how deep before needing a bottom drain

[Nova]

We are about to build a house, in the woods. I want to have a pond next to the house, but we have a full array of wildlife. The owl problem we had with our current pond was fixed my simply placing a fake owl in the area around the pond. On the new lot, I think raccoons may be my biggest problem. Would a 4 foot deep pond keep raccoons from stealing the fish? The walls of the pond will be straight down and the pond would be about 9 x 14 feet and 4 feet deep. I don't want to do a bottom drain if I don't have to only because of the added work but I could be wrong.

I would like to build a small upper pond to grow water lily and lotus that would flow down a waterfall to the larger pond. Any suggestions.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

We are about to build a house, in the woods. I want to have a pond next to the house, but we have a full array of wildlife. The owl problem we had with our current pond was fixed my simply placing a fake owl in the area around the pond. On the new lot, I think raccoons may be my biggest problem. Would a 4 foot deep pond keep raccoons from stealing the fish? The walls of the pond will be straight down and the pond would be about 9 x 14 feet and 4 feet deep. I don't want to do a bottom drain if I don't have to only because of the added work but I could be wrong.

I would like to build a small upper pond to grow water lily and lotus that would flow down a waterfall to the larger pond. Any suggestions.

A bottom drain may be installed in any depth pond, but is not a real requirement on any pond.
Raccoons are only a problem in ponds that have shallow areas. Raccoons will not swim to catch a fish.

 

[koiguy1969]

or overly socializing your fish... I had koi that would swim right up to our dogs.so a smaller raccoon may be even likelier. have a feeling one was lost to a heron because of being overly socialized.

 

[sissy]

I don't have a bottom drain only because to me if you don't do it right you have a liner with a hole in the bottom .My pond is around 4 ft deep .It would be great in a way to have a bottom drain to pick up fish waste .But my swimming pool net works OK for that .Plus a couple of years ago we had an earthquake and I saw the effects of it to one side of my pond.

 

[addy1]

My pond is 5.5 feet deep it does fine without a bottom drain. I just net any collected muck off the bottom, which is never a lot, after a summer maybe a 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket.

 

[sissy]

Well I should not bring up earthquake there was a 2.5 magnitude one 25 miles out side of Richmond VA

 

[DrCase]

im going to add a bottum drain to a small pond i am working on this spring

 

[Nova]

DrCase, why are you going to add a bottom drain? It makes me nervous cutting a hole in the bottom of the liner.

 

[DrCase]

It took me a while to warm up to their usefulness
I just want to make a cleaner pond this time around
I will be adding a retro bottom drain through the wall of the pond I have right next to it at the same time

 

[Nova]

Another question. Is it better to get a liner long enough to cover pond and waterfall or could you get two liners as long as they over lap?

 

[addy1]

My waterfalls are separate liner from the pond, mainly because they were added as additional ponds after the build of the first pond. They have never caused me any issues. The main thing is to have the liner wide enough to control the splash, water flow coming down the water fall.

 

[DrCase]

If I used 2 pieces
I would want my pond liner to go up the face of the water fall at least 1ft.
Then let the water fall liner go over it and down to the pond

 

[slick]

Hi my pond is over 5 feet deep straight sides no shallow end I have a bottom drain, in the uk it is the unwritten lay to have a bottom drain in a koi pond!
If not your building a toilet you can't flush I would never build a koi pond without one but that is just my point of veiw,
after living with one I love it all the waste ends up in one of your filter bays which is easily flushed a pond pump will never remove old leaves from a pond bottom,
from start to finish it takes me 20 minutes to flush the bottom drain and filter boxes I don't even get my feet wet

 

[slick]

Ps with a bottom drain it's all a matter of physics, as your pond fills your filter boxes you pump empties your filters and fills your pond (it works backwards)
So the top of your filters need to be just higher than your pond water at full water level if that makes sense

 

[sissy]

I used 2 pieces also .To me it is easier with 2 pieces than one piece and my first piece also goes up to the waterfall filter .If I had not been so tired from digger I would have made my pond a little longer .Size says 5000 gallons but 3 snow storms added to water I put in .The gallon meter was at 4400 gallons .Still keep thinking it is less