My 5,000 Gal Pond Build In Photos

[koikeepr]

During the last 3 days we have been focusing on the web of plumbing pipe and putting everything together. Gosh, pond plumbing does take time to do right. One word of advice is dry fit everything first and glue everything at the end.

Nothing massive to report, but here's some photos on the progress:

Here is the 150g stock tank up on 3 rows of blocks. I've had to raise it this high for several reasons. 1) I need it to gravity flow down to my waterfall, so it needs to be higher than the falls; and 2) I need to be able to get access to that space under my screen porch, so wanted the pipe to fall above that opening and not block it. Tomorrow I will post a separate thread on plumbing the stock tank, as we're nearly done with it.

Here is my pump sitting on two blocks and a piece of liner to prevent flooding in event of a heavy rain. The ground slopes downward to where I will have a sump pit to catch any rain that comes in. The pump is not yet plumbed on the uppper outlet side. You can see my clear checkvalve waiting to be mated to a piece of PVC. I will line the sides of this area with some 2" high roof flashing when we're done and put some 1" gravel on the ground to keep everything neat. You can see the Ultra Sieve on the right.

Here's the Ultra Sieve in all her glory (I named her Betty). LOL! On the right side of the photo on the bottom, that wye fitting connects both my 3" aerated BD's into the 4" mouth of the sieve. I just used a rubber fernco coupler fitting to upsize from 3" to 4". Plus it gives me a way to remove the sieve should I need to. We used lots of rubber fittings on every line, so everything can be dismantled for any reason.

 

[koikeepr]

Here is the web of piping hidden under my screen porch. It's all resting on a 2x4 brace because it's darn heavy. I build a manifold of 6 pipes with a ball valve on each so I can manage flow. 1 goes to the waterfall, 1 goes to the UV and then out a TPR, 2 go to the other two TPR's, and the remaining two go to my two spitters on the back wall. I've got metal straps hanging from the floor joists to hold up the pipes

Today, I figure we've got about 2 hours left of gluing and cutting to do. We can then start moving dirt back in place. I need to use some waterfall foam to seal in my waterfall weir and some P&L roofing and flashing sealant around the exterior mouth. I've got to label all my pipes so I can remember what goes where, etc.

Maybe I can start filling on Saturday.

 

[DoDad]

Looks great.
Did you install valves on the BD's to control flow to even it out?

 

[Stouty109]

Umm wow. That's a lot of plumbing, looking good tho

 

[DrDave]

You might want to share the schematic of the piping for others who may wish to go this way.

 

[Airic]

I think you're just running pipes all over the place just to confuse us.

 

[koikeepr]

Looks great.
Did you install valves on the BD's to control flow to even it out?

yep! I've got ball valves on every single pipe there is!

 

[koikeepr]

You might want to share the schematic of the piping for others who may wish to go this way.

Good idea. I will try to see if I can draw it up. That should be interesting if I can swing it.

 

[DrCase]

Its looking real good there Koikeepr

 

[DrDave]

It will help you down the road. I did the same for my irrigation system here. Knowing which solenoid valve is powering almost 300 heads is nice to know.

 

[koikeepr]

I have a little drawing in a notebook that I've followed as a map, but it's certainly not postable here. I'll have to make it prettier.

 

[nigil]

That looks both complicated as well as amazing! Great build!

 

[koikeepr]

It was actually not complicated at all. Very straight forward. From the stock tank, I've just got 6 lines going out to each water feature. Easy peasy!

 

[koikeepr]

Had no help today, so took on some tasks I could do myself. It's 90 degrees today, so working in the pond was a scorcher on that black hot rubber. Ooph!

I painted the slate tile with a wet look sealer to bring out the colors in the slate. The stuff is milky colored and then dries clear. The top of my capstones took the sealer well, but the cut sides did not for some reason. It just doesn't look wet, looks the same light grey. No big deal. I also painted up the back board on my porch.

All my plumbing is now all connected. Just the waste pipe from the sieve and the overflow on the skimmer and not quite done yet.

Here's the connections to the sieve. You can see the ball valves from the BD's on the ground, and the ball valve coming from the skimmer. The little 3/4" pipe with the small ball valve is one of the air pipes from the BD aerator. The 3 pipes you see with flex hose lead to each one of the TPR's. In the lower part of the bucket, you can see the green sump bucket I buried in case it rains heavily. The flex pipe in there will just be the waste from the sieve.

 

[koikeepr]

Here is the skimmer. On the right, that is the overflow that I will connect downward to drain across the ground in case of an emergency.

Here's my Medo LA-80 air pump sitting on an old metal drum for now. This will power the two aerators on my 3" BD's. It's a little bit of a messy work site at the moment. This pump has a red light and screaming alarm if the air pressure should drop dramatically. It also has an off/off switch.

I've got the pump fully set up now. I had to push the pipe a few inches into the ground because it needs to cross in front of the opening under the screen porch as I mentioned yesterday.