Pondless Kit Advice

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Hey folks!

This is my first post on this or any forum related to Pond/Waterfall building. Long story short is I am moving to a new house soon, and I really want to build a water feature in my backyard. I am not 100% sure if I am going pondless or with a koi pond (leaning towards Pondless). In my research I have run across several kits, many of which are featured on a variety of pond building videos on Youtube. I have to say I have learned a lot already and feel pretty comfortable building one of these. HOWEVER, where I am a bit hung up right now is what kit to go with. As noted before, I have seen several kits, but the one that seems to be standing out from the rest as far as design goes is the Russell Water Gardens kits. They seem to be the only kit that involves some sort of filtration. I am certain this CANT be the only one out there, but they do make a point about how the standard pondless kits which use aquablocks and no filtration of any kind MUST get nasty over time and get filled with muck and algae. So my question to you all is, if you were starting over, what kit would you go with and why? Do i piece this together w/out a kit? Size wize I am looking at a pretty large waterfall, hopefully 15+ feet or more, with lights and the whole shebang! I am currently budgeting about $3-5k as a DIY project
 

Mmathis

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Hello and welcome!

I’m sorry, I cannot help you — I’ve never wanted to go pond less, so have never researched the various products.
 
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Wow. Nice concept. A question I have (newbie myself at ponds) is, why do you need filtration if you have no fish? Is filtration included in the kit or is it extra?
It probably should be included, though, because most people will eventually want fish. Good luck
 
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If you don't have fish or plants in the system, maybe you might want to treat it like a swimming pool, adding chlorine and algaecide. That will certainly help keep the water clean.
 

Jhn

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I would do any type of pond without a kit. A 15’ waterfall is probably going to need to push a lot more water than the 75 gallon pump vault can handle that Russell water gardens has for sale.

I would just go with aqua blocks creating a large water reservoir under the rocks install some type of pump vault. You can DIY it with some sort of hdpe pipe or a Premade one. Just make the bottom of the pump vault the lowest point in the reservoir. Install a y in the line From the pump with a valve in it, (have the line run off to plant bed or something) that can be turned to allow any muck/silt that accumulates in the reservoir to be pumped out.
 

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@Torqued
 
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I would do any type of pond without a kit. A 15’ waterfall is probably going to need to push a lot more water than the 75 gallon pump vault can handle that Russell water gardens has for sale.

I would just go with aqua blocks creating a large water reservoir under the rocks install some type of pump vault. You can DIY it with some sort of hdpe pipe or a Premade one. Just make the bottom of the pump vault the lowest point in the reservoir. Install a y in the line From the pump with a valve in it, (have the line run off to plant bed or something) that can be turned to allow any muck/silt that accumulates in the reservoir to be pumped out.

Thank you for the reply! Im not fully understanding what your saying about the Y and how it will clean out the reservoir? The issue Russell brings up is with the aquablocks is the whole rock bed above the blocks (and inside the blocks themselves) get filled up with all kinds of leaves, pine needles, grasses etc etc. I have yet to see a pondless design that has any sort of surface skimmer or anything to even clean for that matter, so i woudl think over time the rock bed at the bottom would just load up with garbage and it doesnt sound like it would be super easy to clean out....Maybe a pressure washer??? I would love to hear others experience with this issue.

To the guy talking about chlorine and algacide....good point. Without any fish, you could keep chemicals in it to keep it clean of algae....but I still see the leaves and solids as an issue to contend with.
 
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Jhn

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Thank you for the reply! Im not fully understanding what your saying about the Y and how it will clean out the reservoir? The issue Russell brings up is with the aquablocks the whole rock bed above the blocks (and inside the blocks themselves) get filled up with all kinds of leaves, pine needles, grasses etc etc. I have yet to see a pondless design that has any sort of surface skimmer or anything to even clean for that matter, so i woudl think over time the rock bed at the bottom would just load up with garbage and it doesnt sound like it would be super easy to clean out....Maybe a pressure washer??? I would love to hear others experience with this issue.

To the guy talking about chlorine and algacide....good point. Without any fish, you could keep chemicals in it to keep it clean of algae....but I still see the leaves and solids as an issue to contend with.

