Spring-Stream-Pond Construction: Liner, Pump, Filter

[poconojoe]

Oh, the preferred liner material is 45 mil EPDM. Some have used HDRPE. My pond is EPDM and my bog is HDRPE.
Stay far far away from PVC liners. They get brittle and leak within months.

 

[ranoutofaliases]

My stream is 6ft wide also, but much shorter and only around 8" deep. I made pools so that they fill up and spills over to shallow areas. This did 2 things, one is keep my stream the 5-6ft width of water flow and the second was it keep shallow areas for the birds and frogs to be. The deeper areas also can be planted. I think 3ft maybe too deep, the critters that will come will poop and you get plant/leaf debris and it will settle down deep into the stream bed. You can then easily end up with DOC's (dissolved organic compounds) in the pond which can cause foaming in the pond area. I actually turnover the deep parts of my stream to make pockets right down to the liner then I suck the debris/poop with a pond vac. You will be amazed how much does settle down onto the liner.

I think your stream at 1 1/2 wide may be a little narrow depending on how you plant the stream. they close up fast in the peak growing season. Seeing how you have such a wide stream I would go wider with the water surface myself.

My pump is housed in my skimmer 4800 GPH and I have a submerged pump 1800 GPH going into a bio filter dumping into the stream and I need up with approximately 6000 gph running into the stream.

here is a pic of my stream

IMG_2012 by A & R Photography, on Flickr

Morning Stream by A & R Photography, on Flickr

IMG_2056 by A & R Photography, on Flickr

Pond panorama by A & R Photography, on Flickr

Beautiful, simply a stunning pond and stream and one not dissimilar with what I have in mind for our garden. The pond is complete (ish) so struggling with the stream/waterfall area and mainly due to the old argument of wildlife and pond pump/filter. Do you have fish in your pond? What pump and filtration system have you used? Does it upset the wildlife balance with the pump being in place or have you got around that somehow? Apologies for the questions but I feel that I am at a crucial stage of my build and I seem to be going back and forth with regard to pump and filtration. I need a pump to get the water up to the top of the stream but I am concerned that I may lose the small amphibious animals. Grateful for your thoughts.

 

[ranoutofaliases]

I use a submersible debris handling pump. It's a Tetra DHP-3600. I dealing with about 1800 gallons of water. It's been very good to me over the years.

I no longer use store bought filters. Too much maintenance and most are inadequate. I exclusively use a wetland bog. No UV lights either.

All my plumbing is within the pond/bog. If I ever get a leak, I will never lose water. I use black schedule 40 flex PVC (1-1/2") within the pond. I increased the size to 2" within the bog.

It's best not to empty and clean out your pond. You will kill off the beneficial bacteria residing all over everything in your pond and have to start the process all over. My water has been in there for years. I let nature do the water exchanges through rain.

From your statement, you sound like the perfect candidate for a bog. In my opinion, it's the best natural way to filter your pond. Zero maintenance. As long as my electricity is good, it's runs itself.

Hi and could you give me some advice on the 'bog' element please. I have already dug out, lined and filled my pond but with hindsight I could have planned it better. You might have read in other threads that I am really struggling with what do do about a pump and filtration given that my pond will be a wildlife pond and I don't want the pump sucking in all the amphibious critters. I don't really want to empty my pond to redesign it but I need to somehow pump up water to the top of the stream and I cannot do that without a pump. Grateful if you could give me an idea on how and where would I introduce a bog to my existing pond?
Thank you.

 

[RobAmy]

Beautiful, simply a stunning pond and stream and one not dissimilar with what I have in mind for our garden. The pond is complete (ish) so struggling with the stream/waterfall area and mainly due to the old argument of wildlife and pond pump/filter. Do you have fish in your pond? What pump and filtration system have you used? Does it upset the wildlife balance with the pump being in place or have you got around that somehow? Apologies for the questions but I feel that I am at a crucial stage of my build and I seem to be going back and forth with regard to pump and filtration. I need a pump to get the water up to the top of the stream but I am concerned that I may lose the small amphibious animals. Grateful for your thoughts.

Thank you, I do have fish in the pond, Butterfly Koi and Goldfish. I also get frogs and ducks each year too. I use all Savio filters. I have one skimmer with the largest pump in it. I have 3 additional filters with small pumps that are in the pond and then the waterfall filter. I have lost a couple frogs because they drowned, I did not realize that could not climb out once in there, know I put a mesh net like material so they have a place to go to. I open the skimmer a couple times a day to see if anything is in there, if so just remove them. I rarely get any fish in there, mostly frogs but usually just during breeding in the spring. Overall really no issues for wildlife. I never had tadpoles in there just adult frogs. More so toads or tree frogs but never bullfrogs.

 

[brokensword]

Hi and could you give me some advice on the 'bog' element please. I have already dug out, lined and filled my pond but with hindsight I could have planned it better. You might have read in other threads that I am really struggling with what do do about a pump and filtration given that my pond will be a wildlife pond and I don't want the pump sucking in all the amphibious critters. I don't really want to empty my pond to redesign it but I need to somehow pump up water to the top of the stream and I cannot do that without a pump. Grateful if you could give me an idea on how and where would I introduce a bog to my existing pond?
Thank you.

