Planning our new pond

[Koi.Comets.Happy]

Come March my wife and I are going to build a new pond in the 2200 to 2600 gallons region. The pond will be around 16’x 6’x 4’ at the deepest. I have drawn up rough plans. We will be using a liner. My plan is to use an external pump to pull water through a bottom drain and skimmer. The water will then enter a 55 gallon Skippy designed for mechanical filtration which will empty into a 55 gallon Skippy designed for bio filtration. The filtered water will exit into a water travel manifold splitting the water between a bog filter/garden, the water fall, and a UV filter/inline heater plumbed into a TPR. The heater is optional because of our location, but we spend so much time out side in the winter it would be nice to continue watching our little guys swim all over through the few cold months and save them the fasting. The pond will be of formal design being 3 feet under ground and 1 foot above. I want to line the hole dug for the pond with foam for insulation. I haven’t read about anyone doing this. I don’t know if it will work better then the ground at maintaining water temperature. I haven’t picked our exact pump, skimmer, etc. I would however like to DIY as much as possible. I think building a skimmer will be no issue although I haven’t seen any plans for one. I know a lot of people prefer the submersible pumps, but I don’t want to go that route.

Here are a few questions I have come up with at this point:

- What is the best way to connect the skimmer and bottom drain plumbing where it enters the pump? Can you use valves to control the water from either?
- Has anyone used an inline spa heater for there pond? They are affordable and come with great control panels. Plus you can control your lights trough it.
- Does anyone in my zone heat their out door pond?
- What is the ample amount of time for water to stay in the filters?
- Is the way I drew the Skippy’s connecting the best way to do it?
- Should I go smaller on the mechanical Skippy?

Thanks everyone in advance for all your help and knowledge!

 

[Koi.Comets.Happy]

View attachment 4413

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Here are is my design idea so far.

 

[DoDad]

I'm not a big fan of of pump fed filters. They puree the poop even if you have a leaf trap.
I like the gravity fed filters as the water comes direct from the bottom drain and into the filters and then to the pump.
I Have many friends in the Sacramento - San Jose area and most don't heat their ponds. Those spa heaters use a lot of electricity.

 

[DoDad]

Plus your asking one pump to do a lot.

 

[Koi.Comets.Happy]

DoDad-
For gravity does the water level of the filter have to be at the same level as the pond? You say I'm asking the pump to do a lot, are you refering to the inlet side, exit side, or both?

 

[Shdwdrgn]

If you plan on a lot of fish in your pond, I would at the very least use both 55-gal barrels as biofilters, and use a third, smaller container for your mechanical filtration. I don't know if there is a hard&fast rule on this, but my current pond has a filter 1/10 the size of the pond, and my pump pushes 10x the gallon... 250gallon pond, so my filter is 25gallon, and the pump runs at about 2500gph. However keep in mind that smaller ponds need more excessive filtration because of the reduced water volume.

In comparison, I am rebuilding my pond this Spring. It will be around 1100 gallons, will use two 55-gallon skippy biological filters, two 2900gph pumps (one for each filter), and possibly a couple of 3gallon buckets for mechanical filtration. I am using a high pump volume in this setup to create a fast flow in the river portion.

I believe as long as you have enough pump capacity to turn over the entire pond volume once or twice an hour (2500-5000gph for your pond), the filter will work effectively. Most people pick their pump size based on how much flow they want for a waterfall or some other feature, and that tends to work just fine with the filters.

Oh, and you may want to re-think the UV filter... it will indiscriminately kill everything, including the good bacteria that you want in your pond. I don't know a lot about them, but many folks here prefer using biological filtration rather than UV.

