Can I add more that 12 inches of pea gravel to my bog filter?

[Lisak1]

Oh boy... Hang on... I gotta go out and tell my bog it's not working. And when I'm done, I'll break it to @addy1 that hers isn't working either.

Ahhh... I see she's already here!

 

[Kidsgardener]

Thanks.Lisa and Addy ... I have plenty of water from the mountain spring... Questions 1. I am setting up my bog so that I can just open a valve and the 40x15ft x 30 inch bog will drain to zero. The drain pipe will be under the milkcrates . Does it make sense to drain this once a year. 2. In my 100x600x6ft pond I used a sump pump to remove 3 ft of water....like i used to as a boy change some of my fish tank water. I thought I might do this in the spring as well. It takes one month for the spring and rain water to refill that 3 ft and there is plenty of water still for the 4 grass carp and bass and sunnies. Your thoughts?

 

[Lisak1]

Some people swear by bog flushing - we've never done it. We have a centipede and snorkel in our bog which allows us to drop a pump down to the bottom and pump it out. All we ever get is clear water. Same story after 8 years as after one. So I guess my thought would be plan for it, try it and see what happens.

As for water changes - that's an aquarium keeping idea that migrated to ponds, just like you said. Again, some people insist you must do them - and they have lots of reasons why they believe this to be true - others, like me, never do them. Other than heavy rainfall, we don't change the water in our pond, ever. I do occasionally drop a pump in the pond and use the water to water my gardens and pots around the yard. -great for the plants! - and then refill the pond, but that's a small amount of water. And I'm doing it for the benefit of the gardens, not the fish.

 

[Kidsgardener]

Thanks Lisa...we swim in our pond so...whatever can make it clearer we will experiment with...right now the water is brownish and the depth of transparency is less than 3ft...I have yet to determine if the brown is from algae or spruce needles etc. So great to have other pond lovers chime in.

 

[addy1]

Does it make sense to drain this once a year.

I have never flushed mine, I did open the drain valve one time (drains the 2 inch pipes at the bottom of the bog) pure clear water came out, never did it again. This was 5ish years in.

Oh boy... Hang on... I gotta go out and tell my bog it's not working. And when I'm done, I'll break it to @addy1 that hers isn't working either.

Ahhh... I see she's already here!

lmao................

 

[brokensword]

Thanks.Lisa and Addy ... I have plenty of water from the mountain spring... Questions 1. I am setting up my bog so that I can just open a valve and the 40x15ft x 30 inch bog will drain to zero. The drain pipe will be under the milkcrates . Does it make sense to drain this once a year. 2. In my 100x600x6ft pond I used a sump pump to remove 3 ft of water....like i used to as a boy change some of my fish tank water. I thought I might do this in the spring as well. It takes one month for the spring and rain water to refill that 3 ft and there is plenty of water still for the 4 grass carp and bass and sunnies. Your thoughts?

your big advantage is your total surface area. Depth matters less than surface area, for a couple of reasons; the more surface area, the more area you present to the upflow (of course, the more pea gravel the more surface too for good bacteria). The more you have, the slower any clogging will take place. With any luck, whatever sticks to that underwater surface area the water first hits, will decay over time and free up that particular channel. The narrower the bog, the less surface area presented and clogging will be easier. And as addy says, lift your pump off the bottom so any heavy sediment/debris will not be pumped to your bog. 'Bog' filtration (more properly Upflow Wetland Filtration) is NOT a mechanical filter but rather, biofiltration.

Realize too that if you open your drain without some sort of 'stirring' via top surface reverse flow to free up anything on the gravel and what has settled on the bottom of your bog, you'll probably not get much of a flush.

I was told by a pond professional the way to clean a bog is to have the cleanout stack attached to a vault on the bottom of your bog. This vault is the lowest point and along with sloped (the shape of a V) walls, funnels everything toward the vault. You lower a pump inside the cleanout stack to the vault and using another high volume pump, backflow water down INTO the gravel. This dislodges debris from the gravel and as you pump out the water through the vault pump, eventually (he said like 2-3 empty-fill cycles) the water runs clear.