The larger debris will sit on top for manual removal if you lay larger rock directly on the aqua blocks then get progressively smaller as you lay the rock....going down to like 3/4” pea gravel.Then nothing but finer silt should be able to get down into the aqua blocks.
 
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The larger debris will sit on top for manual removal if you lay larger rock directly on the aqua blocks then get progressively smaller as you lay the rock....going down to like 3/4” pea gravel.Then nothing but finer silt should be able to get down into the aqua blocks.

Can you explain the setup with the Y in a bit more detail? Again I am not fully understanding how that cleans out the reservoir? How does the Y clean it out other than to just make an easy way to dump water from the system to a drainage system?
 
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Wow. Nice concept. A question I have (newbie myself at ponds) is, why do you need filtration if you have no fish? Is filtration included in the kit or is it extra?
It probably should be included, though, because most people will eventually want fish. Good luck

The filtration that is needed is to get rid of all the garbage that ends up in the water. Otherwise the rocks at the bottom become your filter. Eventually enough crap will build up in your rocks so that water cannot pass through them fast enough and the pump will starve, and possibly burn up if it doesnt have a safety of some sort. Also the bottom will start looking nasty as well if you dont get all that crap out (leaves etc). If you use pressure to wash it, a bunch of the solids will end up in the aqua blocks, eventually building up a lot of muck, and there is no easy to way to get in there and clean it out. So that is what I am hoping someone has figured out :). Is the only real way to avoid this problem to put a minimal pond at the end with a skimmer so you can clean out the solids and siphon out the shallow pond? From what i can tell, adding a pond wouldnt be THAT much of an additional expense, and it may just be worth it to avoid the build up of nasties in the rock bed. Thoughts???
 
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The filtration that is needed is to get rid of all the garbage that ends up in the water. Otherwise the rocks at the bottom become your filter. Eventually enough crap will build up in your rocks so that water cannot pass through them fast enough and the pump will starve, and possibly burn up if it doesnt have a safety of some sort. Also the bottom will start looking nasty as well if you dont get all that crap out (leaves etc). If you use pressure to wash it, a bunch of the solids will end up in the aqua blocks, eventually building up a lot of muck, and there is no easy to way to get in there and clean it out. So that is what I am hoping someone has figured out :). Is the only real way to avoid this problem to put a minimal pond at the end with a skimmer so you can clean out the solids and siphon out the shallow pond? From what i can tell, adding a pond wouldnt be THAT much of an additional expense, and it may just be worth it to avoid the build up of nasties in the rock bed. Thoughts???

I'm new to the party with this thread. Registered on the forum just so I could reply. I'm completely new to pond and pondless waterfall design and building but have always loved the idea. At our new home I have grand designs to put in a 30 foot pondless waterfall and stream and I'm currently in the process of up-skilling and educating myself around the various components and system considerations within pondless waterfalls. I happened upon the Russel Water pondless waterfall kits and just like Torqued two things about their kits definitely stood out:

1. the pre-filter, and
2. the backwash/cleanout valve.

I'm with @Torqued here. The more I thought about the pre-filter the more it seems to make sense. Yes, of course without an actual pond or fish you aren't going to need a bio filter or something similar. But if you simply have rock as the pre-filter to the basin, you still need to get into that rock to clean our small debris, which is where the pre-filter comes in. I'm looking to do the whole project DIY so finding the right kit is very important, and working out my GPH and flowrate is my next task.

Now, not having built a pondless waterfall before I don't have any real idea of whether debris and algae build-up are actually an issue. I'd rely on the anecdotal observations of those far more knowledgeable and experienced in the space.

Also, the backwash feature may be overkill considering the lack of a pond. I have no idea.
 

Jhn

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Can you explain the setup with the Y in a bit more detail? Again I am not fully understanding how that cleans out the reservoir? How does the Y clean it out other than to just make an easy way to dump water from the system to a drainage system?
Somehow missed this… the purpose of the Y is some finer silty material will eventually build up in the bottom of the reservoir, and start accumulating in the lowest point, would even build up in the rocks if you don’t keep plants out of the gravel. If you shut the pump off and use water pressure to blow out the rocks down into the underlying reservoir, turn the valve to the y leading off wherever to pump out the silt. Or just forgoe the y and get another hose to attach to the pump, or another pump, point is you want to be able to pump out/clean out the bottom of the reservoir.
 

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