Decent Skimmer

[bagsmom]

What a beautiful gem of a pond!
My approach was different but not sure yet if it will work as I'm new to this. Simplicity above all,
no plumbing , no moving parts machinery of any kind in the pond except the one main pump,
Gravitation only. And no boulders either - only stones/ rocks I can move with my own hands,
hopefully without breaking my back, Again - your pond does look awesome with these boulders,
love the stairs leading to it, A masterpiece.

Thank you! It was my 50 year old birthday present to myself and I saved for well over a year to do it. I dug and built it myself, too. Again, kind of my "mountain climb" or 10k run that people do before heading down the other side of 50. My husband helped me move the two biggest boulders and we dug the trench for the electrical stuff together. I ended up with tennis elbow but it was still a lot of fun. (Fun for someone who likes to dig and really wants a pond, anyway!) I am looking forward to seeing your pond too! Having any kind of water feature around is so much fun and is so peaceful, too!
Thanks, Saugeye Tom! Your pond is really nice! Is it just me, or does that fish in your ID picture look like a little pig? It's cute!

 

[mgmine]

Really? Don't they do a better job on the bottom of the pond?

One thing to keep in mind is that the skimmer has a bag and when the bag gets full or even just clogged it can starve the pump of water because the pump sits behind the bag. This has happened to me several times but I have an automatic water filler so it didn't matter, the pump never ran dry. The downside is that the pond overflows because the auto filler thinks the pond is low. Having the pump outside the skimmer would eliminate the problem but it wouldn't look as nice and the skimmer wouldn't work as well.

 

[Jhn]

If you are worried about low water in the skimmer, you can add a low water shut off switch to the pump easily.

 

[saugeye tom]

Thank you! It was my 50 year old birthday present to myself and I saved for well over a year to do it. I dug and built it myself, too. Again, kind of my "mountain climb" or 10k run that people do before heading down the other side of 50. My husband helped me move the two biggest boulders and we dug the trench for the electrical stuff together. I ended up with tennis elbow but it was still a lot of fun. (Fun for someone who likes to dig and really wants a pond, anyway!) I am looking forward to seeing your pond too! Having any kind of water feature around is so much fun and is so peaceful, too!
Thanks, Saugeye Tom! Your pond is really nice! Is it just me, or does that fish in your ID picture look like a little pig? It's cute!

Hognose sucker...in all the rivers around ohio

 

[saugeye tom]

 

[pinonponder]

I only have koi, but they stir things up pretty well and stuff enters the water column and gets filtered out. I have a long poled pool net I use to occasionally scoop the deepest parts of my pond.

Only my opinion, but I wouldn't sleep well, thinking about my pond draining completely

I share your sentiments.

Angela, I think a skimmer is a great idea! My pond is aprox 2800 gallons and I have an Atlantic skimmer with a 9" weir. It's been in use in this pond for 6 years and in my previous pond for 2 years, and works really well. It is on the opposite side of the waterfall. The pump sits inside, behind two Matala filter pads, one green, one blue. I recently replaced the pump, a Laguna Max-flo 4200. After almost continuous use, it wore out. I bought another Laguna Max-flo, the 4280, and couldn't be happier. It is whisper quiet. The plumbing is underground from the skimmer to the waterfall. I can't be much help on installing the plumbing because I didn't help with that part of my pond but I know the wasband used black pvc pipe, I think 2 or 3 inch diameter. I can measure if that helps you.