Hopefully with such a large area as you have, there's more than enough time to have organics disintegrate all by themselves. Be careful to monitor your plants as the deeply rooted ones (iris, reeds) can be onerous to divide and thin whereas plants like water cress, parrots feather, pennywort, forget-me-nots, and creeping jenny are shallow rooted and aggressive. These are easier to maintain. I like a combo and have them all but did have to pull out some hosta and iris that had started to exceed their allotted space and forced some channeling.

 

[Kidsgardener]

brokensword - All great information...I can use a sump pump to pour water over the surface of my bog when i open the drain at the bottom under the milk crates. The bottom of the bog and liner are all tilted to have the water leave the bog at its lowest point. Once I get this thing set up then I will have more questions about growing watercress (cool) and see which plants if any I might take from my natural wetland area...creeping jenny, blue flag etc...I want a low maintenance set up. THANK YOU!

 

[brokensword]

your sump pump won't be strong enough--I tried this. You need something as powerful as your pond pump. So sayeth the pond professional to me, once upon a time. And you're not pouring over the surface as much as sticking the end of the pipe into the gravel and forcing water straight down. You'd move the pipe around the bog, more a directional point of force type thing. This is so you dislodge the bottom-of-the-gravel surface, breaking any 'bridges' free.

 

[Kidsgardener]

the sump pump does 3000 gallons an hour the bog does 6000 gallons an hour....Ok ...moving it around makes sense now..I will stick it in the gravel...Thanks for these ideas...

 

[Lisak1]

Having said all of that you should also know that not many of us actually DO that type of clean out. In addition to dropping a pump into the vault, I've also dug a foot down into the gravel (please see above mention of irises that will take over your bog) and the gravel is about as clean as you would want it to be. No clogging, no debris, no stink - all is well, so I don't mess with it. Keep your plants thinned out and you'll do plenty of surface disturbing along the way. In fact the biggest maintenance in your bog will be thinning plants, and that's just gardening!

 

[j.w]

@Kidsgardener

 

[brokensword]

agree with Lisa; I was just noting HOW to do if you have to. Not something I recommend or routinely do. My first bog was only 4'x4' so I had some issues as my fish multiplied and my plants in the bog grew. I've tweaked/learned a lot since first building it. The expansion brought a whole new definition to 'my bog'. Definitely watch but should be at the back of your mind.

 

[brokensword]

the sump pump does 3000 gallons an hour the bog does 6000 gallons an hour....Ok ...moving it around makes sense now..I will stick it in the gravel...Thanks for these ideas...

Sounds decent enough for your purposes. Hopefully, you'll never need to do this. When my first bog clogged and I tried to 'clean' it, I didn't know I needed more water volume from the top and forcing the gravel to break apart, nor did the original directions indicate that I should slope my side walls, and the diy vault/stack I made included a hole near the top per instructions, and the 40" deep bog when it clogged sent water up the stack and forced itself out the hole and all around the stack itself. I got so frustrated that I spent 3 days in February (it was a heat wave then, otherwise...) digging the whole thing up, washing the pea gravel and various size rock as I went. It was mess, but I surely cleaned the bog! Swore I'd NEVER do this ever again. Fast forward to last spring and wouldn't you know? I had to dig up the same bog v1 again--this time so I could sink a plastic tub for a lotus tuber!

 

[Jhn]

agree with Lisa; I was just noting HOW to do if you have to. Not something I recommend or routinely do. My first bog was only 4'x4' so I had some issues as my fish multiplied and my plants in the bog grew. I've tweaked/learned a lot since first building it. The expansion brought a whole new definition to 'my bog'. Definitely watch but should be at the back of your mind.

Expanded my bog for the same reason, fish where getting bigger/population expanding and I strung a wide weave net high up over the pond keeping predators out, so my population control is gone. The bog was abit undersized anyhow, still worked though, but decided not to wait until there were issues.

I didn’t mind the heron nabbing fish, but I started caring when the hawks and other birds of prey nabbed a couple of my terrapins. So up went the netting, which I thought would drive me crazy but haven’t really noticed much.

 

[GBBUDD]

plastic hardware cloth

IS THIS MORE COMMONLY KNOWN AS FILTER FABRIC ? UNDERLAYMENT? if so no don't do it just go with your 2" stone two layers f such then some 1 inch or 3/4 and stack your bog from there