronfire]

I can now see the bottom of the 5' deep pond where before I could only see about 1/2 way. I would call that an improvement with less than a week of running.

 

[LuapYllier]

My pond is only 300 gallons plus a 35 gallon trash can uplift filter. I have 2" pipe gravity flow from the bottom drain which goes all the way to a bubbler drain at the street but along the way it has two vertical risers and a valve after each riser. First riser goes into a 3 gallon bucket that sits just below the water level but 25 feet away so it is always full of water and contains my 1500gph pump. The pump pushes the water through a 1" hose into the lower side of the trash can. The second vertical riser goes into the center bottom of the trash can as well. The drain pipe serves as a sort of heavy debris sump which holds it all until drain time. The trash can has a space at the bottom for my air cleaning apparatus, then a layer of medium gravel, a layer of lava rock, a layer of pot scrubbies, a layer of green scrub pads and finally a layer of ceramic bio rings. Water filters through these as it rises and finally exits at the top through another 2" gravity pipe whose output into the pond is about an inch lower than the bulkhead at the trashcan so it still gravity flows even though all the pipe in between is burried underground. I am new to this whole idea but it seems to be working ok.

The pic of the fish below is a little blurry cause I was moving to track the fish but the rocks seen are 2' down.

I have had no confirmation or input from anyone whether my setup is any good.

Short answer, make sure the pipe exiting the barrel is larger than the pumped intake pipe.

 

[Ronfire]

The 2" outflow handles the filter well. If I try to overpower the outflow the filter starts to stirs up the sand and has to be throttled back.

 

[Nevermore44]

Did you end up getting chick grit or the coarse sand for the top layer?

 

[Ronfire]

I wen to the local gravel supplier and got coarse sandfoo the file. It was mixed coarse and finer. Thought that was good as it will layer with the fine on top, that will filter finer or wash out.
I have 2-3 inch on the bottom picked from the yard, 3/4 crush rock from the driveway, pea gravel from the leftover bog material. Then purchased a couple of buckets of spray rock (1/4 pea gravel) then a mixed sand.
The flow rate that it is set to is about what I would want as I split the flow 3 ways form a 4500 gph pump, about 5/8 of the 2" pipe.