You could get a submersible pump and make a screen cage to go around it; that would save all but the smallest of fry from being sucked in. I'd put this pump and cage up off the bottom of the pond about 12", to avoid sucking in either heavy debris or fry. You might have to monitor and make sure it's not getting clogged and needing cleaning.

If you have enough gph on the pump (or have one pump for the pond, one for the wfall/potential bog), you could Y off and send it to your waterfall. When I did my expansion, I made sure all my piping was inside the pond/wfall/bog so any leaks are contained; gives me more peace of mind. My pond is 7K gallons; I have (2) 4K pumps, each feeding a wfall and bog. 2 pumps instead of one large insures if one dies, the other can keep the pond healthy until I get a replacement. One pump = better run fast.

Another good idea here is to have any fill-up hoses on a timer and also have a float valve on your pump, to insure it won't empty your pond by accident.

When you calculate the head, you DO take into account any fittings and lengths ABOVE water level. Anything at or under, you can ignore. Look online for head calculators and then look at pump specs. For instance, my Danner can pump up to 15' of head but I only needed about 4'. The more head, the more flow loss you'll get. A pro tip; increase the size of your pump outlet AT THE OUTLET to get more/better gph. Mine was 1-1/2" and I put an adaptor that increased it to 3", then another adaptor that split the outflow into (2) 1-1/2" lines. This will maximize your rated outflow to be closer to spec.

Re bog; you can create one along one side of your pond and let the overflow create a waterfall back. It should be at least 6" above pond surface height, 12" deep minimum, filled with pea gravel. A bog is an efficient and almost-maintenance-free filter system that takes some labor to create but will last you a lifetime. The only real maintenance is pulling plants every now and then. Search for 'bog' threads here; there's lots of info. You don't need to seam the liner for the bog to your pond, though you can.

I'm not one that recommends cleaning the pond every year by emptying and power washing and refilling. Not a fan of water changes for water change sake.

 

[poconojoe]

Some bog threads:

My add-on bog build

I finally did it! I joined the bog club! The bog is approximately 14 feet by 5 feet and about 12 inches deep. I know my 1600+ gallon pond has been overpopulated due to my fish reproductive rates! Last year the water never cleared up to my liking. I figured my two pressure filters and my...

www.gardenpondforum.com

Bog building, also called upflow filter, eco filter, wetland filter

I was asked to start a thread on how to build a bog. This is my rendition on bog building 101............. Building a bog: Before you decide to build a bog, you need to know what you want its primary purpose to be. Total pond filtration bog filtration combined with another filter. If you...

www.gardenpondforum.com

 

[ranoutofaliases]

You could get a submersible pump and make a screen cage to go around it; that would save all but the smallest of fry from being sucked in. I'd put this pump and cage up off the bottom of the pond about 12", to avoid sucking in either heavy debris or fry. You might have to monitor and make sure it's not getting clogged and needing cleaning.

If you have enough gph on the pump (or have one pump for the pond, one for the wfall/potential bog), you could Y off and send it to your waterfall. When I did my expansion, I made sure all my piping was inside the pond/wfall/bog so any leaks are contained; gives me more peace of mind. My pond is 7K gallons; I have (2) 4K pumps, each feeding a wfall and bog. 2 pumps instead of one large insures if one dies, the other can keep the pond healthy until I get a replacement. One pump = better run fast.

Another good idea here is to have any fill-up hoses on a timer and also have a float valve on your pump, to insure it won't empty your pond by accident.

When you calculate the head, you DO take into account any fittings and lengths ABOVE water level. Anything at or under, you can ignore. Look online for head calculators and then look at pump specs. For instance, my Danner can pump up to 15' of head but I only needed about 4'. The more head, the more flow loss you'll get. A pro tip; increase the size of your pump outlet AT THE OUTLET to get more/better gph. Mine was 1-1/2" and I put an adaptor that increased it to 3", then another adaptor that split the outflow into (2) 1-1/2" lines. This will maximize your rated outflow to be closer to spec.

Re bog; you can create one along one side of your pond and let the overflow create a waterfall back. It should be at least 6" above pond surface height, 12" deep minimum, filled with pea gravel. A bog is an efficient and almost-maintenance-free filter system that takes some labor to create but will last you a lifetime. The only real maintenance is pulling plants every now and then. Search for 'bog' threads here; there's lots of info. You don't need to seam the liner for the bog to your pond, though you can.

I'm not one that recommends cleaning the pond every year by emptying and power washing and refilling. Not a fan of water changes for water change sake.

thank you and I’ll start reading and researching the bog threads so I’m ready for when Spring arrives. I forget that your (USA) gardens are much bigger than ours in the UK. I consider that I have a fairly large garden at 1/2 acre which is reasonable given we live about an hour outside London but looking at some of the pictures in these posts, it’s postage stamp size