Can I get away with a 2" Bottom Drain, 5 Gallon Bucket? < 500 Gallon Pond

[Miami Al]

3” and 4” are only stocked in DMV lff
The shelf here, not Schedule 40... really shouldn’t matter... but...

 

[Miami Al]

As I'm kicking around plans and starting to dig tonight, I did have a thought.

My current place is basically the "Conventional" Koi Pond approach (skimmer + bottom drain, gravity fed into a tank, piped to a biofilter and return) plus a standard "Bog Filter" with a pump in the pond pumping up to the bottom fed bog then returning to pond.

The spillovers are obviously purely decorative - they aerate but don't change the main system.

My thought this morning was: what if I don't tie the Skimmer and the Bottom Drain together.

Filter 1:
Bottom Drain -> Settlement Tank ==pump==> Biofilter Urn

Filter 2:
Skimmer ==pump==> Bog Filter

In that scenario the Skimmer and Bottom Drain are the only things that pull water out. Each of them has a dedicated pump and return. Each can be sized to be sufficiently powerful to run the pond if/when the other pump fails. Add an Air Pump to the bottom drain and there is plenty of aeration.

The only difference with this is NOT having a pump "sitting" in the pond. Visually, it moves all plumbing outside of the pond. It should mean that cleanup takes place outside the pond.

Is there a downside to the bottom drain and skimmer not being connected?

 

[combatwombat]

Is there a downside to the bottom drain and skimmer not being connected?

No downside I can see besides making plumbing a bit more complicated.

 

[Miami Al]

No downside I can see besides making plumbing a bit more complicated.

It actually make the install simpler. Because otherwise I am trenching for an 8 foot run to connect them.

 

[Miami Al]

So been plumbing the bog containers - going well. My pool skimmer options will all be here this weekend, so I get to decide if I want to Tee Connect the bottom drain and skimmer (pool style) or run them each as their own system.

if I don’t love my options with the pool skimmers, back to Amazon they go and I order a small pond skimmer for the install.

i expect to have this built out in the next two weeks or so! Super excited!

 

[Miami Al]

Construction started! My wife’s cousin came over and we dug and installed piping.

Did hit a small snag,, the pipe that is to run to the predicted bucket is above the water line - and I don’t want to count on a perfect vacuum to pull water, so now I have to raise the pond level at least 3 inches.

I am thinking of removing the old concrete, and adding a 2x10 shelf for supporting the travertine and a 4x4 “edge” of the pond,
Which should raise things about 5 inches.

That will mean raising the skimmer, but will give me some extra depth for fish and a more powerful look.

We modified a pool skimmer with a uniseal to have a 3” pipe.

mutter irony, pretty sure if we did 2” piping and bottom drain none of this would be an issue, 3” stuff is huge.

 

[GBBUDD]

I was going to say what in the world has building shortages pushed to 3 inch pvc . If that was the case building would come to a hault

 

[mgmine]

I haven't read all the comments but what you are planning won't work. Any pump you buy will overtake the water in the 5 gallon bucket (unless you buy something that pumps 5 gallon a minute). Invest in a built-in skimmer instead of a floating one and put your pump in the skimmer. If you want a prefilter then put some batting in the skimmer.

 

[Miami Al]

I haven't read all the comments but what you are planning won't work. Any pump you buy will overtake the water in the 5 gallon bucket (unless you buy something that pumps 5 gallon a minute). Invest in a built-in skimmer instead of a floating one and put your pump in the skimmer. If you want a prefilter then put some batting in the skimmer.

That is my concern. It's a 7 Gallon Bucket. It is fed by a 3" pipe, With the air tightness it should be able to pull the water in. If it isn't I'll need something much bigger than 7 gallon.

My planned Pump is the EcoPlus 590 GPH Pump. With the output elevated about 2' it has a theoretical capacity of 400 GPH, which is 6.67 GPM, at 3' it drops to 317 GPH or 5.25 GPM.

The skimmer should provide most of the flow (dropping down), with the bottom drain suctioning a little but but mostly when skimmer is clogged. (Consequence of my 3" everywhere decision. If I had run the 2" off to the skimmer as originally planned, I'd always have bottom drain running).

 

[Miami Al]

Made some progress over holiday weekend. I decided to split the skimmer and bottom drain, each will run it’s own settlement bucket and pump, bottom drain will have a ore filter mechanica filter, while skimmer will count on backer to serve that role.

Measuring carefully to make certain the buckets are above top of waterline to avoid flooding them out.

4x4 gives pool somedefinition.

 

[Miami Al]

Plumbing and electric done…

 

[Miami Al]

Water going into the pond

 

[Miami Al]

So sad news in pond land. The bog on the left of the picture (pond right), has a leak, and I don't have time to debug it. I moved all the plants to the other bogs, since I am heading out of town for a week. However, the water into them was flowing too fast, so I added a Ball Valve and a return (with no filtration) to the end of the line. Now I can control the flow.

Engineering notes:
My 2000 LPH / 530 GPH does not suck the buckets dry, they are filled to the brim via the gravity fed 3" pipes. Something is weird with the bottom drain to urn flow, it doesn't have that much water coming through. I am guessing the flex pvc is bending at too much of an angle. I feel I should replace the union with a PVC with 90s instead of flex and see if that helps.

We'll see when I get back.

Either way, pretty happy, I'll be tweaking and repairing for a few weeks/months to get it right, but it's a nice upgrade from my old pond. Bottom drain install was scary but relatively easy. I really like the lack of pipes in the pond. With excess flow to the bogs, beyond what gravity can push out of my silly faucet spillovers, I think I can add 2 spitters to the pond, which makes me happy. Need to find those dragons.

 

[Miami Al]

So a couple of learning experiences. 3" PVC is really annoying, 2" is much easier to work with. Given the low flow of my small pond, 2" would have been plenty. My modified skimmer works, but I would have trusted the industry MPT connector more than my uniseal, and there is limited motion with the smaller motor. The decision for 3" made build MUCH harder (2" uses a larger ratchet cutter, 3" requires a reciprocating saw). What's done is done, the flow is fine.

The bog filtration is working great. No fish yet, and only 2/3 bogs running (and needing to adjust flows so it doesn't spill over top, one has a leak I need to silicone), but crystal clear water. Urn + Bog stopped an algae bloom on a new pond! I am pretty certain that we'll be good with the 3 with fish. If I need more I can add more.

I added a relief hose at the end to remove excess water so it doesn't flood the bogs. I'm going to add decorative spitters to replace it.

Pretty happy with this iteration. But the 7 Gallon bucket filters are more than sufficient to manage the water levels for 2000 LPH pumps. The 3" Pipe keeps it fed just fine with gravity.

 

[Laaf]

Those are really classy bogs! I made mine out of a masonry tub and it is now completely covered in aquatic mint and not visible. I also had a smaller outflow from the bog like you do, but it became clogged with roots and sediments and my bog overflows over the top of the container. So I positioned it so the overflow falls into the pond. Just something to keep an eye on if those adorable spigots get clogged with roots your pump could empty your pond over the bogs.