Skimmer advice requested

[bagsmom]

It sounds like you are sold on the construction method you've all been discussing. It sounds fantastic! But I will share my info, too - since you asked. I put off digging my pond so I had time to save more money and buy a Helix skimmer. I really love how it works and especially love that the fish can swim all around inside it safely. But I'm really interested to read more and hopefully see pictures of the more natural skimming set up!

 

[Tula]

I have a Savio skimmer. I like that it's sturdy enough to stand on, it's well made. I don't like that fish can swim into it, but made a fish guard out of 1/4 inch PVC.

 

[Mmathis]

It sounds like you are sold on the construction method you've all been discussing. It sounds fantastic! But I will share my info, too - since you asked. I put off digging my pond so I had time to save more money and buy a Helix skimmer. I really love how it works and especially love that the fish can swim all around inside it safely. But I'm really interested to read more and hopefully see pictures of the more natural skimming set up!

No, not sold......more intrigued at this point. Right now I’m just looking at options. There will definitely be a bog!

I have a Savio skimmer. I like that it's sturdy enough to stand on, it's well made. I don't like that fish can swim into it, but made a fish guard out of 1/4 inch PVC.

Does the fish guard interfere with the effectiveness at all? I currently have an Oase floating skimmer, and had to come up with something like that a few years ago. There were a couple of fish that kept chasing food into the skimmer! For a long time I thought that those fish were just weak (or ill), couldn’t fight the current, and were getting pulled in — until I saw them in action! Silly fish would go to the weir and actually flip themselves into the skimmer! Then they would just as effortlessly flip themselves back out after they foraged!

 

[Jhn]

Would go with Lisa’s design if I were to build a pond again.

I’ve used Atlantic skimmers, no issues with them. Never had a problem in the roughly 15 years of using them with healthy fish getting stuck in the skimmer. Now I will say my current pond (9 years old) is roughly 40’ long or so and the fish are fed near the waterfall at the opposite end of the pond. Skimmer never sucks in food.

My adult terrapins go in the skimmers in their pond all the time.

The 7 juvie terrapins wonder in there chasing food and I have to get them out. The one in there pond came with brushes for the weir, so they can swim up to it but they still climb over them occasionally. Took them all summer to figure out not to go in there.

 

[Lisak1]

People warned us that our fish would swim over the negative edge - it's only happened a few times and always during spawning. They never intentionally go overboard - they swim REAL close, but seem to know instinctively how close they can get and where to stop. There's always a few inches of water in the rain exchange, so if they go overt they just hang out there until we come and scoop them back in the pond.

 

[Tula]

No, not sold......more intrigued at this point. Right now I’m just looking at options. There will definitely be a bog!

Does the fish guard interfere with the effectiveness at all? I currently have an Oase floating skimmer, and had to come up with something like that a few years ago. There were a couple of fish that kept chasing food into the skimmer! For a long time I thought that those fish were just weak (or ill), couldn’t fight the current, and were getting pulled in — until I saw them in action! Silly fish would go to the weir and actually flip themselves into the skimmer! Then they would just as effortlessly flip themselves back out after they foraged!

No, I place the PVC bar slightly under the water's surface. A few years ago my chagoi swam into the skimmer while spawning. Fortunately she wasn't too big yet and was tired, so seemed to be just resting in there.....I've heard of larger fish hurting themselves thrashing about.

 

[Gordo33]

I chose to DIY the skimmers. I have two set up in the corners of the pond opposite the water fall.
For me the advantages include
1. Housing the pumps
2. Mechan+ical filtration via surface skimming and catching floating debris
3 Decreased pump maintenance.

The skimmer boxes are 24 gal storage totes.

In addition to the Matala pads I also use quilt batting just before the pump. The Matala pads are cleaned once a month and the quilt batting layer changed weekly or as needed. .

 

[Telion]

The negative edge rake out drain off is interesting. I like the amount of volume it adds and that it could also double as a bog if covered with a screen with large enough holes to not clog. But at the end of the day I like the simplicity of a skimmer where you have a strainer basket that you can quickly and easily dump as needed. Preferably one with baskets of alternating depths depending on the season and how much foliage will drop into it.

 

[Lisak1]

The negative edge rake out drain off is interesting. I like the amount of volume it adds and that it could also double as a bog if covered with a screen with large enough holes to not clog. But at the end of the day I like the simplicity of a skimmer where you have a strainer basket that you can quickly and easily dump as needed. Preferably one with baskets of alternating depths depending on the season and how much foliage will drop into it.

