archimedes said:
I've been reading Koiphen and, of course, they all use them because of their fish loads.
Yeah, I call them Koiphen ponds. They're all basically the same design. Fine ponds to be sure, but not a type of pond I'd be interested in, too much stress, too much complexity for me.
On the other end if you go to a Wildlife Pond forum you won't find anyone talking about bottom drains. They're talking about how to get decaying organic matter
into the pond, what to add to jump start the pond. Also a fine pond to be sure.
Two completely different views on bottom drains and skimmers, and both 100% correct for their goals. Now a Koiphen person will almost never understand a Wildlife Pond and just seem to think those people are a bit crazy. Wildlife Pond people think the same of Koi Ponds. Then within each type of pond you have individuals who think all ponds should be just like their pond. If they have 2 skimmers they will explain at great length why every pond should have 2 skimmers and serve up little backhanded insults just to be sure you know your place. Nothing to do with ponds and everything to do with human behavior.
Water Gardens are some place in the middle.
My suggestion is not to lump all ponds into the same pot. It will just drive you crazy. I've read Koiphen for years. Much of the info they provide can be useful in other types of ponds. But I only learn what they're doing, I don't think it's the only way. I've also read Wildlife Pond forums for years, lots to learn. That doesn't mean I think every pond should have chicken manure added at start up. But I do learn how a pond reacts to that which helps my understanding of other types of ponds. Take data were you can find it.
If you first decide on the basic type of pond you want and then find a place that discusses that type of pond it will be a lot less to deal with.
To answer your question directly, a garden pond doesn't have to have a bottom drain or skimmer. My guess is 95% don't have a bottom drain, most that do aren't very effective. My guess is 80-90% don't have a skimmer. Talking backyard Water Garden, plants, Goldfish, maybe a couple of Koi type pond, probably a garden gnome.
I ran several ponds for years without either BD or skimmer. Ran ponds with just a skimmer and ponds with BD and skimmer.
I do like a skimmer. The install effort, cost (100% DIY for me), complexity and maintenance makes sense for my goals. I don't mind floating leaves on the surface, but when the light is right the water surface can look dull and dusty, and that's what it is, dust laying on the water, too light to break the surface tension. Skimmer keeps the surface pretty dust free. So to me a skimmer is normally worth it of a pond isn't too small.
Bottom drains are a big complex system when designed to work well. When you amortize the install time for a BD system over say 20 years I don't think you'd be saving any actual time. You just paid more up front. There is also continuous cleaning of BD filters and maintenance. Compare all that to say vacuuming 2 or 3 times a year, I don't think there's any comparison, BD are not time savers.
Now there are lots of people with BD systems who allow crap to accumulate in a settling tank or some other filter that only gets cleaned once a week or every few weeks. They say it's easy. Well yeah. If fish poo and dead algae is allowed to sit in a filter in the water column it's still in the pond, decomposing. Takes less than a week for fish poo to decompose so most of it is suspended in the water. They dump their filter and see a lot of dirty water and think wow this thing is working great, but really, most of the waste is still in the pond. So to me a poor BD system is the worst of both worlds.
The most I ever went without cleaning a pond that had no skimmer, BD or pump was 5 years. That pond was under a huge dying Oak tree. OK, that was a huge mess to clean. Probably 20 bushels worth of muck (does anyone even know what a bushel is any more?) remove. Bent a swimming pool pole lifting a net full out. Foul as foul could be. Fish loved it. Lots of bugs to catch and eat as I was cleaning. In that worst case I probably spent 8 hours total in 5 years. Later I vacuumed 2-3 times a year, about 1 hr per session. Much easier, keeps pond clean.
People with BD systems often think everyone else has to continually clean their ponds with scoops or vacuums or other primitive tools. Sure read that a lot. Don't know why they think that, seems to make them happier about their BD system I guess. But the reality is you don't actually have to continually clean a pond.
Some ponds, very high fish load and heavy feeding, do have to be continually cleaned to keep fish alive. A good BD system is required in that case. That's a different story.