 

[Koi.Comets.Happy]

Shdwdrgn-
I thought the longer the water stayed in the bio filter the better. Your current set up allows the water to remain in your bio set up for 1.6 minutes before returning to the pond. From reading other posts it seemed as though people were trying to hit around 3 minutes in their skippy. I was planning on running a lower rated pump to increase the waters face time with the bio media. Im not to worried about extreme flow from the water fall. Is this bad planning? Should I be more focused on a higher turn over rate? I was only planning on running the uv sterilizer on the spring days with blooms, but from reading I guess if your pond is working correctly it will take care of the blooms it's self. Another problem with our pond is that it needs to be very user friendly and easy to take care of. I am on the road or deployed half the year leaving my wife with all the responsibility, so I would like the system to be as self sustaining and easy to clean as possible.

 

[DoDad]

As far as bottom drains go IMHO anything less than 3" is a waste.
Here is a example of what I mean about pumps.
On a outside faucet put one of those 3-way splitters on it. The one where you can turn off the water to each one. Attach a hose with a sprinkler to each. Close 2 and turn on the main on. Mark the farthest distance the sprinkler spays.With the first hose running open the valve to the second hose and mark where it sprays. Turn on the third and look and see how far they all spray.
As for UV's, they will not kill good bacteria. Your good bacteria is attached to the things that are in your pond and filters. Such as the liner, rocks and bio media.
There are two types of UV's one is a sterilizer and one is a clarifier.
I use the sterilizer on both of my ponds to kill bad bacteria not just algae.

 

[sissy]

That is true I have never used a uv because of what I have heard about them I use liquid barley and lava rock and only had a little algae when we get the weird weather changes here and get heavy rain .I never rely on 1 pump if anything happens to 1 you always have 1 running I use 3 as I like a fountain and spitters running in my pond and 1 is for the filter box up near the waterfall and the other is for the other end of the pond as I do not have a skimmer .1 1265 gph 1 940 gph and the other is 350 gph

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Thanks DoDad for clarifying the UV usage. Good to know that they can be used, I may consider adding one to my pond if I see a good deal.

Koi.Comets.Happy - I hadn't seen that information about the time the water should remain in the skippy filter. I do know that it's obvious once the biological filtration starts working, because the pond will become crystal clean in just a day or two. One thing I've read is that the good bacteria will not survive below 40 degrees. My temp gets well below that, so I have to re-seed my bacteria each Spring. Using the UV to control Spring bloom sounds like a great idea!

I'm not sure how you calculated the amount of time the water stays in my filter, but I guess that means my newly planned setup will be right around that 3-minute mark.

 

[Koi.Comets.Happy]

I'm not sure how you calculated the amount of time the water stays in my filter, but I guess that means my newly planned setup will be right around that 3-minute mark.[/QUOTE]


Shdwdrgn-

This math might be wrong, but you stated earlier that you're using a 25 gallon filter being fed by a 2500gph pump. If the pump is putting out it's true rating you divide 2500 by 60 to get gallons per minute. Your pump is putting out 41.7gpm. Now divide your 41.7gpm by your filter size 25 gallons and you should get roughly 1.6 being the minutes it would take your pump to fill your filter. Now I understand we lose gph with increased head height, filter media type, colgs, and such which slow the water travel down. I assume there probably is no magical "time in filter" due to all the variables.

 

[Koi.Comets.Happy]

Sissy-
That is a great point. I have a submersable pump on hand in case of failure, also I intend on creating a sub panel with two circuit breakers one will power the water pump and the other will power the air pump. If one trips the other should still be good. At least the little guys will have oxygen.

 

[sissy]

I have 2 circuit breakers also and 6 plug outlet with a surge protector on my circuit breaker box .check that out if you ever get bad storms and get a surge it could cause problems .Even if your electric goes off when it comes back on it can hurt your pumps .When I was the GC for my house I had a whole house surge protector put in .It was only an extra hundred dollars but well worth it .Looks like a small black box next to your circuit breaker box

 

[Koi.Comets.Happy]

Sissy-
That is something I will look into. Thanks

 

[sissy]

my house in NJ got hit by lightening and believe me it is nothing you will ever forget .It was all covered by insurance but lost my fridge my stove ,microwave ,central air unit and my dishwasher and hot water heater .Never again I hope worth the money a small investment for peace of mind .I researched it well and put every safety feature I could in this house