I Need Your Expert Knowledge in Pond Design

[Dzway]

Hi! I am going to start building my pond this summer. I have the design (will post at the end) of what I am going for. Can you all please look at it and help me?
This will be a liner pond, 23' L x 8' W x 4 1/2' D at the deepest end.

I plan on having one 4" bottom drain at the deep end. In between the bottom drain and the settling tank I want to place a 4" ball valve, right?

I would like to use a 300 gal stock tank as a settling chamber, I would like to use this also as a form of veggie filter, is that ok to do that, combine them?

From the settling tank I will be going to the waterfall, which will sit rather low because of location. Can I use a submersible pump from the settling tank to the waterfall?
If yes, is it better to push to the waterfall or pull to the waterfall?

I plan on a skimmer but am undecided as to how I want it to return to the pond. Will probably just circle around and dump back in the pond. Would like to leave that as an option to add a stream later on next year or something.

I need to keep this as simple as possible seeing as my husband is out of town until next year, so outside of the excavator coming in to dig the pond for me, I will be on my own building this.
Once my husband gets home next year, I am sure he will get all technical on me and take over. But I would love to get the basic in to get me through this year. I eventually want this as a koi pond. My plan was for 5 or six fish, but I will worry about that next year.

So can you guide me?
Thank you!

 

[fishin4cars]

If your going to plan on Koi and your going to do BD go ahead and make the whole pond the same depth and go with two bottom drains,
20x8x4.5x7.5=5400
10x8x2.5x7.5=1500 gallons + 10x8x4.5x7.5=2700 gallons
1500+2700= 4200 gallons so you would gain 1200 gallons of water for the same cost in liner. Less maintance, fish will be happier and safer temps will be more stable, less muck to worry about on the shallow end and less to worry about with predators. drawback, Plants will have to be raised IF your going to use any. But honestly once the koi get bigger that plants could very well be eaten. now for the settling chamber, I would go smaller settling chamber and don't use plants. Stock tank really isn't a great idea due to it has a large flat bottom and hard to remove the settling muck, it would be far better if it was smaller and had a cone shaped bottom. 55 gallon Barrel would work, two would be even better one right beside the next, first one would need to be cleaned more often for sure but the second one would remove the extra waste the first one didn't catch. I would run brushes hanging down on the first one to slow the motion down in the settling chamber and they would catch more suspended matter. Put the plants in the top of the skippy, With minimal debris being filtered through it and it serving as a better bio filter then the plants would be left working on the nitrates. Floating plants would be best in that tank, water Hyacinths or water lettuce would be my top two choices.
For the skimmer I would leave it for a stream and try and place the stream so that it causes the water to make a circular motion in the pond, this will help move settled debris on the bottom to reach the bottom drains. Last is the question on the pump. You can do either or, But with your set-up I would plan on a external pump to rum the bottom drains. More bang for the buck on that circuit, You can pump more water with less eletricity burned, For the skimmer circuit I would run a submersible for the simple fact that that's the easiest way to plumb one. Many people like to run external from the skimmer as well but being you probably want simplicity as much as possible that would be far easier to set-up.
If you go with making the whole pond 4.5 deep you will want a total pumping to be between 4500 gph and 6000 gph between the two pumps, If you go with your plan you can get away with 4000 gallons per hour and max about 6000 gallons per hour, as you can see the costs are about the same but you gain a good bit of water for the koi and a lot more swimming room and room for mistakes.

 

[sissy]

wait you said your liner is 8 feet wide and you plan on going 4 1/2 feet deep .My liner was 28 feet by 18 feet and my pond is 4 1/2 feet deep .I have extra hanging over but not that much over .Or is that you pond and you are just saying liner pond

 

[Dzway]

Fishin4cars, your thoughts on going with the same depth for the whole pond makes sense, I like it, thank you!

So you think I should go with an external pump. I was shying away from that because it intimidates me, the whole plumbing aspect intimidates me!
But it's something I will consider and look into. Just a couple of question on the pump, if you don't mind.
If I am running 4" pipe from the bottom drain to the settling chamber, what size pipe do you usually run from SC to the pump?
Also, I am assuming the pump is much like my pool pump, which hums rather loud. Do they make quieter pumps for ponds?

Sissy, I'm sorry for the confusion, I meant that I was building my pond with a liner (meaning not with bricks or the spray cement stuff) the pond will be 23' x 8' x 4 1/2'.

Thank you!

 

[taherrmann4]

Dzway I have an external and you can't really hear it with the water fall and all, it is a slight hummm. If you are real quiet and try to listen for it I can just barely hear it.

 

[Dzway]

Tmann, thanks! I thought about that after I wrote that, that it probably would be drowned out with a waterfall. I've seen some externals built in boxes low to the ground so that probably helps too I bet.

 

[taherrmann4]

Yes mine is in a house about the average size of a dog house. Here is a pic of mine 8 years ago without all the landscaping and before the pond was finished. Wait a minutes is it every really finished????

This is what it looks like inside


This is the back of it. The roof just lifts up, easy access.

 

[Dzway]

Tmann, what a beautiful pond and landscaping, just gorgeous! I really like how you built the house around your pump. I think it blends in very well! I will have to read up on external pumps now.
Thank you!

 

[taherrmann4]

Thanks. You can hardly even see the pump house now with all the landscaping.

 

[Waterbug]

BD don't work very well, most people would say they don't work at all, without TPRs (Tangential Pond Returns). Unless maybe these BD have air diffusers, they can provide at least some debris movement to the BD. But most professionals still add the TPRs because the work so well and cost very little.

Given the shape of your pond you could use what's called a "river flow design" or "linear flow design". And that's what you have in your picture. Google "river flow design koi" if you're interested.

Settlement chambers and Skippy filters are old concepts. Google "pond trickle tower", "pond shower filter" and "pond sieve filter" if you're interested. Not a big deal, you can fix that later pretty easily after you experience how they work. BD and TPRs are harder to fix later.

If you want a veggie filter you might consider a much larger one with liner.

8' wide and 4.5' deep...how are the sides being built? Concrete collar? Block? Hope it's not just soil.

No UV?

Not sure why you want a ball valve between BD and settling tank. What would that do?

 

[addy1]

Tmann, what a beautiful pond and landscaping, just gorgeous! I really like how you built the house around your pump. I think it blends in very well! I will have to read up on external pumps now.
Thank you!

Tmann does have a beautiful pond.

I have always used external pumps, they are pretty quiet, easy plumbing, and you don't have to pull them out of the pond if they get clogged up, like a submersible. Just turn off, clean the leaf basket, turn back on...easy.

Mine is just covered with 1/2 of a 55 gallon barrel. Painted with some spray paint to blend it in. (Honey wants to make the pump house, it will be just a while before it gets done lol)