First pond

[DannyK]

I have a garden pond with goldfish and a few orfes. I agree that a bottom drain is a personal choice, as is everything else pond related. There is no right or wrong way as long as it works for you.

The bottom drain pipe goes to the pump which is in our garage with the pressure filter. There is a leaf basket at the front of the pump housing that collects any debris. But honestly there isn't much.

I clean the leaf basket every couple of weeks or so and most of what is in there is a little algae and a few snails. In fall there may be a few leaves, but the skimmer takes care of most of those.

The skimmer pipe joins up with the pipe from the bottom drain just in front of the pump.

I hope that helps.

Do you have ball valves on the two inlet pipes to your pump to regulate how much each one (skimmer and bottom drain) is pulling? I have seen some schematics for pond plumbing drawn that way.

I've got a ton of trees around, and some new planted Maples that are close will make more leaves as they get older. On a positive note though, they will provide shade in the future. I definitely plan on buying an EXTRA large skimmer.

 

[WaterGardener]

Yes, there are ball valves on the intake pipes, so they can be adjusted. But we normally have both open completely.

We have a pressure filter, similar to the lower picture of your post. It is full of K1 media. The pump and filter are both in our garage. The water from the filter goes back into the pond by way of another filter, a shower filter, at the top of the waterfall. I'm a firm believer that you can have too much filtration.

I personally don't care for a pump in the pond. It's difficult to get to it, if you need to, and if there is an electrical problem with the pump, the fish will suffer for it. I've also read about some of them leaking oil into the pond. Not sure if that is still a problem, though.

Those waterfall filters are a pain to clean, taking out all the matts and cleaning them with pond water, or well water. You can't use chlorinated tap water to clean the filters.

The pressure filter is easy to clean. Just dial the valve on the top of the filter to backwash, then to rinse. Repeat a few times. That's it. It takes water from the pond to clean it, so the pond has to be topped up after each cleaning. That takes much longer than the actually cleaning.

We do have a blower on the pressure filter to agitate the media before and during cleaning. If you go that way, I would recommend having a blower.

 

[GBBUDD]

There's a third option and that is the BOG/ up flow wetland filter , Maintenance is in the fall cut the plants back . maybe rip some out as it is over growing it's self. in the spring rake out any debri/ leaves . fire up the pumps .. and maybe once or twice a year ripping out plants again as they over grow the bog. there's some info below this in my showcase for some light easy reading

 

[GBBUDD]

EXTRA large skimmer.

Helix has a skimmer that has a 3 foot tall basket for leaves
But a intake bay can be as large as you'd like

 

[addy1]

I have no filter except a bog upflow wetland filter. Takes perfect care of the pond.

 

[cas]

I have a biofalls filter and a pump in the skimmer. I only clean the filter media in the biofalls once a year - when I shut down the pond for winter. I clean the filter in the skimmer as often as needed - sometimes daily in the spring and then maybe weekly. With the pump being in the skimmer, I haven't had any problems accessing it.

 

[BKHpondcritters]

I have a biofalls filter and a pump in the skimmer. I only clean the filter media in the biofalls once a year - when I shut down the pond for winter. I clean the filter in the skimmer as often as needed - sometimes daily in the spring and then maybe weekly. With the pump being in the skimmer, I haven't had any problems accessing it.

This is exactly how mine is set up & more or less my exact maintenance schedule. We also clean the filter mats & media in the biofalls in very early winter & then remove them until Spring (although we do keep the pump running all winter) Cleaning the skimmer filter mats is 'as needed', and really only takes a few minutes. On the occasions that a pump needs to have debris cleaned off of it (typically small debris that makes it past the filter mats) it's not too hard to simply lift them up out of the skimmers.

 

[DannyK]

Well, plans have changed. My wife was reading about septic fields, and read on the internet that you are not supposed to build a pond within 50-100 feet of a septic field. I called the county this morning, and spoke with the guy. He told me the rule for my county was 15ft. The closest part of the hole I dug is probably 10-15 feet from the edge of my septic field. I'm going to fill in the hole I dug, and dig a new hole in my back yard. The current location was in my front yard. Fortunately, we live on 6 acres, so have room. It will probably be better in the back yard because the new location will be visible from the kitchen/breakfast windows and screened porch. I might rent a mini-ex to save some time on digging the new hole.

 

[addy1]

When digging my pond, I was smacking something with the back hoe, luckily I stopped and looked. I was trying to dig up our first septic tank, no clue it was there.

 

[j.w]

My first pond when digging I found the huge septic pipe coming right under the house but decided to build it anyways. There was a big long pipe lump where the liner went over and I kept it fine that way for several years. After a few years I decided to make my pond bigger so moved it all to the other side of our walkway. I feel more relieved about all this now