Compact skimmers?

[EricV]

While planning out a pond, skimmers seem to me to be huge beasts. The 2' x 2' x 2' ones seem really big compared to a pond of 200 sq. ft. or less. Add that to the fact that I want to place a skimmer between a pond and the house and it looks like I need to leave about 3' to include all the plumbing.

Are there skimmers that are well sized for this sort of pond that aren't enormous? I've found things like the Atlantic Oasis and Easy Pro Mini that seem to fit the bill and look to be about 19" front to back. Anything else I should look at?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Those 2 are about all that you will find. Any smaller skimmer will not handle a high enough flow rate to produce adequate skimming action.

 

[DrellDrell]

I have the Savio Skimmer Filter with the 8.5" weir door (no the compact skimmer version). It is good in my opinion. Several people here recommend it as well. It skims the water very well.

The hole is not too big at roughly 2' square and about 20" deep - with the exception of the front section that you have to cutout. The instructions are very good. I have the skimmer filter plumbed to a Laguna 16" water fall that you can be very creative with placement and height. You will need a water pump that is at least 2,000 GPH based on the size of the waterfall assuming you want a rather full waterfall effect. As you may know, the waterfall height may impact the size of the water pump. I paid about $800 for the skimmer filter, waterfall, and water pump.

 

[Dave 54]

They do floating water skimmers , we use an old inflow pipe that was made redundant and connected it up to the drain .
Because our pond is free standin Depthg 4.5 ft.
So halfway down the redundant inflow pipe we added a ball valve and can skim the pond when needed simply by opening the ball valve so that water flows out to drain, you can also control the speed of the flow by ajusting the ball valve.
We normally skim the surface after heavy or simply prolonged rain thus anything on the surface gets grawwn towards the pipe then off to waste
Our pond is a retro-fitted former koi business QT pond converted to a wood clad free standing pond with filter housing .
Not bad for thinking outside the box eh , the pond is 4.5 ft D. , 7 ft Dia, and 21ft Circ.



Dave

 

[EricV]

Those 2 are about all that you will find. Any smaller skimmer will not handle a high enough flow rate to produce adequate skimming action.

So is your suggestion to just not worry about it and get a "regular" sized skimmer? I want to do an overflow, so that would be out the back with a 90 degree elbow to send the water where I needed it, so that's probably the limiting factor of how close I could put something to the house.

 

[Tula]

I love my regular sized Savio skimmer!