Cleaning bottom drain cover

[Dewey]

I bought a house with a fountain that I'm converting to a pond. It's concrete and probably 10 years old. It has a bottom drain and an external pump. Somewhere between 1200-2000 gallons. I think it was used as a water feature and not for plants and fish.
The bottom drain is like a 2 inch PVC opening with a pool-like drain cover that just sits on the concrete. The cover has slits to keep stuff out. The cover does not attach so I put a rock on it so it doesn't move.

So it was really windy today. The bottom drain cover has collected bunches of leaves. What do people do to clean them off? Today I turned off the pump and tried getting at them with a net but that wasn't effective because there are many small leaves and most are plastered against the drain cover. I thought about just jumping in and scooping it all up with my hands but that doesn't seem like a good long term solution. Vacuum?

Anyways good times. Thanks!

 

[Dave 54]

Yes a pond vac is the best way forwards for you here repeating the process you've already stated .

rgrds

Dave

 

[JohnHuff]

Looks like the bottom drain has some inherent problems.

1) If the drain is uncovered so that debris like leaves can be sucked into it and removed when it enters the settling tank, then fish may also be sucked into it.

2) If the drain is covered to prevent fish from getting into it, then debris like leaves can cover it and needs to be manually removed.

A better and cheaper solution might be a sloping pond to one side where the pump is. The pump is a little off the bottom. When the area at the deepest part of the pond is full of debris, then it all can be suctioned up. The advantages are that you don't need to be in the middle of the pond to clean this and you won't have to dig a channel under the pond and put pipes there. If the pipe leaks or fails, there won't be a major expense.

 

[Dave 54]

Jonh I can see no problems inherent with the bottom drain or cover my friend basically one knows when leaves are going to fall so like ourselves why not use a net , thus catching them all prior to them falling into the pond the finer the net the more the catch ours as you know stay's above our pond 24/7 365 days of the year and is kept taught accross the pond by use of bungee straps one going across the center of the pond the other around the pond thus nothing is going to get in .
Yes at 6 mm hexagonal you may say it stops you veiwing your pond but this is infact untrue we end up with a net that is both preditor proof and debris proof .
In any pond or tank a sick fish will be drawn onto the in pipe to any mechanical filter but one keeps a weather eye out for any sick fish removing them to a QT setup before it gets to that and any normal fish be it koi, goldfish or whatever species will swim above then drain with no problem.
As to leaks these pipes last one hell of a time and will probably outlast a persons hobby i;e lifetime the ppe never see's the damaging U'V rays of the sun , is supported by sand or fine gravel so isnt prone to any movement plus not onl is the pipe siliconed to the underside of the pond it is also screwed to the bottom of the pond for good measure.
So like everything if you think hings through properly in the first instance then it doesnt have to be a problem.
Just to prove you can see through a 6 mm hexagonal net see attachment :-




rgrds

Dave

 

[Dewey]

Thank you for your comments. Any recommendation on a pond vacuum? I see ones that attach to a garden hose but some people seem to complain about the suction power.

Thanks again

 

[Dave 54]

One of our forum members did a thread about how he made a pond vac but I cant remember who or what the thread is called ?
If you want to uy one however take a look around a few koi websites they always advertize them .

rgrds

Dave

 

[HARO]

It was Waterbug. Check out his website, Waterbug Design, I believe.
John

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Looks like the bottom drain has some inherent problems.

1) If the drain is uncovered so that debris like leaves can be sucked into it and removed when it enters the settling tank, then fish may also be sucked into it.

2) If the drain is covered to prevent fish from getting into it, then debris like leaves can cover it and needs to be manually removed.

A better and cheaper solution might be a sloping pond to one side where the pump is. The pump is a little off the bottom. When the area at the deepest part of the pond is full of debris, then it all can be suctioned up. The advantages are that you don't need to be in the middle of the pond to clean this and you won't have to dig a channel under the pond and put pipes there. If the pipe leaks or fails, there won't be a major expense.

Bottom drains generally have some sort of dome over them which only allows water to flow in a narrow space around the sides of the cover at the very bottom of the pond. There is no doubt small fish can get sucked into this space, but large fish simply can't fit. The fact that smaller fish (and other critters) can fit through the drain is one reason I prefer the bottom drain gravity feeds to some sort of settlement chamber rather then to a pump, or even a sieve. A properly designed settlement chamber will capture and hold the fish without doing any harm to them, where they can remain until you net them out at you leisure.
In my case, I have a lot of smaller fish in my pond, and almost always have one or two fish in my settlement tank at any given time. With the approaching winter and colder water temps the fish start spending more time down near the bottom of the pond and I get even more fish in my settlement tank, currently I also have a frog in there. It won't be long before I turn off the main waterfall pump and with the reduced water flow going through the bottom drain I hope there will be less a tendency for them to get sucked through the drain. Once the pond is covered in ice I won't have the option of returning them to the pond anymore, and they'll have to live out the winter in the settlement tank.

A 2" bottom drain for a ponds is usually not recommend for the reason you mentioned, it's just too small to allow free flow of most leaves and debris. 3", or better yet 4", bottom drains for ponds are more the norm and you generally don't have those kinds of problems.

 

[JohnHuff]

Totally agree with you there. My old pump used to have the odd fish sucked into it. My skimmer used to have fish drawn into it. What I have now is a very diffused intake over a very large area (4 prefilters) so that the suction is dispersed. The 2 advantages of this are that it's a long time before I need to clean the prefilters (because of the large surface area) and fish don't get sucked into it. I do see the advantages of a large settling tank and that's the way I'd do it.

Back to OP's question. For me, I just use a Sear's wetdry vac, but I have a small pond, just 800g and I can reach all the pond from around the edge.