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New Pond Build with Bog Questions
- Thread starter TurtTown
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2021
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Hi Bill!
That looks great! I love all the ponds and water features. How many GPH is your pump? Also, getting back to my previous question, it looks like you have some seriously heavy rocks on your EPDM rubber. Were you especially careful not to compress any folds in fear of future cracks in the liner or is the rubber resistant to this strain? I agree on your assessment of my project. Definitely laborious, expensive (although since I'm doing it myself it's just materials so not too bad), complicated and hopefully top-notch! Progress has slowed with cold weather but all my piping is in place and I've filled and leveled the adjacent patio. I'll be focused on the bog next which has me nervous and excited. Thanks again for sharing your build and keeping me inspired!
- Andrew
That looks great! I love all the ponds and water features. How many GPH is your pump? Also, getting back to my previous question, it looks like you have some seriously heavy rocks on your EPDM rubber. Were you especially careful not to compress any folds in fear of future cracks in the liner or is the rubber resistant to this strain? I agree on your assessment of my project. Definitely laborious, expensive (although since I'm doing it myself it's just materials so not too bad), complicated and hopefully top-notch! Progress has slowed with cold weather but all my piping is in place and I've filled and leveled the adjacent patio. I'll be focused on the bog next which has me nervous and excited. Thanks again for sharing your build and keeping me inspired!
- Andrew
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Hi Andrew, I have been cautious about how rocks are placed, In many areas I have placed a piece of scrap EPDM under the rock to add more protection. I'm not too worried about the stream area. My greatest concern are the rocks in my bog filter. I'm going to drain, clean some of it this Spring and inspect it.
You shouldn't have any issues folding the EPDM. I would just make sure to use a nice thick underlayment between the frame concrete cinder blocks and the EPDM liner. Also, as Bill stated above it's good to put another layer of protection (EPDM or underlayment) between placed rocks and the liner... although looking at your design I don't think you'll have that issue.
short advice:
instead of a 3 to 2 reduction, put an intake bay there. I can circulate around 3000gph and have a similar scenario and did all the computations on a 3000gph setup, I'll save you the work, a 77 gallon hdx bin holds enough water for 1 min of pumping.... put a float in the hdx bin for low level shut-off, if you get a blockage the float will shut the pump off like the inverse of a sump pump. putting the intake bay instead of the 2 to 3 adapter was the smartest thing i did. the only trick is, you need the top of the intake bay edge slightly above the water level down at your low end. make sure the bog can't empty itself into that lower basin. put a 3" valve on that bottom drain in an irrigation box in the patio beneath a bluestone paver or something so you can shut off the drain, i wish i'd done that. also, put a 3" valve on on the bottom drain pipe either inside or before the intake bay. with the 3" valve(s) you can control the water level in the intake bay which depends how low in the intake bay you put the 3" pipe, mine had to be setup a very specific height for my siphon to work, the correct water depth on the intake bay and without flooding the intake bay, very complicated. the bottom drain control into the intake bay is super slick, it does everything you want creating air gap, inspection bay pre-pump, additional filtration right before the pump, pump isolation, and absolutely prevents the pump being in a suction scenario. it's also an easy way to empty the pond without putting pumps in the pond to do it.
for me I did not want 100 feet of pipe in front of my pump without an air gap, inspection basin, and isolation.
long story:
I just built a system with a 3" siphon which is more complicated than the 3" bottom drain. I have a Sequence external pump 4000 series that does 60gpm, the SEQ21 (about 5800gph same as 60gpm more or less). I have a Aqua II bead filter. I don't have a bog filter but I don't have any plants or fish, I built the pond mostly store rain water from my roof, to cool off in the summer, and as a masonry type well water feature, it's not a naturalized thing so it's relatable i think to what you're doing, go check it out if you want.
the 3" drain will simply match flow the 2" but the benefit of the 3" drain you can always add another pump and never worry about starving the intake bay/bog.
I have a very very complex maze of canals, scuppers on my porch, canals beneath my patio, basins beneath the roof and computations and design took weeks, mostly cause i kept trying to save money lol.
anyways, to your situation
i debated a direct 3 to 2 reduction at my pump but instead, i put in a 77gallon HDX bin from home depot as an inspection and pre-filter, i use screen doors screen... simple and gets the big stuff before the priming basket.
i would not go from the bottom drain directly into the pump, you will regret that. i used a 3" bulkhead for at the hdx bin which wasn't as easy as it seems, remove the stickers... pro tip lol. inside of the hdx bin put a 3" valve. one thing i wish i did was put a 3" valve near the pond outlet side of the 3", in your case a 3" valve just outside the build area on the bottom drain.
you absolutely don't want the pump in a suction scenario more than the instructions allow, which is not much, like 2' or something.
instead of a 3 to 2 reduction, put an intake bay there. I can circulate around 3000gph and have a similar scenario and did all the computations on a 3000gph setup, I'll save you the work, a 77 gallon hdx bin holds enough water for 1 min of pumping.... put a float in the hdx bin for low level shut-off, if you get a blockage the float will shut the pump off like the inverse of a sump pump. putting the intake bay instead of the 2 to 3 adapter was the smartest thing i did. the only trick is, you need the top of the intake bay edge slightly above the water level down at your low end. make sure the bog can't empty itself into that lower basin. put a 3" valve on that bottom drain in an irrigation box in the patio beneath a bluestone paver or something so you can shut off the drain, i wish i'd done that. also, put a 3" valve on on the bottom drain pipe either inside or before the intake bay. with the 3" valve(s) you can control the water level in the intake bay which depends how low in the intake bay you put the 3" pipe, mine had to be setup a very specific height for my siphon to work, the correct water depth on the intake bay and without flooding the intake bay, very complicated. the bottom drain control into the intake bay is super slick, it does everything you want creating air gap, inspection bay pre-pump, additional filtration right before the pump, pump isolation, and absolutely prevents the pump being in a suction scenario. it's also an easy way to empty the pond without putting pumps in the pond to do it.
for me I did not want 100 feet of pipe in front of my pump without an air gap, inspection basin, and isolation.
long story:
I just built a system with a 3" siphon which is more complicated than the 3" bottom drain. I have a Sequence external pump 4000 series that does 60gpm, the SEQ21 (about 5800gph same as 60gpm more or less). I have a Aqua II bead filter. I don't have a bog filter but I don't have any plants or fish, I built the pond mostly store rain water from my roof, to cool off in the summer, and as a masonry type well water feature, it's not a naturalized thing so it's relatable i think to what you're doing, go check it out if you want.
the 3" drain will simply match flow the 2" but the benefit of the 3" drain you can always add another pump and never worry about starving the intake bay/bog.
I have a very very complex maze of canals, scuppers on my porch, canals beneath my patio, basins beneath the roof and computations and design took weeks, mostly cause i kept trying to save money lol.
anyways, to your situation
i debated a direct 3 to 2 reduction at my pump but instead, i put in a 77gallon HDX bin from home depot as an inspection and pre-filter, i use screen doors screen... simple and gets the big stuff before the priming basket.
i would not go from the bottom drain directly into the pump, you will regret that. i used a 3" bulkhead for at the hdx bin which wasn't as easy as it seems, remove the stickers... pro tip lol. inside of the hdx bin put a 3" valve. one thing i wish i did was put a 3" valve near the pond outlet side of the 3", in your case a 3" valve just outside the build area on the bottom drain.
you absolutely don't want the pump in a suction scenario more than the instructions allow, which is not much, like 2' or something.
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