Installing bottom drain with air diffuser. Anyone done one?

[texmaster]

If I decide to do this for my next pond do you still need a skimmer? I'd prefer to go straight to a pressurized filer (pump first of course) but if I still need a skimmer I'll mark it as a necessity.

Do you have to put the drain in concrete for stability?

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Dave 54]

Our bottom drain is embedded in nothing other than fine gravel like sand nothing else it doesnt move plus the weight of the pond doesnt crush it. see photo bellow :-
My friend Lee had great difficulty with his done in concrete.........

View attachment bottom drain in.bmp



rgrds


Dave

 

[whiskey]

done ours in concrete

 

[texmaster]

Great news it doesn't have to be in concrete


What filtration do you guys use and how big are your ponds?

 

[Dave 54]

Mine is a 1,000 gallon former koi business QT pond retro fitted in our yard , the filters are designed to take a uge amount of koi for months at a time ,
The filters are 32" vortex style filters of which there are three, one acts as a vortex the next has huge sheets of Jap matting sown together in a portcullis style allowing for movemebt of water through them on the top of this is a huge bag of zeolite and sponges.
The nest is the same as the second differing only in two things a sack of Lythaqua and Quilt batting as you guys call it, th fourth filter is a barrel filter filled with K1 and Aquaone bio balls giving a huge amount of surfaces for helpful bacteria to grow on .
I run two Airtec 40e's air pumps one pump supplies the spindrifter bubbler in the pond via a 2" pipe tapped into the 4" bottom drain.
The other supplies air to my filtration with no airstones in the vortex three each in the Jap Matting filters and six in the bio filter producing a massive amount of movement within the filter, the water then gets reduced into a 2" pipe going through our Oase 3,800 inline pump and then through a new generation Aqua pond 36 watt U/V-C unit before being passed back through the pond wall mid way down the side.
The Pondis 4 ft deep 7ft across and about 22 feet in diameter.
The pond is clad in two sheets of 22mm Polystyrene sheets Silver sided bubble wrap and recycled plastic loft insulation which is clad in decking , the Filter house is totally covered wall wise with 22mm polystyrene sheets clad in decking and is double glazed .
We placed a 800 wat oil heated radiator on its lowest setting to heat the filter housing and this in turn warms the water which returns to the pond at ( looking at our remote 13.8c) the great thing about the radiator is when it gets up to heat it switches off then for the next six hours the oil cools to the lowest setting which switches it on again etc etc you get what I'm saying, it is also a darn sight cheaper than those inline 1,000 watt heaters


rgrds

Dave

 

[texmaster]

Wow! Nice setup Dave!

 

[Dave 54]

Thanx much appreciated however it has its problems like with the doubleglazing is bowing in, use too much wieght and they crack, :sad:
My nieghbour Bill who used to work in the building trade brought me in 11 sheets of Polycarbonate which we should be able to replace the glass with solving that little problem. having enough left over to cover both the pond and our QT unit with during the winter months.
The other problem one we cant cure is the siting of the slide valves ( they are all in the wrong place as we are working in a different foot print than how it was set up ( thats been solved by a broom stick with an eye on one end) to hook onto the slide valve.
Forgot to mention all the filters are linked together and the pipe goes straight to drain, we also had a problem with the siting of the old in pipe( we used half a bottom drain cover with holes drlled into it ) the pipe again goes direct to drain and is now the ponds over flow.( it also acts as a skimmer)......

We like to keep our water ice fee hence all the covers perhaps an idea for your good self ?
The koi have been quite normally getting on with their lives all winter long the only reduction being their food which is a mix of wheatgerm garlic and a prebiotic food made by pond care called nutri pearl, the garlic is to help against any parasite attacks, it apears they dont like the taste of it. :ugh:
The QT unit is a self contained unit made out of fibreglass it has its own slide valve and is connected up straight to drain for emptying the unit, it has a filter with jap matting and other filter media.and a 15 watt kockney koi UV sterilizer as of yet we dont know the gallonage until we meter the water in for the firt time but I think its around 450 gallons imperial....it is powered by a Blagdon amphibious 2000 submersable pump .
I'm attaching a photo of the same QT unit but owned by someone else to give you an idea of what they look like. note the venturie air pipe right hand side of filter.... (click on magnifier then photo to enlarge and get a better idea of it.) :-


View attachment Shorham tank.bmp


Note ours is in far better condition than this one



rgrds



Dave

 

[Waterbug]

The concrete is to reduce the risk of settling. Settling can rip the BD from the liner. So if you know you're not going to have any settling you can skip the concrete.

Skimmer and air diffuser are not related so a skimmer would still be a good thing to have imo.

 

[Dave 54]

Dont have that problem with ours waterbug it being a large industrial strength welded plastic circular pond the gravel type sand allowing for the pond itself to settle. into the trench dug for it further sand was then packed into any spaces left allowing for the botom drian to be firmly supported however that cant be done if your using a liner and would have to be gotten right first time around.
The problem with cementing a bottom drain in place is it doesnt allow for any mistakes made whilst building the pond, get things wrong and you'll have a hard job digging the bottom drain up again a thing my friend Lee found with his 14.750 gallon imperial pond.
Our problem whilst building the pond was the footprint it was originally configured for but with alott of forethought planning out of the layout etc we managed to retro fit it without a problem.
However removing the hug sack of alpha grog did cause problems with the original vortex style bio filter when the plastic tried to stretch back to its original shape cauing it to split in a place where it couldnt be fixed.
However the club came to our rescue with a large industrial barrel retro fitted to the third filter in line by two 2" pipes instead of original 4" pipe it works a treat too
.

rgrds


Dave.

 

[Waterbug]

Dont have that problem with ours waterbug it being a large industrial strength welded plastic circular pond the gravel type sand allowing for the pond itself to settle. into the trench dug for it further sand was then packed into any spaces left allowing for the botom drian to be firmly supported however that cant be done if your using a liner and would have to be gotten right first time around.

Right. If you know you're not going to have a settling problem then concrete isn't needed. For most builders concrete is easier (cheaper) and more reliable than trying to compact a base using other materials. Stable base is what's needed, method is optional. However, proper soil compaction is not for inexperienced people imo. Most people I've worked with think any kind of material can be used and that sure isn't true. Concrete on the other hand always does the job, no experience needed.

The problem with cementing a bottom drain in place is it doesnt allow for any mistakes made whilst building the pond, get things wrong and you'll have a hard job digging the bottom drain up again

Was in a thread on Koiphen a couple of days ago where a guy concreted the drain and then tried to add the pipe and got into a bind. He really didn't want to remove the drain, thought busting concrete was hard. But once he tried it found it was pretty easy. One reason concrete is such a great building material is because it is so easy to remove. Couple of tricks to learn, then it's a breeze.

But the proper procedure is not to concrete the drain until after the pipes have been added, glue cured, and pressure tested. Then concrete and add the liner.