Mi pawnd rebild tew

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Might as well, everyone else has a thread on their pond rebuild :lol:

I've been getting started on the new bio filters in anticipation of rebuilding my pond this coming Spring. Can't do much digging this time of year, but I can at least have the other stuff built ahead of time.

The full set of pictures will be available from this link, but I'll include a few pictures here to whet the appetite.

First off, the inlet and swirler pipes... I'm going with 2" pipe to reduce the chance of clogging, although 1.5" pipe is sufficient for most applications. The Y at the top includes a cleanout cap (I'm including a lot of "just in case" options this time). I used reducers on either side of the T so the swirler pipes are 1.5". In the final mounting, the T is inside an old plastic flowerpot, so it is suspended off the bottom. I'm going to fill the inside of the pot with spray-foam to prevent debris from getting inside that area, and to help the flower pot hold together over time.
IMG_5540.JPG


Here you can see how the assembly sits inside the 55-gallon barrel. There is a space of 4-5 inches under the swirler pipes for the debris to settle, and I will be adding some plastic light fixture grating to hold up the media.
IMG_5557.JPG


My outlet pipes are a pair of 3" ABS pipes, with threaded pieces forming the coupling through the barrel. A 45 elbow hangs down the inside, which will be drilled full of holes later, and hopefully provide clog-free water flow. The 45 elbows on the outside will be warmed in the oven and spread into a wide narrow outlet to direct the water over the waterfall.
IMG_5552.JPG


A quick shot of both barrels with the pipes in place. My waterfall will be a pile of slate between the two barrels, with a slate wall in front of the barrels. I should have enough water flow that I can direct some water directly over the falls, and some water will trick down the wall.
IMG_5558.JPG


And finally, my drains. These are just standard shower drains, but they had those green strainers nearby, and I thought these would be much more clog-resistant than the original metal grating over the drain. I had to trim about 1/2" off the length of the green strainers, then I was able to tap them all the way into the drain, so the final assembly still sits flush to the bottom of the barrels.
IMG_5560.JPG


That's as far as I've gotten in construction this week. I've been on the lookout for the plastic strapping to make my bio-media bags out of. I've found a 9000-foot roll of 1/2" polypropylene strapping material for $30, but the shipping is another $24. Not sure if I can find a cheaper source, but that's a decent price for a lifetime supply of bio media.
 
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OK so I'm impatient... I decided to hook up one of the filters to my old pump today to get an idea of the flow. The following are from a 3000gph pump, running a 6-foot head. One thing about it, it sure did stir up the water!

IMG_5563.JPG


IMG_5569.JPG


I really can't wait to see how this much water will look going over a slate waterfall!
 

addy1

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Where is the snow! all is white here. It will look nice.
 

j.w

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Good job on your filters and I too noticed no snow in your photo's so had to look up on the net and see what the heck was going on.

No snow and 60 in December? It's a La Niña thing
MATT STEINER
2010-12-08 16:00:07


Last year on Dec. 8, the Colorado Springs area was in a deep freeze.

Most of the city was blanketed in about 5 inches of snow, winds gusted above 30 mph and the single-digit temperatures kept the few brave souls who ventured out shivering in the icy blasts.

This year, it’s a different story. The temperature Wednesday was expected to be near the record for the day of 65 degrees set in 1970 and the only blanket of snow in sight was above tree line on Pikes Peak.

It’s all in the difference between El Niño and La Niña, the opposite extremes in the naturally occurring cooling and warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean off South America’s west coast. Last year was an El Niño, while this year La Niña is in ascendance.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Colorado is caught between those extremes:

El Niño, the warming of the tropical waters, typically produces drier and warmer winters in the Northwest and Northern Rockies. El Niño typically brings early and heavy snow to the Southwest and colder winters.

La Niña, the cooling of the tropical Pacific, causes mostly the opposite effects of El Niño. La Niña causes above average precipitation across the northern Midwest, the Northern Rockies, Northern California, and in the Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile, there is below average precipitation in the Southwest and Southeast.

La Niña’s effects tends to be the more predictable of the two, and this year has been no exception, said Nolan Doesken, Colorado’s state climatologist.

