A Water Trough for Many Pond Functions

[DavidWH]

I'm planning to use a water trough for multiple functions. What could go wrong?

The idea of a trough water garden filter started when I was thinking about the 15K+ gallon pond at my old house. Each spring I would add about a half dozen water hyacinths. By fall, half of the pond was covered in them. All the original owner had installed for filtration was a cheap skimmer and a few filter pads. The water was clear year round without any major algae problems. I give much of the credit to the plants. All I did for cleaning was netting the surface on occastion and cleaning the pads regularly. That and the annual removal of dying water hyacinths as the weather started changing.

However, my new pond build is only about 3K gallons. I want the benefit of the water hyacinths and their ability to remove nutrients from the water, but I don't want them to block my view of the fish. Without space for a traditional bog filter anywhere near where my pond is located, I came up with the idea to use an animal trough as a floating garden that I could pipe the pond water through.

I was also looking for a way to incorporate some kind of vortex pre-filter and a holding place for the fish during a day of annual cleaning should it prove necessary. With all of my plans for our property, I'm low on unreserved space. So, I got the idea of using a single water trough for all three functions.

Here is my tentative plan-

I will run the 4" pond bottom drain line into the bottom side of a 4ft round water trough with 2ft sides. I will turn the pipe to the side with an elbow to create circular water movement in the trough - kinda like a lazy river for water hyacinths. In the center of the trough, I will have something like a trash can set on some spaced bricks to elevate it off of the bottom of the trough. The trash can will have many holes in the bottom and sides. Water will filter through rocks and filter media in the trash can into a space surrounding a 2" pipe at the center. The 2" pipe will exit at the bottom of the trough and join the line coming from the skimmer before going to the pump. Additional mechanical and biological filtration will take place after the pump. I'll put a valve on the 2" pipe in the event that I need to regulate flow.

Because my wife is not fond of the look of a water trough in our yard (she hates my beer cooler turned strawberry planter), I also plan to line the whole thing with stack stones leaving a small gap that I can turn into a planter, matching the rest of the landscape. This should also help insulate the water from temperature changes. When cleaning the trough out, I can run a drain hose from the base downhill to the vineyard/vegetable garden.

I'm also thinking about purchasing the trough off-season sometime in the next month and overwintering koi in it. The idea is that I could get a discount on it and possibly the koi, while also ordering nice smaller fish that are much cheaper in price than nice larger ones. I would hook it up with a seive and bio-filter in the garage and start growing some fish over the winter. My garage doesn't get that cold in general and I'm out there working on something most wet winter days. I can transfer everything outside in the spring.

So, what could go wrong? Any suggestions? Something I'm missing?

 

[brokensword]

I'm planning to use a water trough for multiple functions. What could go wrong?

The idea of a trough water garden filter started when I was thinking about the 15K+ gallon pond at my old house. Each spring I would add about a half dozen water hyacinths. By fall, half of the pond was covered in them. All the original owner had installed for filtration was a cheap skimmer and a few filter pads. The water was clear year round without any major algae problems. I give much of the credit to the plants. All I did for cleaning was netting the surface on occastion and cleaning the pads regularly. That and the annual removal of dying water hyacinths as the weather started changing.

However, my new pond build is only about 3K gallons. I want the benefit of the water hyacinths and their ability to remove nutrients from the water, but I don't want them to block my view of the fish. Without space for a traditional bog filter anywhere near where my pond is located, I came up with the idea to use an animal trough as a floating garden that I could pipe the pond water through.

I was also looking for a way to incorporate some kind of vortex pre-filter and a holding place for the fish during a day of annual cleaning should it prove necessary. With all of my plans for our property, I'm low on unreserved space. So, I got the idea of using a single water trough for all three functions.

Here is my tentative plan-

I will run the 4" pond bottom drain line into the bottom side of a 4ft round water trough with 2ft sides. I will turn the pipe to the side with an elbow to create circular water movement in the trough - kinda like a lazy river for water hyacinths. In the center of the trough, I will have something like a trash can set on some spaced bricks to elevate it off of the bottom of the trough. The trash can will have many holes in the bottom and sides. Water will filter through rocks and filter media in the trash can into a space surrounding a 2" pipe at the center. The 2" pipe will exit at the bottom of the trough and join the line coming from the skimmer before going to the pump. Additional mechanical and biological filtration will take place after the pump. I'll put a valve on the 2" pipe in the event that I need to regulate flow.

