I am looking at a bottom drain for a pond that will have goldfish and maybe later some Koi. Will a Koi Toilet II suck up smaller goldfish or should I get the one with a screen?
Bottom drain choice
- Thread starter Ronfire
- Start date
A screen on a bottom drain would defeat the purpose.
The idea of a bottom drain is that all the debris, sludge, mulm and fish poop that settles on the bottom of the pond gently flows into the drain and is captured in a settling tank or sieve BEFORE getting chewed up by your pump. Putting a screen on a bottom drain would not only impede the natural flow of said debris but you would also be left with a very difficult problem of continuously unclogging the screen in the drain located at the bottom of your pond. That would be a maintenance nightmare.
In regard to small fish getting sucked through the drain, yes it can happen. It generally doesn't happen very often, however it is something you should expect and be ready to deal with if you have a bottom drain. So how do you deal with it? In my case I have a settling tank after the bottom drain, and any fish, frogs or small turtles that flow through the bottom drain ended up in my settling where I could remove them later at my leisure. The settling tank outflow is where the screen is located, but not at the bottom of the tank, rather the outflow and screen is located at the top of the tank where it can be easily reached and maintained. The Idea of a settling tank is to have a place (not in the pond) where the debris can "settle" in the bottom of a tank where another drain is located and the settled debris can be easily removed simply by opening a valve. Ideally the settling tank has a conical bottom where the drain is located and waste debris accumulates.
A bottom drain should be considered only one part of a total gravity flow system.
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Thanks Randy that is what I thought would be the issue with the drains/ screen. Don't understand why they sell them tat way then