***The Pond Discussion Thread****

Street said:
Jesus, that's going to be massive. Looking forward to seeing the build. Sounds like a lot of work though!

Mine is lined and filled. Getting the liner in was frustrating as it was so damn big and heavy, trying to get minimal folds was a faff. I've measured it and it's around 4000l in total. It probably took a good five hours to fill at least. Now I've got a few tonnes of sub base coming in the week that will need shifting from the front of the house, through the garage and up the garden. I'm not looking forward to that! I was hoping I could get on and plump the pump in properly tomorrow but I'm still waiting on the solvent weld to arrive.

kvqG4fYh.jpg
Click to expand...

Where is your filter going ?
 
easyrider said:
Where is your filter going ?
Click to expand...

A bit like this..
tVjeTIXl.jpg

The bottom drain is going to sit in the deepest part, pump in the corner. I'm going to pipe up and out and then connect that to the filter at the back. The part on the back left is going to be a bit of a garden and eventually I plan on hiding the filter there and building some sort of waterfall for the return back into the pond. For now as long as the pipe work is there, the filter is just going to sit on the edge of the pond while I get the rest done.
 
Street said:
A bit like this..
tVjeTIXl.jpg

The bottom drain is going to sit in the deepest part, pump in the corner. I'm going to pipe up and out and then connect that to the filter at the back. The part on the back left is going to be a bit of a garden and eventually I plan on hiding the filter there and building some sort of waterfall for the return back into the pond. For now as long as the pipe work is there, the filter is just going to sit on the edge of the pond while I get the rest done.
Click to expand...

I would have made a smaller shelf all around. This could then be planted up with rocks added to hide the liner....
 
Ordered a 3 pod 10” water declarifier £49 - should provide more top up water and to test the though of getting a larger system for the house. It will also give an idea how much water I can expect to get through a system vs the manufacturers quoted figures.

Also ordered a my lab pond test kit. I hated using the blagdon test kit as the tablets are crap and the plastic test tubes died years ago so I can’t get an accurate reading.

i think I have a nitrate spike so the obvious immediate fix is a water change using the pod system.

Lastly I’ve decided to make the filter house an anoxic filter. The main drum and bio will then go into the garage next to the pond.
Not sure of the pump location yet - if it should go on the other side of the anoxic filter or before it.
Also trying to find a way to put an airlift system into it so that I can use the airpump to move water (can be 3x more efficient than a pump)
 
mu9ODkN.jpg

Last diagram - to scale cm to mm. Good thing to (a) I located a bad measurement and (b) the volume calculation is way out based on measurements from the scaled diagram.

So the walls are 210mm. So you look 2500l in the wall. The net result is a pond of 9113l which is annoying. Or - if I move the back and side wall out by 210mm I get 10,500l but it means I must move the Drums + bio filter into the garage. The move allows a 3x2x3 anoxic filter to be put into the corner.

Still need to finalise the pipe routing and garage locations.


EDIT: Just put this into SketchUp. Interesting it shows a different area to my scaled-drawing calculations and very close to my existing calculations (doh!):
* 270mm walkway to the back: 6.80 m2 = 11,900 litres
* 400mm walkway to the back: 6.28 m2 = 10,990 litres

With the top space now being an anoxic filter, and the drum+bio in the garage.. this means the walkway only gets used for (a) sporadic maintainance and (b) the routing of pipes - the largest being 110mm for the skimmer.

I will probably put the valves in the garage too so they're all in easy configuration.


I'm more inclined to believe sketchup than my beer powered calculations :D
 
Last edited:
Ahh blue it ... now in Sketchup along with the rest of the garden re-design lol. Mrs quite liked the model.. Shows the filter area in the garage.

dRqHBjj.png

The pond wall will be 70cm above ground, the drum filter has water level of 64cm above ground level - will need to check with a laser level inside the garage. The pond slopes down to the house in a ~1:38, so I suspect that the pond level will be good enough.
Will still need to work out the routing of the 4" piping. Right in the corner will be a second filter.. just need to think that design through.
 
Almost killed my fish today.

I have been sorting out a shower - the first attempt was misaligned so I was re-soldering then when call using the tap to clean/pressure test. Except I forgot to reconnect the drum filter.

The drum eventually blocked as it couldn't clean, the overspill goes to waste but the pump, at 5000lph, continues to pump.. so my 1700l pond almost emptied itself.

The fish were stressed, I was stressed and the new mains water filter is running on the top up.. perhaps a little too fast to extract all the chlorine etc but betting to have water in.. I dropped two air stones in as the pond level is too low for the bio - it will steal 185 litres before the water fall starts..

