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

[baeya]

I can't wait to get started on one!

 

[blessedfamily]

Pretty please Addy I would like to do one when I go bigger but I am more of a hands on or watch someone do it type and I am sure it would help so many people he he..

 

[addy1]

LOL now I need to go and buy supplies........or maybe do a demo with smaller piping. Will see what I can set up. We are still raining a lot here, might just do it in the house.........I don't have a video cam, but do have a camera that records.

 

[SE18]

well, I'm finally getting around to reading all of this good material. I've currently got a bog but not for any type of filtration, Just a bog for bog's sake you might say. I haven't planted anything in it yet but creeping jennies have crept over to it from a long distance away (isn't it amazing that they have brains to do that!). I took a look at your plant list and might include something else in the future that is hardy locally (I'm in N. Va. btw, but noticed you are in Frederick. I'm working at Fort Meade (we got BRAC'd from Arlington VA so extreme commute 2 hrs each way).

one thing you mention is that the bog should be lower than the pea gravel. Well I guess I need to raise mine some. I take it this is only for filtration reasons and not to benefit the plant.

I so far have seen 2 types of frogs making their home in the bogs: tree frogs and southern leapard frogs, the latter of which hangs around more in the bog than the tree frogs.

I love the bogs so much that in the future I'm thinking of expansion. But first, I'll try and read over this thread carefully.

Thanks for inspiration.

DaveV

 

[addy1]

Bog lower than the pea gravel? you lost me, if I said that must have been a typo brain fart. The water should be lower than the pea gravel if it is a pond filtration bog, mainly to make the water work on its way back into the pond, through the pea gravel, through the plants etc. I have some areas that are lower for the birds to drink and bath in.
Some bog plants like to have their crowns dry and roots wet.
My land bogs are just peat moss and sand mix. They vary from being real wet to dry, then if no rain I fill them until they are wet again.

 

[SE18]

Sorry, I meant to say water lower than pea gravel. Since I installed my float, the water has been maintaining its high water mark while previously it raised and lowered slightly due to evaporation (probably a more natural state where water in nature raises and lowers all the time). I do have a "dry" bog and wet one as well. On the dry bog, I manually add water once a week but plan in the future to install a drip pvc pipe from my elevated aqueduct to keep it moist with a very slow drip. Yeah, the bog is cool.

 

[addy1]

Sorry, I meant to say water lower than pea gravel. Since I installed my float, the water has been maintaining its high water mark while previously it raised and lowered slightly due to evaporation (probably a more natural state where water in nature raises and lowers all the time). I do have a "dry" bog and wet one as well. On the dry bog, I manually add water once a week but plan in the future to install a drip pvc pipe from my elevated aqueduct to keep it moist with a very slow drip. Yeah, the bog is cool.

Yes a wet dry cycle is more natural, my pond bog is just wet all of the time, I need higher pea gravel to keep some of the crowns of the plants dryer.

My land bog, I am going to have auto water for it next year. We were so dry I would forget how fast it would dry with full sun and heat. It will do a lot better with more water. The two land ones are for carnivorous plants and a few flowering boggy plants. Just love them, gnats have been inhaled by the sun dews, they are constantly covered with gnats being eaten by the plant. this will be their first winter, so hoping they all survive.

 

[SE18]

thanks; I just finished reading the entire thread and I think your effort will result in some converts to bogs.

I particularly found the link: http://aggie-horticu...wers/lily2.html

to be useful. I used to have all sun but as you are aware, it gets extremely HOT in the south side of houses in our area in summer and I needed shade trees so I planted oaks, cherry and maples about 10 years ago and now they are probably 30 feet tall! The creeping jenny seem to be ok in sun as well as shade, but I'll try in the future to get some other shade lovers, maybe iris for starters.

I'm including an aerial view of my bog taken from the deck. The bog is centermast in the picture, covered with creeping jenny (the dry bog). It actually is made from concrete with some cracks in it and is about 6 inches deep and about 3x4'. The other water is the canal and aqueduct, the left side of the photo shows the concrete aqueduct with no water in it b/c it is still under construction and in another month should complete the large loop. It will feature canal boats running in a complete circle. I'm actually torn between operating the boats or filling the aqueduct with plants. It might be hard to see but in the lower right you can see a spigot with water falling from the aqueduct to the canal. I may run some PVC from there to the bog.

Cheers

DaveV

 

[addy1]

Nice article, great for those that need shade plants. Our stream, stream ponds, deck pond, large pond, bog (water and land) are all in full sun, south side of the house. Hot hot hot.

Everything I plant needs to handle full hot sun.

Neat bog you have going there. That will neat to see when you have it done and running, well if you decide on boats.

 

[addy1]

Pretty please Addy I would like to do one when I go bigger but I am more of a hands on or watch someone do it type and I am sure it would help so many people he he..

Ok not a video, but some pictures............ I took a few short pieces of pipe to make a demo picture.

