Pond looks great! I am thinking about adding a similar intake bay like yours over a skimmer. Are you happy with it? You mentioned that a lot of debris get stuck in the plants but I would think you would have the same issue with a skimmer, right?
My intake bay has a 6 inch wide and about 4-6 inch deep entry into the bay (depending on water level), so it does mostly pull from the surface. I don't know of any good math you can do to figure this out, I sort of had to just experiment by placing rocks and then dropping leaves on the surface around the pond. I found a wider opening was causing stuff to just sort of swirl around in front of the bay, but by narrowing it a bit I increased the amount of suction. Anyway, any leaf that drops into the pond will definitely make it into he bay before falling to the bottom unless it gets stuck on a plant, or I neglect it and the bay gets clogged with leaves.Intake bays in my opinion come to the party a little late. When debri / pollen, leaves, grass clippings, dust is best removed before it has a chance to get water logged and fall to the bottom of the pond a a wide opening leading toward the pumps will have a volume pull from all layer of the water column. A skimmer or negative edge draw from the surface and collect that debris before it is sitting on the bottom. Just my two sense.
Very true . and yes that is almost the same i found when my skimmer was running. it originaly was like a pool with 2 foot depth right up to the skimmer and 2 foot wide. This was found to do as you mentioned . little to no draw from the surface when i lessened the depth and width it made a huge improvement.If you can do a negative edge, in my mind that is probably the best system overall but it would have added a ton of work and cost to my build, since I was digging by hand. But if you're going bigger and using some real tools, I think it's probably worth it.
What a beautiful wildlife pond you have created Rashad....It must be so much fun to see all of the different inhabitantsHi everyone, just wanted to put out a pond update. Everything is going well. A couple weeks ago the string algae pretty much cleared up on its own, so I think the bog and other plants just needed to reach critical mass. Happy to answer any questions. Fish are doing well, added some mosquito fish just to have some smaller fish to go with the goldfish. Bog really took off in year 2, and I'm almost at the point where I'll need to start pulling stuff I think. The Most Valuable Plant is still Yerba Mansa, and I'll give a 2nd place finish to the water clover which I brought in this spring. Spreads well, fills in gaps, is pretty, but doesn't choke out other stuff or anything.
Edit: Not sure why I committed the cardinal sin of a vertical video. Will redo it at some point...
Edit 2: Forgot to mention one little lesson. I planted a few swamp milkweed around the pond. The ones in the bog are doing great. The ones at the margin of the pond both grew tall and then fell over. Apparently swamp milkweed has a pretty deep root system, so only plant them somewhere where they'll have deep enough substrate to anchor securely.
Looks beautiful! I just now discovered your pond build thread and was especially intrigued because I'm in a similar climatic zone (I think). I'm in Israel, which has a Mediterranean climate, though rather desert-like as you move away from the ocean. I had never thought about planting green onions in the bog, but now I'm going to try it!
I was pleasantly surprised how well they did. Theoretically I could pull them out and divide them to eat some and then replant, but I've just let them grow. I did snip off the greens for a salad once, but figured I'd just let them do their work in the bog.
The more you cut them, the more they’ll take up nutrients to regrow, no?
skimmers usualy have a strainer basket and a mat pad intakes have nothingPond looks great! I am thinking about adding a similar intake bay like yours over a skimmer. Are you happy with it? You mentioned that a lot of debris get stuck in the plants but I would think you would have the same issue with a skimmer, right?
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