So now waiting for the pond to get high enough to restart the filter.

I've also bought myself a 240V pond level switch.. that will go inline with the pump so this will never happen again. Last time it happened I was on vacation and we lost lots of fish but they were far smaller.
 
Well I bought a Brunel SP22 microscope and some slides etc £168 with padded flight case. Expensive but almost as expensive as replacing the critters if they die due to parasites etc. I posted a video on a koi website and the advice was to check them over for anything as they have a heavy mucous layer which often means either the water or a parasite is irritating them. I did do a 50% water fill through a couple of weeks ago, but want to check them out.

Almost finalised the design with the anoxic filter space allowing 2x2x5 30cm3 baskets:
dyWD07N.png
 
Got myself a circular-pan style net with a 1.8m handle. Worked a charm for the scrapes. It seems now that there's no additional mucus and nothing showed on scrapes for two fish.
 
Covid is starting to hit the supply of sand, cement and fibreglass.. not to mention the plastics for piping..

Just about to make the final bill of materials and start getting some costings.
 
So I've got a good rough estimate but still have a number of items to add to the pond bill of materials (like render).

The figure at the moment is £4,500 in materials - not including plant hire etc so I suspect we may end up at £5,500 for what will be a 11,500 litre pond with a 1300l filter chamber that will completely run off air consuming approximately 58W of power. No power hungry 200W+ water pumps needed but it will have a variable 20,000 lph pump that can be used in winter (30%, 6000lph consumes 38W) or to power the water blade.

It's using twin 4" pipes right through, so with 58W it should make a good 30,000lph gravity fed :D The drum will be the bottleneck in all honesty however an option is to upgrade that at a later date. The two 4" return pipes go back under the pond so they end up being class C pipes again.. £30/3m vs £8/3m!
 
NickK said:
Got myself a circular-pan style net with a 1.8m handle. Worked a charm for the scrapes. It seems now that there's no additional mucus and nothing showed on scrapes for two fish.
Click to expand...

I gave them a Flukasol dose on Monday - after the initial fish panic they really perked up. Although the next dose is Monday I'm considering dropping an early re-dose to catch any hatched flukes before they get to maturity.

I'm also trying JPD Yamato colour food £45/5Kg vs the existing Medikoi probiotic £54/3Kg. The size of the pellets is large.. and they are 7mm dry - the fish had a comedy moment trying to eat the same amount they do normally quickly.. instead they now have to slow down. The pellets are lighter and drier than the Medikoi Probiotic - I can smell the probiotic but less so the Yamoto although the Mrs has a far better sense of smell says they both stink :D

Fish liked it - although they've slowed down feeding today a little with the cooler weather, the larger pellet meaning less pellets for a stuffed fish, and I suspect a second dose should kill any additional flukes that may be suppressing their appetites.
 
Spoke too soon.. the fish have turned their collective noses up at the new food.

They simply don’t even bother with trying to eat it. The orchiba is currently venting her hunger out in the floor of the pond looking for juicy protein.

It’s a stubborn twist of wills. I suspect they will give in soon.

Edit: they've started eating it.. out of desperation. It always takes them a little time to switch between foods.
 
Last edited:
And we break ground..

Ahh the joys of SDS.. wee little 780W with a tile chisel doing a grand job on slabs, bricks and foundation concrete.

fmJnpIQ.jpg
 
On 2 weeks vac next week. Mini digger time ;)

Ordered all the pipework.. so fingers crossed is a couple of weeks max.

So starting to make some progress soon I hope!
 
I'm getting pond envy, though I think I'm getting pretty good bang per buck from the ten minutes it took to bury this washing up bowl and lob some rocks in a couple of months ago. I may even invest another ten minutes putting some gravel round the edges... eventually. Rome wasn't built in a day. :-) We have a hedgehog that regularly drinks from it too.
IMG-20200711-224530.jpg
 
Andrew_McP said:
I'm getting pond envy, though I think I'm getting pretty good bang per buck from the ten minutes it took to bury this washing up bowl and lob some rocks in a couple of months ago. I may even invest another ten minutes putting some gravel round the edges... eventually. Rome wasn't built in a day. :) We have a hedgehog that regularly drinks from it too.
Click to expand...

Luckily the new skimmer will have a basket and the bottom drain has a "hat" that sits on it. It's been known for frogs to be found in rotary drum filters - they get sucked down the large water pipes and then get stuck in the drum.

Had tadpoles eariler this year but they pretty much all got filtered out (even when returning a couple to the veg pond area.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom