Need advice

[omegared11211]

Starting work on a new pond. It's going to be about 3000 gallons. I am looking at two bottom drains.
Now my question is can i wye both drains into one line for one pump or is it better to have one pump per line?

 

[mgmine]

Yes you could do that but it would be better to put the wye after a valve so that you can control the flow of each drain separately. Why do you want a bottom drain?

 

[Lisak1]

@mgmine asked the question I was going to ask - are you sure you want one drain, let alone two?

 

[omegared11211]

Thought through the liner drains were the better way to go. I have found some retro style. Might do that if it is easier and better in the long run.

 

[Lisak1]

The question though is WHY the drain? You know it's perfectly OK to build a pond without one, right? Most ponds with bottom drains are dedicated koi ponds with heavy filtration to allow for heavy stocking with big fish - is that your plan? Or will this be a garden pond with a good balance of plants and fish?

 

[omegared11211]

It's just going to be a run of the mill backyard pond. No breeding/selling just enjoyment.

I'm still in the digging/design please so hence the question. The size will be 12 x 12 x 3. A retro looks to be an easier setup time and care wise

 

[Lisak1]

I don't think you're hearing me - you don't NEED a bottom drain in your pond. No need whatsoever. I mean, do what you want, but you're adding to your cost and complicating your project.

What kind of filtration are you planning?

 

[addy1]

Agree with @Lisak1, I did a retro drain, yanked it right back out, no need, sort of a pita, it sucked in small fish, tads, frogs.
in fact if you want to pay shipping I will send it to you. As long as I can figure out where it is. I think sitting back by the pond in my supply stack.

Mine is around 9-10000 gallons and I have 10 or so other ponds none have a bottom drain, all do great.

 

[poconojoe]

I wonder what submerged leaves would do to a bottom drain? Probably clog things up. I'm constantly netting leaves off the bottom.

 

[bagsmom]

In my opinion, you don't need a drain in the pond floor. If you think you might possibly want a way to do very small partial water change at some point, I would suggest a drain from the bottom of your waterfall, rather than one in the floor of the pond. I have a long pipe in the bottom of the waterfall filter receptacle. The pipe/hose is buried and comes out into my garden, a ways away. There is a gate valve in it. (Pull the handle up, let some water out. Push it down, close it off again.). When I'm doing pond housekeeping, I turn off the pump. As I'm puttering around, the water in the waterfall filter has time to settle. Gunk and crud go down to the bottom. Before I turn the pump on again, I open the gate valve and a bunch of nasty, funky water comes out into the garden, which the plants love. Depending on how I feel at the time, I just let that first bunch of water out. Or, I might let the waterfall receptacle empty completely. This is not a drastic water change, by any means. When I turn the pump back on, I barely notice any difference to the water level. Another nice thing about having this kind of set up is that when we have torrential rains and the pond is really, really full - it's an easy way to let out some excess water. I do this with the pump on. For me, this is all super efficient and a simple way to do the kinds of things I need to do with my pond. It's just a garden pond with a few goldfish - nothing fancy. If you are just in the planning stage, maybe look into this to see if it's something you might be interested in?

 

[bagsmom]

I have a couple of pictures. The close up shows where the bottom pipe comes out. I left a little space in the retaining wall for it to come out. The hose runs around from behind, then back out into the garden. The other picture (with me toiling away) shows the hose in the upper part of the the photo. That point is where we put in the gate valve and then connected more hose to take the water further away. As I continued digging, I used the soil from the pond to build up the hill and cover the waterfall filter and retaining wall. In the last photo, see the little ceramic turtle? If you look up diagonally to the right from him, you can see a rock in front of the Japanese Maple shrub. There is a little black thing sticking up from the pine straw. That is the handle to the gate valve. The hose is buried and actually comes out way off to the right of the bird girl statue.

 

[omegared11211]

Ok so if no bottom drain, retro or in liner, did you just stick a submersible at the bottom?

 

[bagsmom]

I have my pump (submersible) in a skimmer. The skimmer sucks the water in, then feeds it into the waterfall filter. I totally copied The Pond Digger's How To Build a Fish Pond tutorial on YouTube.

 

[omegared11211]

What about the stuff the settles at the bottom

 

[j.w]

I have a long handled net I use for gunk that settles on the bottom. I don't need to do that hardly ever tho. I actually took a long pole I had and sewed fiberglass window screen on a round plastic hoop that used to have netting on it. I used fish line to sew the screen onto the hoop and attached it to pole and voila, scooping net! You don't want the pole to be real heavy tho or hard to lift w/gunk out of pond. Aluminum is good. Or just buy one!