Because my wife is not fond of the look of a water trough in our yard (she hates my beer cooler turned strawberry planter), I also plan to line the whole thing with stack stones leaving a small gap that I can turn into a planter, matching the rest of the landscape. This should also help insulate the water from temperature changes. When cleaning the trough out, I can run a drain hose from the base downhill to the vineyard/vegetable garden.

I'm also thinking about purchasing the trough off-season sometime in the next month and overwintering koi in it. The idea is that I could get a discount on it and possibly the koi, while also ordering nice smaller fish that are much cheaper in price than nice larger ones. I would hook it up with a seive and bio-filter in the garage and start growing some fish over the winter. My garage doesn't get that cold in general and I'm out there working on something most wet winter days. I can transfer everything outside in the spring.

So, what could go wrong? Any suggestions? Something I'm missing?

you may find that covering a lot of your 'viewing' window is what is helping keep the algae down. Sounds like a bog, more or less, but you're just providing a way to take out the nitrates. A bog, with it's large volume of SSA (the gravel), is a biofilter and togehter WITH plants, takes out the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. So, guess I'd still do a bog, but plan on having your bog water level be a foot higher over the gravel, than a typical bog would have it.

If you don't have koi now (I'm not sure re your post), then adding them might surprise you re filtering needs compared to what you have now. A bog would go a long way toward helping that aspect, too.

And, done right, your pond should not need any annual cleaning and hence, no temp holding trough/area. Cleaning annually isn't something typically recommended here on GPF because you'll lose valuable biofilm and create NPS.

 

[combatwombat]

@brokensword: How would you plumb a bottom drain into an active bog? You'd still need a settling chamber or a sieve or something between them, I guess. Otherwise you'd be piping bottom drain gunk straight to the bottom of your bog.

You're probably right about the shade aspect vs. nutrient uptake. I believe plants actually prefer ammonia over nitrates as it's easier for them to convert. I think we bog folk focus on plants/nitrates because a bog has so much SSA that all the ammonia and nitrites are gone by the time the water makes it to the plant roots.

 

[brokensword]

@brokensword: How would you plumb a bottom drain into an active bog? You'd still need a settling chamber or a sieve or something between them, I guess. Otherwise you'd be piping bottom drain gunk straight to the bottom of your bog.

You're probably right about the shade aspect vs. nutrient uptake. I believe plants actually prefer ammonia over nitrates as it's easier for them to convert. I think we bog folk focus on plants/nitrates because a bog has so much SSA that all the ammonia and nitrites are gone by the time the water makes it to the plant roots.

plants don't readily take in ammonia, they take in the nitrogen from nitrates. Where are you reading/seeing plants prefer ammonia?

https://www.leaffin.com/role-ammonia-aquaponics-system/

And no, I'd not push anything from the bottom to the bog; that's trouble waiting to happen.

 

[brokensword]

@brokensword: How would you plumb a bottom drain into an active bog? You'd still need a settling chamber or a sieve or something between them, I guess. Otherwise you'd be piping bottom drain gunk straight to the bottom of your bog.

You're probably right about the shade aspect vs. nutrient uptake. I believe plants actually prefer ammonia over nitrates as it's easier for them to convert. I think we bog folk focus on plants/nitrates because a bog has so much SSA that all the ammonia and nitrites are gone by the time the water makes it to the plant roots.

also, I've got bog prefilters prior now, as per Meyer's recommendation. I tried it both ways--with and without--and feel it's better to take out the larger particles before they hit the pea gravel and plants. The filter holds these particles and until I clean the mesh, any decay process is still happening and those nutrients are still getting to the bog, I'm just taking out a surplus that might clog later. I nixed the filters last summer for a bit because I thought some of my plants were not getting enough nutrients but figured out it was more an iron deficiency and went back to the filters. I can choose which mesh size to use and therefore how large a particle I want entering the bog, commensurate with my desire to clean them; the larger the mesh hole size, the less often I need to clean.

 

[DavidWH]

you may find that covering a lot of your 'viewing' window is what is helping keep the algae down. Sounds like a bog, more or less, but you're just providing a way to take out the nitrates. A bog, with it's large volume of SSA (the gravel), is a biofilter and togehter WITH plants, takes out the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. So, guess I'd still do a bog, but plan on having your bog water level be a foot higher over the gravel, than a typical bog would have it.

If you don't have koi now (I'm not sure re your post), then adding them might surprise you re filtering needs compared to what you have now. A bog would go a long way toward helping that aspect, too.

And, done right, your pond should not need any annual cleaning and hence, no temp holding trough/area. Cleaning annually isn't something typically recommended here on GPF because you'll lose valuable biofilm and create NPS.

I don't have koi now as my new pond is under construction, but I did have koi in my old pond. I only had six full sized koi in a very large pond and about a dozen small offspring who somehow managed to not get eaten. The fish load was small. I guess the plants blocking sun could have played some roll, but most of the pond was clear for most of the summer with my two labs stiring the water up regularly as they went for a dip.

No annual cleaning would be great.

 

[combatwombat]

plants don't readily take in ammonia, they take in the nitrogen from nitrates. Where are you reading/seeing plants prefer ammonia?

You know, I can't find it now, but I've seen it mentioned many times and I want to say the first time I saw it was while researching Dr. Kevin Novack's arguments about anoxic filtration. Believe it was in a paper explaining how plants are capable of taking up all the different nitrogen compounds and that ammonia was preferred because it is metabolically closer to the compounds they create from it, so it requires less energy for them to convert.

 

[DavidWH]

@brokensword: How would you plumb a bottom drain into an active bog? You'd still need a settling chamber or a sieve or something between them, I guess. Otherwise you'd be piping bottom drain gunk straight to the bottom of your bog.

You're probably right about the shade aspect vs. nutrient uptake. I believe plants actually prefer ammonia over nitrates as it's easier for them to convert. I think we bog folk focus on plants/nitrates because a bog has so much SSA that all the ammonia and nitrites are gone by the time the water makes it to the plant roots.

I agree. The muck would go straight into it, but I don't see it like a traditional bog. The bottom would be a smooth trough. Collecting lots of muck there is the idea. I could back-flush it through a drain to the vineyard/garden, about a 20ft drop, using the muck as organic fertilizer. The trough would be a collection point for the muck with a floating water garden hiding the ugly truth 2ft below the surface, while the floating plants remove nutrients from the circulating water. I'd remove floating plants and compost as needed when they become a solid mass in the trough, removing algae feeding nutrients contained inside the plants in the process. Cleaning the trough would be spraying from my de-chlorinated rain barrels, or at worse, shoveling out any solids that don't get washed down the drain. This would also go into the compost bin to become fertilizer. I've never used chemical fertilizers in my garden - traditionally with great results, but for the first time this years harvest was not as good as last years harvest. I'm looking for natural ways to increase garden fertilization, suspecting that might be the culprit. Plus, the new vineyard is being planted and also needs to be fertilized. Too many projects.

I'm looking forward to the gunk, as long as I can collect and manage it.

 

[brokensword]

You know, I can't find it now, but I've seen it mentioned many times and I want to say the first time I saw it was while researching Dr. Kevin Novack's arguments about anoxic filtration. Believe it was in a paper explaining how plants are capable of taking up all the different nitrogen compounds and that ammonia was preferred because it is metabolically closer to the compounds they create from it, so it requires less energy for them to convert.

wanna bet on the outcome of putting plants in a bowl of pure ammonia? I wonder how dilute you'd need it to be to not kill the plants straight off.

 

[brokensword]

The muck would go straight into it, but I don't see it like a traditional bog. The bottom would be a smooth trough. Collecting lots of muck there is the idea. I could back-flush it through a drain to the vineyard/garden, about a 20ft drop, using the muck as organic fertilizer. The trough would be a collection point for the muck with a floating water garden hiding the ugly truth 2ft below the surface, while the floating plants remove nutrients from the circulating water. I'd remove floating plants and compost as needed when they become a solid mass in the trough, removing algae feeding nutrients contained inside the plants in the process. Cleaning the trough would be spraying from my de-chlorinated rain barrels, or at worse, shoveling out any solids that don't get washed down the drain. This would also go into the compost bin to become fertilizer. I've never used chemical fertilizers in my garden - traditionally with great results, but for the first time this years harvest was not as good as last years harvest. I'm looking for natural ways to increase garden fertilization, suspecting that might be the culprit. Plus, the new vineyard is being planted. Too many projects.

I'm looking forward to the gunk, as long as I can collect and manage it.

then I'd do something like the aquablox peeps use; this way you have a chamber to collect your muck and above, pea gravel/round rock to help with breaking it all down via colonizing bacteria, and of course, your hyacinth above in about a foot of water only. You can have a cleanout into which you'd put your pump and then can pump it out to your yard anytime you wish. The benefit here is you get a bog like layer to enhance your idea while still collecting muck and housing hyacinth, and the added benefit of more SSA for keeping your pond clear.

And realize, without surface coverage (optimal is about 60%), you will probably have some algae issues (not the good type algae). Unless you build this trough filter very large and send a lot of your pond water through it and don't overload with fish.

 

[DavidWH]

then I'd do something like the aquablox peeps use; this way you have a chamber to collect your muck and above, pea gravel/round rock to help with breaking it all down via colonizing bacteria, and of course, your hyacinth above in about a foot of water only. You can have a cleanout into which you'd put your pump and then can pump it out to your yard anytime you wish. The benefit here is you get a bog like layer to enhance your idea while still collecting muck and housing hyacinth, and the added benefit of more SSA for keeping your pond clear.

And realize, without surface coverage (optimal is about 60%), you will probably have some algae issues (not the good type algae). Unless you build this trough filter very large and send a lot of your pond water through it and don't overload with fish.

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to look into "aquablox peeps"

Not overloading with fish is likely to be a problem. I once had a project where I was just going to get a few chickens for eggs. I lost count of the chickens, the roosters woke me up in the morning and I'm pretty sure the turkey imprinted on me.

 

[brokensword]

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to look into "aquablox peeps"

Not overloading with fish is likely to be a problem. I once had a project where I was just going to get a few chickens for eggs. I lost count of the chickens, the roosters woke me up in the morning and I'm pretty sure the turkey imprinted on me.

oh, you're in deep already, then; Dr. Stephen would diagnose you as having MFS. Sigh.

 

[GBBUDD]

wanna bet on the outcome of putting plants in a bowl of pure ammonia? I wonder how dilute you'd need it to be to not kill the plants straight off.

I agree there about plants not doing well in high concentrations of any compounds they will not do well.

But where we disagree is the prefilters. The whole idea to the matrix blocks is to allow any sediment that gets in the bog a place to settle as there should be very little current and only displacement. this gives al kinds of micro and water bugs a place to dine an anything that mad it's way in. Now if you use a submersible pump like many do here they keep it elevated off the bottom so it is les likely to suck up larger debris or plants that fall in the water. A external pump has a basket strainer and that is all i use to stop any heavy sediment or materials from making there way to the bog. I have recently burred both main drains under a aquablock panel and covered with rock to act as more of a safety for fish not getting pulled in. Look at it this way septic systems we flush all sorts of large into the tanks . They have a settling chamber where this sediment is allowed to settle and bacteria is relied on to break it up into smaller particles where it then is allowed to enter the next area being a large rock with areas that get smaller and smaller as it clogs the bacteria has a chance to get on it and break it down into even smaller and weaker particles that then get flush up to the smaller finer spaces and the cycle continues. as an area does clog the particles fine the path of east resistance. and as that clogs it broken down and other areas clog and as they do the previous area has been weakened and flushes through and so son and so on. thus the importance of the size of the bog you need that surface area / over all area for this to clog here but in time get broken down and flushed through. We dump" sorry for the pun" more solids in a septic system and they last for years and years the size and materials are crucial.

 

[brokensword]

But where we disagree is the prefilters. The whole idea to the matrix blocks is to allow any sediment that gets in the bog a place to settle as there should be very little current and only displacement. this gives al kinds of micro and water bugs a place to dine an anything that mad it's way in.

I was suggesting he do some sort of settling chamber because he WANTS this sludge buildup for pumping out into his garden. I know it'll attract all sorts of other microbes, good and bad, but it'll fill again.

 

[DavidWH]

It turns out the 4ft trough is closer to 3ft, so I got a 6ft trough that's closer to 5ft instead. I guess they make them different sizes so they can stack them inside each other for shipping.

Should make a reasonable winter home for now.