These are pretend 1/4 inch holes drilled into the pipe they are drilled so the holes are 45 degrees off the bottom of the pipe.



The 90 attaches the bottom pipe to the pipe that goes up and out of the pea gravel with a cap on it. This way you can clean it out if ever needed, just stick a garden hose down the piping. The holes point down, a line of holes on both sides of the bottom pipe. They can be 6-12 inches apart. Further apart if your piping is longer. I placed a extra small piece of liner under the pipe to keep the water from pounding on the real liner.



This is how we did our piping, 1/4 inch slots approximately 1/3 of the way though the pipe. Ours are spaced 12 inches, more or less, apart. did not measure the distance just spaced them out.



Again the slots face down, extra liner placed under the piping to protect the real liner.



Here you can see how it would look attached to the clean out pipe that goes above the pea gravel.



We just drained the bog to plumb in the skimmer, hayward pool skimmer, the water came out clean no huge collection of debris after running all summer. We were redoing the pump piping, adding the skimmer piping, and moved the ball valve that allows me to drain the bog so we had to drain the bog. It took forever for the water to quit running out. When the bog refilled that dropped the pond level low enough with just a little more draining so I could cut the liner over the skimmers face. ...........no leaks! yeah. Used the face plate, gaskets and good old black roofing sealant to make sure there would not be a leak.

 

[taherrmann4]

addy for the one you do the slits in do you raise these off the bottom of the bog any?

 

[addy1]

No I have them facing down laying on the bottom, some pea gravel may have gotten between the pipe and the liner, when we shoveled in the gravel. With the slots we made 1/3-1/2 through the pipe there is plenty of room for the water to get out of the pipe, we used 2 inch pvc. I did put extra pieces of liner down under the pipe, so the water would not pound on the real liner. Some put the holes / slots facing up, but the pea gravel is real good about falling into those holes.

 

[CountryEscape]

Addy, re-reading your post, and realize now that you used hard or solid PVC pipe, and I was using flexible tubing . I'm going to use the PVC on my next pond. Also, I got the answer to my question about how much percentage of bog should be compared to water surface area. I think I'm on the 30%, so the bog should filter my new pond very well! That way I can put the water wheel on or near the new pond at any time, if I find that it will work out after all.
My existing pond has the black flexible tubing, so that's why we drilled holes instead of using a circular saw. I can see where the slits will be better than holes in the PVC piping. And, it will be more rigid and larger and no metal clamps to worry about, and I won't worry about walking on the bog, either! Also, I note that you say to have the water below the top of the pea gravel. Do you have another area of plants that float in our bog, or are all your floating plants (like what you sent to me last summer) in the main pond? I have about 1-2" of water in my existing bog.
There is so much more information I took from reading this thread this time than I got from the first time! I guess because I understand things better now, and have seen what it looks like last year! This next pond will be much more planned out and hopefully more level than my main pond.
Thanks again for such a great thread!

 

[pondlover]

I don't have any plants in my bog yet and am really ready to get some. I have gone over Addy's build and this thread again and found think that my bog definitely needs more gravel. So I went on my lunch hour today and got another truck load. The bad part is, I will definitely have to really rinse it well before putting it in the bog because I don't want all that dirt in there again. I have tried to compile a list of plants to put in my bog. I did get some seeds yesterday and plan on trying to get those started tomorrow. I guess I will plant them in containers and then transfer to bog when they have grown some.

CE - we used the hard PVC in our bog and cut the slits like Addy suggested. I am certainly no expert, but I think our water flow is really good going through the bog and hope it will be as great a source of filtration as Addy's is.

 

[addy1]

CE, my bog to pond ratio is around or slightly over 30% but never have really measured, so not sure by how much.
The pea gravel is mostly above the water, I have some below it has settled some with time, but I have not gotten around to adding more. I do keep low spots, 2 inches of water or so, for the birds to bath in.
All floating plants are in the pond.
Any plants that need to have crowns dry I have raised the pea gravel to make a mound to put them on.

I used the rigid pipe, I wanted two inch pipe, never thought of using the flex stuff, and it is under a whole bunch of gravel weight. The slots have a smaller chance of being plugged by gravel, muck etc. If you point them down make sure you put a piece of liner between the real liner and the pvc, you don't want the constant pounding on the real liner.

PL
When I send you the lilies you sent the postage for, I will include a few bog plants, my blue forgetmenot is growing great, some of the other stuff is just starting, I will pull some and stick it in. I may not get all labeled, but they will be bog plants, even will include a few floaters that have started growing. I will rinse them well before shipping, you might want to float or put in some a light bleach solution to make sure snails etc are not hanging on...........the pieces won't be huge but will grow.

Yeah the pea gravel dirt sucks, we just had no choice, dry dry summer and on a well, rather have drinking water and fight muck in the pond, then have no muck and a dry well lol

I have some taros that have been growing all winter, will toss in a few of them also, just don't let them frost too bad, and a few that I let dry out to be planted once it warms, will toss some of them in to.