Bottom Drains in Freezing Winters?

[Ewest]

Hello all,

Very new to all this, ive kept fresh and saltwater fish indoors for years and recently bought a house for the first time. Im looking into building a ~10-12,000 gallon koi pond and have a few questions.

First I live in Ohio in the USA and the ground here does freeze in the winter sometimes. I wanna install a bottom drain in my pond but I cannot find good info on what to do with this in the winter? I know you turn all the pumps off to allow the water to stratify into layers. So I assume you have a shutoff valve where the bottom drain goes into the settlement chamber to shut it off. However there will still be water in the pipe, how do you prevent the freezing from destroying the pipes? I plan to go as deep as 5-6 feet so the drain and under pond pipes will be below the frost line, however where it comes up to enter the settlement chamber it will be above the frost line.

Second, I would like vertical walls to the pond right down to around 5 feet in depth. I understand that this requires some more reinforcement then just digging the hole. I have seen one way where you pour a concrete ring around the top of the pond to reinforce the sharp transition from level ground to vertical. Any advice on construction methods taking into around that the ground here freezes.

Thanks!

 

[j.w]

@Ewest

 

[GBBUDD]

Hello all,

Very new to all this, ive kept fresh and saltwater fish indoors for years and recently bought a house for the first time. Im looking into building a ~10-12,000 gallon koi pond and have a few questions.

First I live in Ohio in the USA and the ground here does freeze in the winter sometimes. I wanna install a bottom drain in my pond but I cannot find good info on what to do with this in the winter? I know you turn all the pumps off to allow the water to stratify into layers. So I assume you have a shutoff valve where the bottom drain goes into the settlement chamber to shut it off. However there will still be water in the pipe, how do you prevent the freezing from destroying the pipes? I plan to go as deep as 5-6 feet so the drain and under pond pipes will be below the frost line, however where it comes up to enter the settlement chamber it will be above the frost line.

Second, I would like vertical walls to the pond right down to around 5 feet in depth. I understand that this requires some more reinforcement then just digging the hole. I have seen one way where you pour a concrete ring around the top of the pond to reinforce the sharp transition from level ground to vertical. Any advice on construction methods taking into around that the ground here freezes.


Thanks!

Welcome
The bond beam "concrete Rim " your referring to will help to hold up the rock edging of the pond at the surface but that's all assuming you have good soil....... I was up in ohio a few years back and there was a lot of sand .. weak soils that a bond beam would probably not be enough. your probably thinking the water will push back against the 5 foot tall wall and it will the problem comes in if that soil gets wet and starts to move. The water will just reshape around the collapse. If you have some stable soils then you may get lucky and be able to do as you described.
if you keep the pump running when it gets real cold you'll not want to disturb the water at the bottom it will be among the warmest in winter. so far I have just opened up the pipe and given the ice somewhere to expand to Up. and it has worked you could blow the line and cap it . or an air stone in the pipe keep it moving . if I had to do it over I would have used and some day will probably replace the pvc that in the first line with flexible pvc Dont go with the reinforced that looks like a vaccine hoose they are cheap. flex pvc is almost smooth and black tough stuff.
I did go to 6 feet with my pond on the vertical wall I had to build a cinder block wall. theres a link below this post in the foster in blue going fo it 12000 gallon koi pond

 

[Lisak1]

Welcome @Ewest !

Just wanted to throw out there - you don't HAVE to have a bottom drain. Purely optional.

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

That is going to be once nice big pond when you are done.

 

[Ewest]

Welcome @Ewest !

Just wanted to throw out there - you don't HAVE to have a bottom drain. Purely optional.

I know I dont have to but I want to keep a number of large koi (kinda the whole point of the pond for me) and ive read its best to have one. I was thinking another option may be the SolidFlow G2 pump from ThePondGuy. It is meant to sit on the bottom and pressure feeds into a huge canister filter. So I would have that as a separate system from the skimmer and falls type filter. That way that is easy to remove for winter. However this means visible tubes (black flexible PVC) in the pond.


Here is the link to the system im talking about, It would be the largest version of this:

The Pond Guy AllClear G2 Pressurized Filtration System

Keep your pond crystal clear with the easy to maintain AllClear G2 filtration system and UV Clarifier, designed exclusively for The Pond Guy.

www.thepondguy.com

 

[WaterGardener]

If you cover your pond in winter with a greenhouse type structure, you don't have to turn anything off. We are in zone 6 and our pond runs all year and we have a bottom drain. Wouldn't have a pond without one.

We do have a cut off value if we want to shut everything down. The valve is below the frost line in a chamber that we built for that purpose. Others blow out the water in their pipes with a shop vac, when shutting down for winter.

We prefer to keep ours running. It keeps the beneficial bacteria alive and the pond doesn't have to start up again in the spring.

 

[Lisak1]

If you cover your pond in winter with a greenhouse type structure,

We run our pond all winter in 5B without any kind of cover. If you build it with that in mind, it's really not necessary to cover the pond.

 

[GBBUDD]

I know I dont have to but I want to keep a number of large koi (kinda the whole point of the pond for me) and ive read its best to have one. I was thinking another option may be the SolidFlow G2 pump from ThePondGuy. It is meant to sit on the bottom and pressure feeds into a huge canister filter. So I would have that as a separate system from the skimmer and falls type filter. That way that is easy to remove for winter. However this means visible tubes (black flexible PVC) in the pond.


Here is the link to the system im talking about, It would be the largest version of this:

The Pond Guy AllClear G2 Pressurized Filtration System

Keep your pond crystal clear with the easy to maintain AllClear G2 filtration system and UV Clarifier, designed exclusively for The Pond Guy.

www.thepondguy.com

I have never read where some replaced a bog filter for a canister but I have seen MANY canisters. beads and sand filters replaced with a bog

 

[Ewest]

I have never read where some replaced a bog filter for a canister but I have seen MANY canisters. beads and sand filters replaced with a bog

Unfortunately Im not sure if I will have room for the proper sized bog

 

[WaterGardener]

I know of several people who have taken out their bogs and replaced them with pressure filters. I guess it's just who you know and what their experiences are.

I always recommend that people go to Koiphen.com to learn about building a pond. They know ponds there and are very willing to help. After all, a lot of those people probably have the most money invested in their fish so they are going to the best they can by them.

 

[Lisak1]

Koiphen.com to learn about building a pond.

Koiphen is great for helping if you're building a dedicated koi pond, but they are very down on eco-ponds. No rock, no gravel, no plants in a DKP. Big on mechanical filtration. They build ponds for koi as opposed to a pond for a garden that includes fish. Neither is right or wrong; just two different goals. Know what your end goal is before you start and you'll be happy.

 

[GBBUDD]

I have never been one for the sterile environment. to me it's like living in the city . walls of concrete stark and cold. they have there place and can be impressive but to me without nature what's the point. She is the ultimate artist

 

[WaterGardener]

No pond is sterile. That's not even possible. If you would get onto the Koiphen site, you might be surprised what you find there.

I was fortunate to find that site when we started building our pond. We would have made many, many errors if I hand't that would have made my pond a maintenance nightmare.

I don't have a koi pond. I have a watergarden/goldfish pond that is easy to care for. You don't have to follow their plans word for word, but they do know what they are talking about and are up on the latest equipment and methods to use to make a pond a pleasure to keep.

 

[addy1]

Mine is a breeze to care for. I can turn it on in the spring, off in the winter and do nothing except that and it does just fine. I have a external pump so can't leave it running over winter. But it makes no difference, in the spring within 2 days the water is crystal clear again.

Never cared for cleaning filters so didn't use them. But others have success with filters.