“Warmer than average has been dominating our conditions since the fall,” Doesken said. “We’re still in the first few months, so we don’t know how long it will persist.”

Doesken said at this time last year, the Pacific was in the tail end of an El Niño cycle, causing temperatures in Colorado Springs in December to be about 6 degrees below normal. This year, because of La Niña, temperatures this month have been about 7 degrees higher than normal, he said.

Whereas El Niño brought early snowstorms to the region, La Niña has kept rain and snow away. Colorado Springs set a record for days without snow this fall and the past three months have been off nearly an inch and a half from normal precipitation.

It’s not all bad news for the state, though, because Doesken doesn’t expect the dry conditions here to affect the mountain snowpack that determines whether Colorado’s reservoirs are full.

“Most of the mountains have been getting good snow,” he said, noting heavy snows that have blasted ski areas in Summit County and in the north near Steamboat Springs. “So it hasn’t been a grave concern yet.”
 
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Yeah that's pretty typical around here... we get snow and sub-zero weather in December, then we get a heat wave in January. Makes it real hard to let the fish hibernate for the season when the water temp is back over 40 degrees again. Its funny that an article would be done on our extremes and treat it like its something new. I've lived in Colorado since 1983, and most years this is typical weather.

Of course, that's over now... Temps will start dropping tomorrow, and the high for Tuesday will only be 2F. At least I got a lot of prep-work done.
 

addy1

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prep work helps........... You will be ready to go for it when the weather allows.
 
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Well the weather sure changes in a hurry around here! That barrel I had running just a couple weeks ago is now a solid block of ice, with some snow melting off the street, and more snow on its way tonight. Wheee!

So today I received delivery of a roll of 9000 feet of plastic strapping. Ran up to the dollar store and picked up some mesh laundry bags, and started stuffing them tonight. It looks like each bag will have roughly 1000 feet of strapping, and I'll be doing three bags in each barrel. That is making for quite a bundle of biological media, plus I'm planning on pre-seeding it from my existing pond.

I still need to get a plastic shelf cut for the media to sit on, and start collecting some scrubbie-pads to polish the water. This will be a new experience for me, having a filter that I can easily pull apart and clean out. My current filter uses lava rock, and needless to say, its not something you just pull apart for a Spring cleaning!
 
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Well, some bad news today... My new pumps were delivered, I opened them up, and they're both trashed! The shipping boxes are all in good shape, but there was hardly any foam inside the boxes (which looked like they were still sealed from Laguna), so I think the boxes must have been tossed around during shipping.

I've got one where the impeller housing was stripped off the motor and the other has a 2" piece busted out of the cage. Both of them have broken screw-tabs, broken standoffs inside the cages, and any pieces still intact inside the cages look like they've been stressed from the motors banging around. There's not enough usable pieces to even make one good pump.

Unfortunately I missed their customer-service hours, so I'll have to call tomorrow, but I took some pictures of what I found. It's just really disappointing as I was hoping to get at least one of the new filters running and try to pre-seed the bacteria.
 

addy1

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That sucks. Ask them to send at least one right away, so you don't have to wait for yours to get back there and new ones sent.
 
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Well, I'm still a couple months out from digging, so nothing critical yet... I don't have fish gasping for clean water. However I do intend to complain if they try to stick me with shipping charges for any of this.

I agree they should have been packed better, but this actually looks like it may be the fault of Laguna. There were only a couple pieces of styrofoam inside the original boxes, nothing which actually held the pumps firmly in place. There was a piece on one side of the box, and a second piece over the top of the pump. I've never seen such a poor job of packaging. Laguna would have been better off if they'd filled the box full of styrofoam peanuts, at least the pumps wouldn't have been able to bounce around like they did.

Other than this, they look like pretty decent pumps. I really like the quick-disconnect on the 1.5" connector - that will come in handy for maintenance. And while I'm waiting for replacement pumps, I now know what sort of fittings I need, so I can finish buying the rest of the pipe and hoses.
 

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That is good shdwdrgn, always great if you have time and it is not a crisis. lol
 
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OK, now I really like these guys! I just got a phone call, they are shipping me two new pumps today, and told me to hang on to the broken ones while they decide if they are going to have them picked up. There wasn't even a question about shipping costs. Why can't more online stores be like this?
 

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