Easiest way to allow for overflow issues

[Kristi Kelty]

Hi again Ponders!
We are having our first rainy season already here, and my pond has had to be bailed for the last few days, as I have no overflow or drain..... What do you recommend that will be the easiest and cheapest way to go? (Besides a gallon bucket?!!)
Anyone have a good resource for doing an overflow area? My pond is 16'x8'x 19" in the two deep areas. The garden is within the city so it is about 40'x 40' I guess.
Thanks for your great input to my questions!
K.

 

[sissy]

I used one of those yard drains and just lowered 1 corner of the pond ,but mine was above ground .Thinking if yours is below ground you could just lower 1 little corner

 

[Kristi Kelty]

Sissy thanks! So then the overflowing water just drains out onto the low area of the yard?

 

[JohnHuff]

1) One way is to make an automatic overflow. You will need to have a small bucket and dig that into the ground next to your pond. Connect an aquarium hose/siphon between your pond and the bucket. The hose/siphon should be filled with water so that your bucket has the same level as your pond water. The bucket should also have an outlet above the water level. This should lead to a hose to a drainage area. The idea is that whenever it rains, the water will rise in the pond. The water level in the bucket is the same as that of the pond since they are connected by a siphon. So when the pond water rises, it will rise in the bucket. Since the bucket has an outlet, whenever the water rises, it will flow out of the bucket into the drainage area.

This is not hard to set up, and takes a bit of work, i.e. digging the hole for the bucket and the drainage hose, but once you get this set up, you will never need to worry about the rain again.

2) The second method needs minimal set up, but you will need to maintain it all the time. This is what I do. I have a small pump that drains into a long hose. During Summer, this leads to our side and front yard where it waters the plants. During the Fall and Winter, it leads into the sewer pipe. When the pond threatens to overflow, I switch on the pump for 20mins or so. This drops the water about 3-4 inches. I let the rain fill it up, then I do it all over again.

 

[Kristi Kelty]

Thanks so much! Very helpful~

 

[JohnHuff]

I forgot to mention. This is what I used to do:
1) When I first got the pond, I was completely clueless. I formed a bucket brigade of 1 (myself) and hoisted the pond water all around our yard, watering everything in sight. Needless to say, it was very tiring, but good for the plants and bad for my back.

2) I didn't want to do the bucket thing anymore. So I got a small bucket and drilled a hole at the bottom of it and attached a hose to it. Whenever the pond threatened to overflow, which was whenever it rained in Seattle, which was pretty much everyday from Sept to March, I would put the bucket under the waterfall. It was ugly, but effective.

 

[Kristi Kelty]

Interesting! I do have a sump pump down in my basement, but that is about 30 or so feet from the pond.....I was wondering about somehow draining the overflow down into that......what do you all think?

 

[Dave 54]

We retro fitted a koi dealership QT pond , when we came to fit our return pipe from the filter it negated the old one.
So we had a think cut a bottom drain cover in half , drilled a line of holes in it and attached it over the redundant return pipe.
We then ran it downwards dug a trench laid pipe in it via a bend and attached everythinmg up so that it runs direct to a drian if we get heavy rain it topps this line of holes and pours out to drain, it also doubles as a primative type of skimmer

rgrds

Dave

 

[Kristi Kelty]

Dave thanks so much! Any way you can show me diagrams or pics?