Not sure what you mean by "covered with a screen". The rain exchange is a "down flow gravel bog" - we even have plants growing in ours to add to the filtration.

And no skimmer basket would be deep enough to hold the amount of debris that we can skim into the rain exchange without fear of creating an overflow - we could not touch a thing for weeks and the pond would be fine.

 

[Telion]

Not sure what you mean by "covered with a screen". The rain exchange is a "down flow gravel bog" - we even have plants growing in ours to add to the filtration.

And no skimmer basket would be deep enough to hold the amount of debris that we can skim into the rain exchange without fear of creating an overflow - we could not touch a thing for weeks and the pond would be fine.

I am picturing a negative edge that has a big trench dug into it maybe aka blocks so that you could house more water and then on top of the water and the aqua Box put a screen that you had put river rock this would be where you are skimmer process would take place but if you are not using an aqua blocks type system or any type of snorkel system you would not need to use any type of screen Sorry for the lack of punctuation this was all talk to text

 

[Jack B. Nimble]

People warned us that our fish would swim over the negative edge - it's only happened a few times and always during spawning. They never intentionally go overboard - they swim REAL close, but seem to know instinctively how close they can get and where to stop. There's always a few inches of water in the rain exchange, so if they go overt they just hang out there until we come and scoop them back in the pond.

On some of the newer ponds that intake area is the way I would go when I build new pond. The fish can swim in and out no issue. Plus how often do you really check the skimmer maybe more often as I should. Seems the intake bay creates a vortex and easy to rake out once in awhile plus makes the pond even bigger. I will also install that negative edge water storage as yours. Thought I'd add that again like yours it will have bog above water fall and feeding the falls. No bio falls require plus removing both the skimmer and the bio falls cost is huge and would provide exactly thr same results. I may also suggest using coke crates above a man made snorkel in both bog and the intake bay and the water storage area = the poor man's aquascape.

 

[Lisak1]

Haha! Oddly enough I could understand the whole thing. My brother only uses talk to text - he claims he has big thumbs. I remind him that you can say "comma" or "period" and it will add the punctuation.

ANYWAY... our negative edge flows into rain exchange which is a 6 foot deep pit. We can store 1000 gallons underground - 32 aquablox plus rocks and gravel. I'm just not sure where a screen would go or why you would need it. Are you thinking to make cleaning easier?

 

[Telion]

Haha! Oddly enough I could understand the whole thing. My brother only uses talk to text - he claims he has big thumbs. I remind him that you can say "comma" or "period" and it will add the punctuation.

ANYWAY... our negative edge flows into rain exchange which is a 6 foot deep pit. We can store 1000 gallons underground - 32 aquablox plus rocks and gravel. I'm just not sure where a screen would go or why you would need it. Are you thinking to make cleaning easier?

I think what you have is exactly what I was thinking the screen would have been a layer between the rocks and the aquabloxs so the rocks didn't fall in to the water chamber but I suppose a better less clogging solution is larger rocks and then a layer of gravel.

 

[Lisak1]

I think what you have is exactly what I was thinking the screen would have been a layer between the rocks and the aquabloxs so the rocks didn't fall in to the water chamber but I suppose a better less clogging solution is larger rocks and then a layer of gravel.

Oh! Gotcha! We were concerned about the gravel falling through the Aquablox, so we added a layer (well, several layers!) of underlayment - one directly over the Aquablox and then several more layers as we added different sized gravel. Big mistake. We had to remove all of it - which involved shoveling and sorting many pounds of gravel - when we realized the underlayment clogs almost immediately. A power washer may have helped to clear the clogging, but we didn't have one at the time. It was really fine debris that was building up so it wasn't hard to clear, just annoying and constant.

We pulled the whole mess out and added a layer of softball sized boulders directly over the Aquablox, then we topped it with river stone - eliminated the pea gravel completely. I liked the look of the pea gravel - when it was clean - but it, too, clogged too easily. Plus the repeated raking meant we ended up with the larger gravel mixed with the pea gravel. We asked on one pond tour how the homeowner kept the pea gravel so clean and free of debris - they had someone come out and replace it every few weeks. Mmmmmm... no.

Now we rake it out every few weeks - easy to do and really more of an esthetic thing than a necessity.

 

[420benz]

What exactly is a negative edge ? Can someone post a photo.Thanks