CW's Back Yard Water Garden Begins!

[combatwombat]

My soaker hose aeration idea didn't work...

 

[GBBUDD]

I VOTE FOR pvc pipe small with lots of small holes . remove the garden hose they leach oils . They taste nasty any rv'er will tell you never use a garden hose for drinking water use . I LOVE YOUR IDEA just have to find a way to make it work . Brian had his air empty under rocks.
Actually THE MORE i think about it the airbladders i use for the fine bubbles is rubber rooffing with needle point holes as the pressure builds the rubber stretches thus letting out fine bubbles why not try gluing that around the pvc pipe . Maybe he use of a hoseclampon the ends etc The other issue is probably the amount of water your trying to push .
1. depth is head pressure
2. distance is head pressure Thus the air coming out at the end closest to the supply. Maybe have the pvc pipe with chambers? and the pipe pitched upward away from the source ?

 

[brokensword]

My soaker hose aeration idea didn't work...

I too vote for something like 1/2" cpvc with holes in it. What I'd do is test first with a hole every 12". See if all the holes are uniformly letting air out/up. Then I'd begin drilling every other foot, test, see the effect and when you have enough holes giving your vision, stop drilling holes! I'd use a very small drill bit.

There will be the possibility you might have clogging due to algae, so bear this in mind whether a way to easily take the bubble bar up and cleaning or just using disposable air stones set up in various places around your pond.

And it's more than possible you might have to upgrade your air pump to achieve the results you want.

 

[GBBUDD]

I have the 45 nitto it's pretty strong and from what i thought i saw the hose was under the gravel so algae is not a concern but gravel falling in the holes could be but like the bog place the holes downward . AND if you can find a sealed or make a sealed container and pump the air below water so this container so the air is cleaned and wont block up the holes. Think i might have to build my own version here

 

[brokensword]

I have the 45 nitto it's pretty strong and from what i thought i saw the hose was under the gravel so algae is not a concern but gravel falling in the holes could be but like the bog place the holes downward . AND if you can find a sealed or make a sealed container and pump the air below water so this container so the air is cleaned and wont block up the holes. Think i might have to build my own version here

if he has the bubble bar in the pond proper and any light gets to it, you know algae is going to grow on and into each hole, hence why I advised caution so his design includes periodic cleaning (doing it easily). I dare say, even if covered by rock, I'd bet he'd get some clogging, esp if the holes are small.

 

[Lisak1]

My aerator clogs up pretty quickly with algae growth, so I didn't have much hope for the soaker hose idea. I would love to find a way to do a ring of bubbles all the way around the pond bottom, but I think any thing you did (unless it had seen real force behind it) would eventually clog. Fun idea though! And thanks for trying it so I don't have to!

 

[combatwombat]

My aerator clogs up pretty quickly with algae growth, so I didn't have much hope for the soaker hose idea. I would love to find a way to do a ring of bubbles all the way around the pond bottom, but I think any thing you did (unless it had seen real force behind it) would eventually clog. Fun idea though! And thanks for trying it so I don't have to!

Haha. I buried the hose under gravel in hopes that it would avoid clogging from algae.

 

[yorkshire pudding]

is soaker hose the same as air diffuser hose ?

 

[brokensword]

Haha. I buried the hose under gravel in hopes that it would avoid clogging from algae.

you underestimate algae, one of the future survivors of any nuclear war, along with cattails, cockroaches, houtunyia and Godzilla. You must research more, grasshoppa!

 

[combatwombat]

is soaker hose the same as air diffuser hose ?

No idea. Soaker hose is a porous hose that drops water out to water plants and trees. Have seen lots of folks use it to create diffusers.

Testing a new design in just a bit.

 

[combatwombat]

Got some advice to connect both ends of the air line to the pump to distribute air more evenly through the soaker hose. Result = failure. Got a few bubbles coming out of both ends of the soaker hose where a fitting transitions from air line to soaker, but that's it.

As a last resort, I guess I'll try unburying the hose when I eventually drain the pond to finish adding sand/gravel and see if that works. I've heard of many folks saying soaker hose works great, so I'm not sure what's wrong with mine. Maybe it's just not porous enough. Might try poking some holes in it and see if that helps.

Or might just abandon the idea, as the whole point of being under gravel is that it would be safe from algae formation and not require regular maintenance. If it's not buried, then I think it would require more regular cleaning, and I don't have an easy way to access it at bottom of pond.

Maybe add'l test will be poking holes in a rubber hose. I've seen some videos of that working well. Prefer to use a hose vs. hard pipe as I want it to conform to the edge of the wall.

 

[combatwombat]

Moving on... here's how I'm going to get the water volume on the main pond: Going to finish filling it all the way up to where it spills over into the negative edge. Not too much further to go. Then I'm going to pump from the pond to the cistern using a garden hose with a flow meter. That will give me the volume of the cistern. It takes forever to do this using a tiny garden hose.

Now that I have the volume of the cistern, I can switch to 2" hose and pump out the cistern to storm drain @ street. Then, just keep using the 2" hose to quickly fill the cistern from the pond. # of pumping sessions * volume of cistern = volume of pond. There will be a partial fill of the cistern at the end that I will have to meter again to get final volume, and I'll also need to estimate volume of add'l 1-2" of water over negative edge height when pumps are running.

Add all that together and I'll have volume of pond and volume of cistern. Then I'll meter the bog when I do a final fill of it, and that will be pretty darn close to the whole system's volume.

 

[Lisak1]

You are a thinker. I just went "let's see... 17 feet long, mostly... 14 feet wide, kind of... generally 2.5 feet deep..." and came up with a guesstimate. Wish we had thought to meter when we filled it though just to see how close those calculators get to reality!

 

[combatwombat]

@Lisak1: That's funny. I'm sure some day—far in the future—you'll have to drain it for some reason and you can meter it when you fill it back up. I don't actually care that much about the volume of the pond, but 3-4 people have stressed how useful it is to know for medicating. They're all koi people, though. Do people medicate their goldfish?

 

[Laaf]

Your pond looks amazing............and it will look even more amazing when it is up and running with fish and plants. You are spending extremely long hours trying to engineer things that are commercially already available with even more hours of research and development than you will ever have to put into redesigning a better mousetrap. I do understand the thrill of designing and building something yourself. But the details you are working on are leaving your beautiful pond unused for its true purpose. I daresay just buy a commercially available aerator, and move on to the next step of completing your pond. Even once it is fully up and running..............that is when some of the major tinkering and adjusting begins. So you will still have plenty of details to work on. The sooner you get your liner covered so it is not exposed to the sun, the longer it will last. Think of the fish looking for a wonderful home that could come live with you as soon as your pond is fish ready. A pond is never "done" since it always needs little (or big) adjustments over time. But yours is not getting the chance to really start being a fully functioning pond because you are trying to get it "perfect" before you get it actually running. Just get it good enough........and then continue your adjustments and improvements. I say all of this with caring and encouragement. Your pond is so beyond anything I am capable of doing on my own! The perfect is the enemy of the good enough. If you are truly enjoying your long multistep process, ignore my comments. I was just motivated to write after the hours you put into your home made aerator when you could have just bought one that had years of research and development and is under warranty. I absolutely look forward to seeing your beautiful pond up and running!!