New Guy Building Pond In Louisville Kentucky

[thetemples]

I'm building a KOI pond under my deck. I had some unfinished space, I don't get much sun here, but its the perfect spot for a water feature/pond. It will have a waterfall and be about 2500 gal. I am down 2 feet right now on the dig. The waterfall with start where the blue wheelbarrel is located now (you can see the wheel of it to the far top left of the pic).

I haven't acquired my creek rock just yet.

 

[DrCase]

welcome to the forum......what are your filter plans?

 

[thetemples]

I am planning on putting in a skimmer box that houses the pump and then that will push the water up the hill to a waterfall box that has a biological filter in it (big foam insert) -

I'm new to all of this, but the local pond store is selling me all of this stuff. I think its :

1-Liner with under mat
2-Skimmer Box & Pump
3-25' flexible PVC
4-Waterfall box with biological filter.

Somewhere around 1,000$

Sound somewhere in the ballpark? Excuse my mis-terminology.. still new to the parts and pieces.

 

[kirscp]

Another thing to consider is your plans on cleaning the pond. Are you planning on draining every year and refilling?

Our first pond was already here when we purchased the house. It was around 1000 gallons, with no real filtration system. I added a DIY filter which worked great. Every spring I had to drain the pond and shovel all the muck, which smells like ... sewer. Last fall I built a new pond and wanted to make it as maintance free as possible. I don't have to drain any water to clean the bottom of my pond, due to my bottom drain. I just use the pressure from the pump and the hose to push all the leaves, and other crud to the bottom drain, where it heads to my settling chamber. I would never build a pond with out a settling chamber and bottom drain. It not only helps keep your pond clean, but baby fish can take safety in there, as they'll get sucked up though the bottom drain.

The next thing I learned was to have a very good biofilter. I made one, but it was HIGH maintance, had to clean the filter media every couple of days or it would get clogged up. You really lose interest after a while, so with my new pond came a new DIY filter setup.

You are always better having too much filtration then not enough.

Are you planning on stocking the pond with fish?

 

[thetemples]

I'm listening now! Do you have pictures of the bottom drain and settling chamber in your pond or something online I can see? How big does the chamber need to be. As you can see, I don't have a bunch of room to start putting big holes.. But I have a little wiggle room. I'd like to learn about the bottom drain, settling chamber and DIY filter.

Yes, Fish... KOI is the plan right now.

 

[kirscp]

For my settling chamber, it is a little less then 10% of my pond volume, so it doesn't need to be very big.

You want the water to stay in the settling chamber for a few minutes, allowing the particles to settle to the bottom. The chamber should be sloped, so the gunk can settle into the middle, just helps with the cleaning process.

I made my bottom drain myself. It was made out of a large salad serving bowl bolted to to a 4" end cap. Sealing the pipe and the liner was also easy, I'm not going to explain it now, but you only need a stainless pipe clamp and extra pond liner, as a washer.

I got a lot of information from this site : http://bickal.home.mchsi.com/ I did purchase his CD.

I made my own biofilter / waterfalls also. My filter is fashioned after the "Skippy" filter.

Settling chamber. (2 feet of my pond is above ground)

The bottom drain is is the upper right of this photo.

Skippy filter / waterfalls

 

[kirscp]

Another pic of settling chamber.

I also made my own skimmer from a pool skimmer that I purchased for $20.00. It flows into another chamber where the pump is located.

 

[thetemples]

Are these pictures of your finished pond or under construction? I don't want a bunch of boxes, hoses and drums showing.. I want everything hidden. ? I'm sure if I had the room I could hide all of this stuff.

I'm thinking I don't have enough room for all of this and since my pond is only going to be about 8 feet wide at the bottom, could I install a bottom drain with the bucket sized hole for everything to settle in and then use that to clean it?

Or if I don't do a bottom drain, can I just simply purchase a vaccuum to pull the crud out of the bottom? I have a friend that does this on a large pond and it seems to work well for him. He pumps it back into the filter box and it all gets caught in a filter/net.

 

[kirscp]

It's under construction yet. Everything will be hidden, once I finish.

You can do the pond vac, many do. There are may options, just depends on what you want to do. I did the drain and vac method on my smaller pond for years. It did require more time and work, but it wasn't that big of a deal. What I have, make my pond almost maintence free. The only thing I do is check the skimmer basket, otherwise that's it. I'll drain the crud out of the settling chamber this fall, since I need to drop the water level below my skimmer.

Have to remember that my pond is 2 1/2 feet above ground, so most of my other stuff will be above ground. That is why you see what you do. This filter system is set up for more then my 5,000 gallon volume. Your filter system would be a lot smaller than mine.

 

[DrCase]

i dont have a bottom drain,,and i never had to drain a pond to clean it,,if i see something in the water, i get my net and get it out...look at the 55 gal drum ,DrDave has one that he built the water fall around to hide it,,its about right for your size pond.